Halloween is this week, and with that lots of excitement for all of us at school! I've been having fun with some free Halloween iPad apps . My favorite so far is Millie's Book of Tricks & Treats! Kids knock on a door, it opens and behind the door, there is a cute dog doing a trick or getting a treat! There's a photo of Millie the dog ...

Many children we work with do not see a link between their behavior and immediate positive consequences they can receive, let alone the connection between their behaviors and their long-term impressions on others. As SLPs, these students can be challenging in many ways, not only because it can be difficult for us to get them to participate in ...

This week's blog continues with the theme of preparing for life beyond graduate school. I gave some advice to new clinicians who are just entering the field of long-term care (LTC) last week, and back in September I wrote about gathering every day supplies for therapy in September 2011. I also talked about some simple, inexpensive ideas ...

Dear Kathie: ''Do you always take a language sample as part of an assessment with a verbal child or adult with ASD? If so, what do you look for and how do you elicit the conversation?'' - Adrian, speech-language pathologist My Response: Thank you for asking about the assessment aspect for a child/adult with ASD. I feel there are three ...

This time of year, especially in the Northeast, it can seem like everyone is struggling with Seasonal Affective Disorder, including our students. It's cold, it's dark, and the smallest thing can set us off! As SLPs, we can be good counselors to our students and encourage positive self-talk for all sorts of occasions.  Self-talk ...

Although this series has predominantly been about picture books that SLPs can utilize in language therapy, I suppose I am allowed to make some detours. I recently re-read one of my all-time favorite books, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, and it occurred to me how much I wanted to recommend this book to ...

Listening is such a key skill for SLPs in schools to address and foster for all students, whether they have auditory comprehension deficits, social communication problems or are just overly active in the classroom setting. Comprehension exercises are one way to do this, but it is helpful to be as strategic as possible and give ...

I am taking a brief departure from the soon-to-be-wrapped-up ''Book It'' series on using picture books in language interventions in order to report back from ASHA Convention in San Diego. I was super excited to attend this year's ''Divas + One Players'' Session: Language Intervention in Science and Social Studies: A Panel Discussion. ...

Autumn is the perfect time to use trees as a context for your speech and language therapy. The study of trees is often identified as a curriculum unit, at least here in the Northeast where they change significantly across the span of a year. Trees can be related to categories and subcategories, can be used to teach describing by parts ...

How many of you have a budget for therapy and/or diagnostic materials at your workplace? Budgets are always limited, and I tend to request only materials and items that I know are patient-specific (communication books, etc.) to be purchased by the facility. I tend to buy my own therapy books because I prefer to create my own ...