A Day in the Life

re: A Day in the Life

Jocelyn, CCC-SLP — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:26:59 GMT

This may sound kind of funny, but try and limit the things you bring into a house. This is often difficult to do when you are new to the field b/c of all of the planning involved with graduate school clients, however, I find that the more I use the child's toys and resources, the better their speech carryover is during the week. I often bring in 1-2 "specialty toys" specific to speech-language development, and sometimes try to bring in a toy to make with the child. You can make wonderful things for cheap such as: a puzzle out of a cereal box and let them decorate with common label stickers for receptive and expressive language or fill up a ziploc baggie with glitter, confetti, small laminated speech/language cards and hairgel, seal, and grab one of their cars and drive it on the baggie! I also give families a little speech "kit" to keep at their home (if it won't get lost) with vowel turtles, common pictures to receptively and expressively identify and some party blowers. Then they have it to practice and you can measure how much the family carries over your suggestions! Good luck!

re: A Day in the Life

stephanie bruno — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:06:33 GMT

Tenika ~

Your question inspired me! Check out this Tuesday's post 6/16 for an complete overview of items, both personal and professional to get you started in EI!! Good Luck to you in the Fall :)!

Stephanie

re: A Day in the Life

Amy — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:29:24 GMT

I've been a therapist for over 12 years, 0-5 years and elementary age populations primarily. For 0-3, you'll definitely need to stock up on building blocks, building cups (to make a tower, "uh, oh, fell down!", small vs. big (use cheap plastics boats/cars, etc.), a variety of noise makers, one's where you can adjust volume are terrific and a sing push single sound maker type toy will allow you to ellicit "more". If your doing feeding, of course there are catalogues on types of nuks, nipples, feeders for various dyphagia, swallowing, cleft-palate issues. Go in confident, have fun, be yourself and the kids will love you! I always remember what my first speech professor taught me, "this is NOT brain surgery!" Of course be professional, on time, which when your itinerate and traveling to various homes, expect delays and "no shows," but most of all, do your "work" with fun. Good luck!

re: A Day in the Life

Tenika Henderson — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:00:32 GMT

I will be starting EI in the fall and Im very very new to the field and what suggestions do you have for getting starting and some possible toys, therapy items you feel work best when dealing with the birth to three population