Silly Sets {Review and Giveaway}

 If you're working with preschool children or younger elementary students with phonological disorders, today's product review is just for you! Silly Sets is a new Super Duper product. Silly Sets: Minimal Pairs for Maximum Progress Card Deck is developed by  Kim Patterson, M.S., CCC-SLP and Rynette Kjesbo, M.S., CCC-SLP. I've reviewing the product today and hosting a giveaway too! So stick with me and enter below!

The Minimal Pairs approach to phonological disorders pairs two words with only one sound difference together. The Silly Set cards include 100 illustrated minimal pairs. Each card has an illustration on one side. The back side includes sentences with minimal pairs. For example, "Kim wore a pretty dress." and "Tim wore a pretty dress."

The silly factor will definitely get your students laughing. Changing the meaning will really get your students attending to their sound. 

The cards include the following processes: Cluster Reduction, Fronting, Stopping and Final Consonant Deletion.

Pros: I love that it includes a cheat sheet page that tells the different pairs included. The cards are also color coded for easy use.

Cons: The set only includes 4 different processes. I'd love if they included a second set with other processes.

You can purchase Silly Sets through Super Duper Pub. for $21.95. Enter to win your free copy below!

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Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of this item for review. No other compensation was provided and these opinions are mine!

Phono Learning Center (App Review & Giveaway)

Phono Learning Center (PLC) is the newest app produced through Smarty Ears. The app is developed by Mary Huston, MS, CCC-SLP. Based on the Hodson's Cycles Approach, PLC is developed to target phonological disorders in children. The PLC is developed to fit in with your Cycles Approach or traditional therapy with 4 different games and a multi-user format.

Start by clicking on New Session. Add the characters or import them from the Therapy Report Center. 

The front page also links you to a homework page. You can email them to parents directly from your iPad. 

Add a student picture or an avatar. If you select Auditory Bombardment as 'on' there will be a quick auditory bombardment section at the beginning of  the app. At the bottom of the page you can select your phonological targets. 

Select the players you want to play for this round. Adjust the settings to fit the students using the app. Extra tidbits I think are important.You can change the app data collection to the level of prompts (imitate, prompt, independent). The app settings can be set to limit a single phonological target at a time (the Hodson's Cycles Approach) or multiple targets (a traditional therapy approach). 

During the Auditory Bombardment, tap the balloons and listen to the words being said. This is available during single player games.  

From this point the student can select from 4 different activities to practice the phonological process. 

The balloon game features a hot air balloon. The student says the word on the card and then drags that card to the balloon basket. The basket slowly fills with air before taking off!  I have the app set to phrase level for multisyllable words during this example. 

The matching app features a picture card at the bottom of the page. Student then flip over the yellow-backed cards to find the match. It memory with a twist. My poor little kiddo was really sick of saying TOMATO by the end, because he wasn't exactly a 'memory' champ. I on the other hand was super happy to have a tone of data since I had him say the pairs each time! 

The paper toss game was my student's favorite part of the app. First read the word in the given picture. The student then touches the paper with the picture on it.

The paper will crumble and is ready to be tossed into the basket! 

For the puzzle activity, the student says the word on the puzzle piece. I have it set on s-blend phrases here. After you say the word or phrase, tap the puzzle piece. It will float to the puzzle and turn into a picture piece. We had lots of fun with the guessing game portion of this activity, trying to figure out what the picture would be! 

Data collection is available throughout the app in the top right hand corner. Reports are available to share. I like using the 'almost' as a way to give me the idea of the level of cueing. If the kid needed an extra prompt I used the 'almost' scoring. 

To hear the app explained thoroughly check out this video! 

Phono Learning Center by Smarty Ears from Smarty Ears on Vimeo.

Pros: I'd love that the app has researched word targets based on Hodson's cycles. approach.  The app meets the expectations for professionals familiar with the Smarty Ears brand. Phono Learning Center features 4 entertaining activities, paired with the research based methodology for treatment, topped off with effective and efficient data collection. Instead of adapting apps to meet evidence based strategies, PLC is an app developed fully around EBP! I love it!

Cons: Some of the game activities didn't really have an 'ending'. The paper toss game for example. I'd love it if the app had a counter attached. Kids work so much better when you can give them a goal. I had to count aloud the 'shots made' for my little guy to keep him working to 30 points. ((Kinda like when I need a goal set on the treadmill! So I don't blame the kidddo!)) I'd love if it the 4 activities had a better way to 'finish' to keep my students working for a goal.

Future improvements: This isn't an expectation of the app, just my 2 cents! I'd LOVE to see a chart to show a students mastery of goals or schedules of cycles. For example, the SLP could track which weeks/dates had been spent on each phonological process. As it stands you can look back through the reports to monitor progress but I'm envisioning a chart that the SLP could just look across and see that they had spend x amount of session on a certain phonological process.


Ok.  Phono Learning Center is on sale for $14.99. Regular price will be $24.99. You can find it on iTunes.

Smarty Ears has donated one code for a lucky SRN reader! Just use rafflecopter below to enter for your chance to win the app!

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Smarty Ears provided the app for this review. No other compensation was provided.

Phonological Processes {app review & giveaway}

The Virtual SpeechCenter has published their newest app, Phonological Processes, for ipad. The app features the minimal pair contrast therapy approach and covers the following Phonological Processes: Affrications, Deaffrication, Cluster Reduction (R, L, S and mixed), Final Consonant Deletion, Fronting, Gliding (L, R, and mixed), Provocalic Voicing, Stopping (fricatives, affricates, and mixed).

The app developers cite the following research: The minimal pair approach to phonological remediation teaches children the function of sounds, emphasizing that changing sounds changes the meaning of a word (Barlow & Gierut, 2002). Minimal contrast therapy targets pairs of words that differ only by one sound. It may focus on the perception of contrast or production of contrast. In the perception task, the child is asked to point to target words when presented with two or more pictures (minimal pairs). In the production task, the child is asked to verbally produce minimal pairs (Bernthal and Bankson 1998). 

Start by adding your clients. Then choose Flashcards or Game Board before selecting the ‘next’ button. I’ll start by reviewing the Flashcard options.

Select activities for your client by choosing targets. Here, I chose fronting and final consonant deletion. On the left hand side you can select the level at which your student is working (auditory bombardment, auditory discrimination, minimal pair production or single word production.) I selected minimal pairs for this trial for Ms. Rayburn.

The minimal pair activity asks student to, “Say each word.”

"Jenna" is working on auditory discrimination for stopping of affricates. The prompt asks, “Show me the jog.” The page offers to opportunity to record the student production or listen to the prompt again. Data is kept on the right side of the screen.

Auditory Bombardment of Cluster Reduction of /s/ plays two minimal pairs. The student is not required to do any tasks and no data is taken. The recording feature is still present as an option for practice.

Single word production for Deaffrication is noted here. The student is asked to “Name this picture.”

If you select the Board Game option, you will be prompted to select the processes and level of practice for each child. Each child also chooses a fruit icon. 

Each child takes turns spinning the spinner. Their fruit icon moves around the board automatically (a plus). If they land on a question mark, the learning target opens a new box. If they land on an animal, the animal dances across the screen and is then added to the cage at the top.

I loved this game board. It took just the right amount of time to play. I just wish there was a big finish! When a student lands on finish, the fruit tokens disappear and the animals are removed from the cage, but there is no ‘Jenna is the winner’ sign, song or anything. My kiddos were confused about what happened! As the students ‘earn’ animals into the cage I think the developers could add the opportunity to earn a trophy or safari hat for earning all the animals in the jungle. My 5 year old student said, “What happened to my animals?” The developers could open to a new screen after the game that listed the winner and pictured the animals learned (another chance for speech and language practice!)

Data is collection throughout the app and easily emailed for your records.

So, what's the bottom line?

 Pros: The app targets phonological processes and is broken down within those processes (ie: gliding /l/, gliding /r/ and mixed). This give the SLP a lot of flexibility in choosing targets. I like the opportunity to target auditory discrimination, minimal pairs, and single word production. I was able to use the app with a students at varying skill levels in the same app.

Cons: When you select two or more processes (ie: fronting and final consonant deletion) the app does not mix the questions. So it will prompt the child through all 27 Fronting pictures before it gets to the Final Consonant Deletion pictures. They need to be mixed throughout to get the type of data I am looking for!

I think adding a special ending to the game board would give the game more finality and an ending that makes sense!

The app is currently available for $16.99. Virtual Speech Center wants to give 3 lucky SRN readers a copy of the app. Use the rafflecopter below to enter! Good luck!

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REFERENCES

Barlow, J. A., and Gierut, J. A. (2002). Minimal pair approaches to phonological remediation. Seminars in Speech and Language, 23(1), 57-67

Bernthal J. E., and Bankson N.W. (1998). Articulation and Phonological Disorders. 4th edition.

Motor-Speech Articulation Method Packets {Review & Giveaways)

If you have seen any of the links in my side bar, you might already be familiar with the blog, Testy Yet Trying.  Amy Ellsworth, M.A., CCC-SLP writes the blog Testy Yet Trying, where she goes by Dala. Amy has started a new therapy product business. She recently opened a shop on her website and is offering instant PDF downloads of  therapy worksheets. Amy asked if I'd be interested in looking over her materials and of course I said yes! It's so great to be able to support other bloggers and small business SLP's! 

These eBooks are sold by sound. She currently offers /s/, /s/ blends and /k/. Amy sent me her /s/ blend set to check out. The 126 page document was full of a variety of treatment activities. 

Amy has designed her books to be a one -stop shop for each sound.  The kits can be used to move from isolation all the way through sentence level productions.  They are written to be accessible to both therapists and parents.  You get well over 100 cards, minimal pairs, pivot phrases, three levels of homework sheets, printable activities and more in one place. 

 Having the therapy materials in pdf format puts you in control.  You can print the materials as many times as you need to and for different purposes.  If you want to send a practice set of cards home with a child, simply print another set.  If you want to cut up the pictures to use in an art project you can because you can print another set. 

The words are all carefully chosen based on motor-speech principles.  The words have simple syllable shapes and include all possible vowels to practice the target sound in a variety of co-articulation contexts.  Further, the words are sortable by difficulty, so that you can progress fom the simpler ones to more complex ones.  

This makes my sets ideal for working with children with apraxia, hearing impairment, very young children, or any other children for whom the typical articulation sets are too complex. 

The cards are sortable by difficulty, vowel, position, and phonological process.  You can mix multiple decks together and easily sort them apart again.  

If you want to work on a specific vowel, you can easily sort out words with that vowel (or eliminate vowels that are particularly diffiult).  Particularly if you have multiple sets, you can begin to build phonological process sets that incorporate all the advantages of the phoneme sets (simple syllable shapes, target words chosen on motor-speech principles). 

Overall, I love the diversity in the activities included. Amy has taken special consideration into the complexity of each activity. It was a great activity for my student with Apraxia. 

Amy wants to give two lucky readers a free eBook of their choice. Enter via rafflecopter below. She also set up a discount code in her store for Speech Room News followers. Just enter the discount code SRN2012, to receive 30% off your order through the end of November.


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Phonological Disorders: Dx, Goals, Tx

One of my favorite things about this blog is the way I get to share information with fellow SLP's. Today I asked my colleagues, Jacqueline Whitney, to share her POV on phonological disorders. If you're brand new or getting back into preschool after a break you're going to love this post! 

Phonological Disorders: How to diagnose, write goals, and treat

Jacqueline Whitney, M.A., CCC-SLP

Public School Based and Home Health Pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist

#1 fan of Speech Room News and colleague of Jenna Rayburn

I’m sure many of you, just like me, learned about phonology for about 30 minutes in grad school. Under the huge umbrella of the “Articulation/Phonology” course, phonology was breezed over. I never even had a phonology client as a grad student. I was on a hearing impairment grant so most of my students were hearing impaired. I did my student teaching at the high school level with included mostly low incidence disorders. I can say with honesty that when I left graduate school I could probably only tell you what “fronting” and “stopping” are. I really didn’t know how to evaluate and diagnose a child with a phonological disorder, determine what to target first, or even how to write goals. It wasn’t until my clinical fellowship that I learned SO much about phonology (shout out to Jen S. who had quite a bit to do with my phonology education). I now know how to evaluate, diagnose, write goals, treat, and remediate phonological disorders with a modified version of Barbara Hodson’s Cycles Approach. I say that it’s modified because in the school setting, things can’t always be textbook. Am I right??

Last year I did play-based assessments at the preschool level, I basically salivated when the school psych told me it was a potential “speech only” evaluation. I’m kind of like the surgeons on Grey’s Anatomy when they get a really exciting surgery, except that’s how I get with phonology evaluations. So what I would like to share is a Goldman-Fristoe-2 with my “client,” Freddy Phonology, who presents with severe, but very common phonological processing errors. Also, I will explain how I organize myself to begin therapy and how to WRITE GOALS based on the assessment. How many of you are now being told to write goals with 6 components? Here in Ohio we are now required to do that. I’ll give you some templates to be able to write your goals according to the Ohio Department of Education and your school district.

Client Background Information

Name: Freddy Phonology

Chronological Age: 4;0

Developmental Summary: No pre-academic, social emotional, fine motor, or cognitive impairments suspected. The only area of concern is speech and language skills

Based on observations, Freddy presents with age appropriate receptive language skills. His MLU is 3.6 (0.4 below average).

Results of the Evaluation

Freddy presents with a significant speech sound disorder. He achieved a standard score of 48 on the GFTA-2 (average 85-115) indicating significantly delayed phonological skills when compared to his same aged peers. He presents with the following phonological processes (or simplification patterns):

·      Final Consonant Deletion: Final consonant deletion is described as deleting the final sound off of a word. For example, Freddy produced “hou/house” and “du/drum.” He did produce some final consonants in words, which indicates that his final consonant production is emerging; however it is still significantly delayed.

·      Cluster Reduction: Cluster reduction is described as deleting a sound from a consonant cluster. For example, Freddy produced “pun/spoon,” “ta/star” and “bu/blue.”

·      Velar Fronting: Velar fronting is described as substituting t/k and d/g such as “dirl/girl” and “tup/cup.” Freddy is demonstrating velar fronting in both the initial and medial positions. Final positions were not observed as he deleted final consonants in these contexts.

·      Stopping of Fricatives: Stopping of fricatives is described as producing a stop sound for a continuant. For example, t/sh, t/s, d/z, p/f, and b/v. Freddy produced “tubuh/shovel” and “piti/fishing.”

·      Gliding: Gliding is described as substituting w/l and w/r. Examples include “wam/lamp” and “tewi/carrot.” Gliding is considered developmental until between the ages of 7-8.

·      Substitutions of /f/ for voiceless “th” (fum/thumb) and /d/ for voiced “th” (feader/feather). This is considered developmental until between the ages of 7-8. (I think this is technically stopping, but of course I would not work on these sounds with a 4 year old)

IEP Goals and Objectives

So, now that we have found the error patterns, what goals am I going to write? I put the processes in the order that I would target them. So, I will write an objective for each process. ODE is requiring Who, Will do what?, to what level or degree?, under what conditions?, in what length of time?, and How will progress be measured?

·      IEP Goal: By the IEP review date, in a small group setting, Freddywill reduce the occurrence of deviant phonological processes by producing targeted phonemes at the word level with 80% accuracy, 4/5 data collections. (Through observations and anecdotal records)

o   ***Only target word level if you are just beginning the Cycles Approach

·      Objective 1.1: By the IEP review date, in a small group setting, Freddy will reduce final consonant deletion by producing final consonants in CVC wordswith 80% accuracy, 4/5 data collections.  

o   Target final /t/ for 60 minutes (in the schools that’s 3 weeks if you do 20 minute sessions 1x/wk)

o   Target final /d/ for 60 minutes

o   Target final /p/ for 60 minutes

o   Target final /b/ for 60 minutes

o   Even if they don’t have final consonants in their conversational speech at this point (which is unlikely), move on. This is a total of 12 weeks. Sometimes I will cut this short and only work on it for a quarter, but still enforce it while I focus on another process.

o   Probe for velars during these sessions. Some kids take a long time to become stimulable for /k/ and /g/.

·      Objective 1.2: By the IEP review date, in a small group setting, Freddy will reduce cluster reduction by producing 2 sounds in a consonant cluster (focus on S-blends) at the word level with 80% accuracy, 4/5 data collections

o   I target S-blends before I target velars because I think it’s easier to teach, plus kids get the idea of fricatives. Then, when you start to remediate stopping they have some prior knowledge.

o   Target whichever blends they are stimulable for first.

o   Target SP for 60 minutes

o   Target ST for 60 minutes

o   Target SM for 60 minutes

o   Target SN for 60 minutes

o   Probe for velars

o   MOVE ON

·      Objective 1.3: By the IEP review date, in a small group setting, Freddy will reduce velar fronting by producing /k/ and /g/ in the initial and final positions of words with 80% accuracy, 4/5 data collections.

o   Target final /k/ for 60 minutes

o   Target initial /k/ for 60 minutes

o   Target initial /k/ for 60 minutes

o   Do NOT target final /g/. When you put emphasis on this word, a vowel is typically put on the end. The final /g/ should emerge on it’s own.

·      Objective 1.4 By the IEP review date, in a small group setting, Freddy will reduce stopping by producing fricatives [/f/, /v/, /s/, /z/, and/or “sh”] in the initial position of words with 80% accuracy, 4/5 data collections.

o   (This way you can leave it open to which sound he will be most successful with. There is no way that you will have enough time to target each sound in 5 different sessions during one IEP year, but you are always targeting a fricative. **the underlying goal is to remediate the PHONOLOGICAL PROCESS).

o   You can also target the final position, but you might run out of time by the IEP. Save it for next year!

My typical phonology sessions:

·      Start with auditory bombardment

·      Auditory discrimination (not every session, but I like to check and make sure they can hear the difference before I ask them to produce. I used to write a goal on auditory discrimination, but I don’t anymore. I just make sure I target it.)

·      Word drill embedded with fun activities:

o   Reading a book with high occurrence of target phoneme

o   Articulation Station

o   Articulation Scenes

o   Coloring activity (e.g., have them color their homework)

o   Memory

o   Go fish

o   Board games

o   Puzzles with high occurrence of target phoneme

o   Jenna’s Candyland Phonology

o   I Spy (a fav for S-blends)

o   Bury cards in a tub of dried rice and beans and unbury them!

o   MUCH more!

·      End with auditory bombardment

·      I also like to end the session with the student producing some of their best productions for their teacher. That way the teacher knows what sound I am targeting and the student feels proud of themselves.

Again, this is what I do. This is not to say that this is the only way to do phonology therapy. Last year my success rate with exiting “speech only” students was pretty high using this method and these goals. I had a personal goal for myself that no student should enter Kindergarten without being able to produce final consonants, S-blends, /g/, /k/, and at LEAST one fricative in the initial position at the word level. Of course those extremely unintelligible students are an exception to this.

I hope these goals and therapy targets will be helpful for at least some of you!

Enjoy J

Jacqueline Whitney 

Thank you Jacqueline! Jacqueline is the person I can text at 11pm to ask her opinion about a therapy idea. So happy she moved to my district this year! You can become a follower of her brand new TPT store. Click 'follow me' and you will get updates when she posts new content.