Down Syndrome

In reading the news and other articles, I came across this blog post. It is written by a man who has a son with Down Syndrome. I know this is a group of individuals who frequently will be seen by SLP's. And this article talks about a positive trend for these individuals.

Here is the blog post, but I will also copy/paste a few highlights.
    "If you were browsing through this week’s Target ad you may have passed right over the adorable little boy in the bright orange shirt smiling at you on page 9!  And if so, I’m glad!

     This wasn’t a “Special Clothing For Special People” catalog.  There wasn’t a call out somewhere on the page proudly proclaiming that “Target’s proud to feature a model with Down syndrome in this week’s ad!”  And they didn’t even ask him to model a shirt with the phrase, “We aren't all angels” printed on the front.
     In other words, they didn’t make a big deal out of it.  I like that."
He goes on to include 5 things Target said by not saying anything. It's a good read, recommended to everyone! I hope you take the time to read the whole article.


On the National Down Syndrome Society website, they have a section on Speech & Language Therapy. It is here. This includes the language characteristics of children and adolescents with Down syndrome, speech characteristics of the same, and what a speech-language pathologist can do.  This last section includes, "A speech-language pathologist (SLP) can provide evaluation and treatment for the speech and language difficulties experienced by children and adolescents with Down syndrome. They can help develop a comprehensive treatment plan to address all of the areas in which the child may be experiencing difficulty, including receptive and expressive language, semantics (vocabulary), syntax (grammar), pragmatics (uses of language, social and conversational skills) classroom language skills, speech, oral motor planning and oral motor strengthening. SLPs can work with families and teachers to design and implement an effective, school, home and community program to help children develop effective communication skills." The article continues with which skills are necessary for school and what parents can do to help. It is a great resource for parents and SLP's alike. Bookmark this site for future use!

New technology

The field of Speech and Language Pathology is full of fun new techy gadgets.  I personally do not own anything i (like iphone, ipad, ipod, itouch, etc...).  However, in my TA job of grading papers I have heard about an assessment called the Sunny Articulation Test. "The Sunny Articulation & Phonology Test (SAPT) can be used to identify articulation errors patterns in children as well"   (this is off the apple website).   Here is the manual. The manual states: "The Sunny Articulation Test is an individually administered qualitative clinical tool for
screening, identification, diagnosis and follow up evaluation of articulation skills in English
speaking individuals. The SAT was developed by Barbara Fernandes, a Trilingual Speech and
Language Pathologist and Smarty Ears LLC. The Sunny Articulation Test can be used with
individuals of all age groups."
Has anyone used this? How is it?

observations

Last spring I was able to observe a real life SLP in her work setting (an elementary school).  It was fascinating!  I loved her room and how she handled her groups.  Being in an elementary, she was not able to do one-on-one therapy.  But she still gave the kids as much one-on-one as she could.  Her room had three computers with various language skill building exercises. She also had these: 

and books for each phoneme that the children could practice with, to themselves. For those who are unfamiliar with these, they are sometimes called a whisper phone.  The child puts it to their ear/mouth like a phone and they practice their phoneme.  This will enable them to hear themselves and hopefully self correct as needed.  Based on where they were with a particular phoneme, they would practice at isolation, syllable, word or sentence level.

There were also these:


and the phoneme books. And based on how many times they said an assigned phoneme they would possibly receive a reward/treat.

It was very fun to see the different tools she used to help the children with therapy while still offering some one-on-one time.

As the children come into the classroom, she would tell them where to go and which phoneme to practice and one child would be with her. And they would rotate during the time in her classroom. At the end, all of the children and the SLP would play a short game together. At the end of the game the children were expected to congratulate each other on playing a good game (good sportsmanship!) and then give one other child a sincere compliment. It was all very fascinating.  They were able to learn how to play games and not worry so much about winning or losing, but having fun.  They were able to increase their social skills by complimenting each other and by having to pay attention enough to each other to offer a sincere compliment.  I will definitely be implementing some of these activities in my own classroom when I am done with school!