Speech Therapy

FYI... I moved all my Speech Therapy stuff to it's own blog...

"Feeling Happy"

I keep forgetting to share this book: Feeling Happy by PBS Kids

I love this book for speech therapy! I especially love it for ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) kids because it goes through 10 (maybe 8.. I can't remember) different emotions. Each page allows the child to turn a wheel to match the emotion face to the animal in the story. Each page has short rhyming sentences to let you know the situation and the emotion that resulted. The last page has an overview and encourages the child to choose how they feel at the moment. There's also a section in the back to parents about encouraging and teaching emotion words to their kids in everyday life.

I sent this book home for a couple of weeks with a sweet, higher functioning boy with ASD who has had a LOT of difficulty regulating and expressing emotions appropriately. With a LOT of reinforcement and encouragement from his wonderful mother, he has started identifying emotions in the characters on tv and movies! I can't wait for him to tell me he's angry or upset instead of screaming and losing control.... now just to master "why" questions so that he can tell us what has caused this unwanted disruption in his emotional control!

inappropriate...

This was on a kid's homework today from school... match the sentence to the picture.

When another child ran out of verses for the "Wheels on the Bus" he sang... "the daddys on the bus say shut yo mouf... shut yo mouf..."

A Case of the Monday's

A patient's communication device was somehow reset to the factory default settings.  I asked his "caregivers" and teacher when was the last time it worked properly.  Their response? I didn't know it wasn't working.  Seriously?! His teacher said that the school therapist worked with him on Tuesday and didn't say anything was wrong.  TUESDAY?!  Keep in mind that the communication device is this child's ONLY means of communication.  There's so much more to this story that I can't even talk about... just know that I am so sick of people lying about stuff!

Cute...

After multiple unsuccessful attempts at the same word, a little patient of mine said. Peas sues me foa a moment. Layed her head on the desk and silently moved her lips around like she was practicing.
Sent from my iPhone

Wow.. what a crappy day!

I rarely have crappy Fridays but this one was mostly HORRIBLE!

• A disability eval's grandfather screamed and yelled because I didn't want the guardian in the the treatment room during the eval.
• Why not? 
• 1. Most disability evals we encounter just want a check and want their kid to be disabled so that they can continue to get more & more money... even if it was because they smoked crack while they were pregnant... we (taxpayers) still get to pay for their pitiful kids. (the kids usually are pitiful but the parents are usually mean and it makes me not feel compassionate toward them!)
• 2. Most parents refuse to shut up!  I am giving a STANDARDIZED test here!  You can't rephrase the question to get a certain answer!!!  The kid has to answer the question being asked or it is wrong.
• 3. Most kids act like a big whiny baby when momma's around.  They may not love being in the treatment room at first but give me a minute and let me do what I do and they'll warm up. And honestly, I can't take much whining.
• PS... I ended up having to let the grandmother in b/c the kid wouldn't warm up and then they tell me that yesterday he had a bladder test done and was held down to be catheterized!  The poor thing was probably scared out of his little gourd!
• FULL schedule - yes, I know... job security!  But OMG, I couldn't get anything done that I needed to do.  For every patient, there is paperwork and not all of it can be done with the patient sitting there trying to eat the playdoh.
• My friend is not preggers this month.

Enough with the negatives and thanks for letting me vent

Great things about today...

• Friday by nature
• An autistic child that I see cracked me up.  Instead of saying "please give me that back", he screams so loudly that it peels the wallpaper up, to which I usually calmly reply, "no screaming".  Today, I took a playdoh can away because he was trying to open it with his teeth. He screamed. I looked at him silently. He looked down sheepishly and quietly said, "no screaming."
• A friend that does home health called with a great story... Pt's granddaughter and her boyfriend bumped uglies in the next room as his treatment was going on!
• Paint The Town is always great
• I put a roast in the oven at lunch and had it ready by dinner.  It was delicious!
• The crackheads across the street moved all their crap out of the yard in the middle of the night.
• It's my dad's birthday!

PostSecret

I saw this on a PostSecret video and loved it... so true.


here's the video... YouTube PostSecret... don't forget to check out secrets every sunday morning... PostSecret

Therapy stuff

I found a new game at Target - Cars (the movie) fishing game! It includes 21 wheel "fish" to catch. It's kind of difficult to catch them, especially for the kids with motor delays, but overall I like it. The kids will say ANYTHING to get a car to fill up the holes and then we fish together.

Another all time favorite is Mr. Potato head... with glasses, eyes, nose, mouth, shoes, hat, 2 ears, & 2 arms... you've got yourself 10 pieces. and for all the mathematically retarded people (like me) out there, it makes it quick and easy to use each piece as a reward for a word well said and still keep quick percentages in your head.

Things to know about speech therapy...

Please also see my Speech Blog... Spoonful of Speech...

What do speech therapists do?
Speech Therapists are trained to work with communication disorders and swallowing in adults and children. Communication disorders can be:

• Articulation (speech sounds - should be perfect by age 7)
• Language (understanding and expressing verbal and written language)
• Voice (hoarseness caused by vocal cord nodules/polyps/abuse/paralysis)
  
• Fluency (stuttering)
• Memory (rehab for brain injuries, dementia...)
• Social (using language appropriately - big problem in autism)
  

Should my child be in speech therapy?
First of all... if you are asking then the answer is probably yes :)

What diagnoses indicate a need for speech therapy?
Lots :)
Autism, Developmental Delay, Speech Delay, Language Delay, Dysphagia (difficulty swallowing), Apraxia, Traumatic Brain Injury, Dementia, Stroke, Aphasia, Cleft Palate, Stuttering, Vocal Dysfunction, Parkinson's, Multiple Sclerosis, and more :)


Check out the Speech and Hearing Milestones

If your child has not reached these milestones then contact your pediatrician to set up speech therapy. Do not let your pediatrician tell you that they are too young or that they'll grow out of it. You know your child better than anyone else and if you feel there is a delay then an evaluation can't hurt.

If your child is under 3 years old, contact your county's Early Intervention services first.

Sometimes insurances won't pay for outpatient speech therapy... contact your school district and they should have a free service. If your insurance will pay for it, do it.

Also... once in speech therapy:

• Come to your appointments - common sense - I know but you would not believe :)
• Do the homework... a little every day
  
• Ask for more homework and do it
• Make it fun and exciting for your child
• Remember that it doesn't happen overnight
  
• Don't be afraid to ask questions about your child's progress or treatment techniques
  
• Most kids do 100% better without their parent present during therapy

I also like these sites for more information and tools:
Speech Therapy Web
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)
Super Duper Therapy Supplies
Autism Speaks
Info for parents of children with Autism
National Stroke Association
The Stuttering Foundation
Wiki - Speech Therapy
How to pick a therapist


Wow.. This started off as a little blog in response to a blog I found bashing speech therapy... Thanks for reading!!!

Made My Day!

I treated a 5 year old boy with moderate autism this afternoon. At the end of every treatment his mother says, "say bye-bye" and he says "say bye-bye". Today, she says it and he responds with, "say cheese pizza!!"

Every treatment with him is so different and can be very frustrating but he has gradually increased his novel expressions and I am very very excited about that!

Condensing

I have attempted many blogs over the last couple of years... I started one called Talk Soup on edublogs.org about our speech therapy patients (with no identifying details of course). I also have one about my ongoing battle with weight (I'm winning right now :) You can find that at My Journey To Me: One Pound At A Time.

Here are the entries from Talk Soup...

I April Fool You

April 1st, 2008

so the little brothers are at it again :) we were joking with them and playing april fool’s jokes. they started joking back. it went a little like this: (CJ is an 8 year old boy)

CJ: Ms. Rachel, Brelon (big brother) is behind you.

Rachel: No he’s not. Now say /b rrrr alon/

CJ: I April Fool You! /b rrrr alon/. But he is behind you.

Rachel: No he’s not and if he was i would know.

CJ: How?

Rachel: I have eyes in the back of my head.

CJ: Let me see

Rachel: (turns and lets him feel for eyes for a minute and then spins around and barks/screams so loud)

CJ: (screams like a girl and jumps 50 ft out of his chair)

laughter all around

CJ: Ms. Rachel, you scared the mess outta me! I think my heart hurts… like a heart attack.

Rachel: I April Fool You!!

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Updates!

October 11th, 2007

so the stupid internet at work won’t let me blog. imagine that! i’m left to try to remember all the goodies till i get home. yea right!

**4 yo little girl with deletion of final consonants… we have been working on various ending sounds, most recently we worked on T vs. K at the end. she gets them confused a lot. i was going through some animal flash cards to get her to produce final consonants. i held up a picture of a bird with the word”parakeet” at the bottom and expected her to say “bird”. she looked at it very hard and finally said… “parakeet”. i said, “how did you know that was a parakeet and not just a bird”. she says, ” i can read words just not boots”. (sounds like books with a T instead of a K)

**we have 2 brothers in therapy right now and they are just too much fun. every child in this family has been through our clinic. the older one was very quick to let us know that the younger one “don’t say his wuds wight”.

**i had a little 94 year old lady with unilateral vocal fold paraylsis due to an intubation experience. the first time she came in she was a classic case of diplophonia. this sounds just like the scary voices in scary movies. it’s almost like a really freaky echo. she worked very hard and within 2 weeks she was back to 100%. she couldn’t stop thanking me. it was just too sweet.

**i got certified for Vital Stim the last weekend in sept. it is amazing. i’ve already got my first patients and they’re doing great!

**we have a kid that can do the soulja boy dance exactly… . you should ask your kids what their favorite dance move is. they might just surprise you.

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Cutest Ever

September 6th, 2007

Rachel and I were treating/training a child with new communication device (Dynavox) today. He’s about 50% intelligible to us because we have been seeing him for quite awhile. We are working on personalizing the device for his individual communication needs. After about 30 minutes and lots of personalizing later he said, “You’re blowing my mind!!!!”

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Thunder

September 5th, 2007

a friend of mine (Rachel Pugh, SLP) told me this one

she was treating a child with autism and echolalia one day and it started to storm. the child looked up at her and said, “Mrs. Rachel, God is clapping.”

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Positive Reinforcement

September 5th, 2007

so SLPs may be criticized occasionally for being too encouraging, bubbly, etc… however, we have found that this is what it takes to get results. everyone responds to positive reinforcement… everyone.

i was treating a 4 year old boy with autism and moderate echolalia the other day. we began by playing with some play doh (a beach creations kit). i showed him how to make a starfish by rolling out the play dough and using a cookie cutter. i held it up to him and he said “YAY, Good job!! You made a starfish!!!” perfect grammar and inflection! i loved it!

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Hello Blogs!

August 25th, 2007

I am a Speech-Language Pathologist in an acute care and outpatient setting. There are a million encouraging, heartwarming, and even pitiful stories in the world of Speech-Language Pathology. I am creating this blog as an avenue to share these stories and experiences with the hopes of helping fellow SLPs and educators along the way.

PS: I work with another SLP… Rachel Pugh… and she is wonderful. You will see her name a lot in here.