The Fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) is set to be released May 18 during the APA's annual meeting in San Francisco. In the days leading up to the official announcement of the changes, controversy began brewing. ADVANCE has reported on the changes coming to ...

Last week,  I shared the life-changing information I learned at a seminar entitled ''7 Mindfulness Habits of the Highly Effective Brain'' given by Jonathan Jordan, MSW LCSW, a well-traveled social worker and master life coach. My post talked about the definitions of ''mindfulness'' and lists the actual 7 habits that Mr. Jordan recommends in ...

In May, I usually try to think up some new and creative ways to celebrate Better Hearing and Speech Month. ASHA, of course, provides resources here. This year, I have to admit that I am sort of struggling to come up with something creative and new to share in my building. I realize that I also lamented this fact in one of last April's posts, and I ...

This past Thursday I went to a wonderful training entitled ''7 Mindfulness Habits of the Highly Effective Brain. ''The presenter was a man named Jonathan Jordan, MSW LCSW, a well-traveled (he's been to 146 countries) social worker and master life coach who was hired to give this same presentation to our own United States Senate.  Although I ...

Family members and staff should carefully consider what news is brought to patients, and how it is presented. This does not mean that news should be withheld; it does mean that the resident's ability to process and comprehend events and situations should be considered. Every patient's need should be considered when events are disclosed. Some ...

Today is the last day of April and tomorrow begins May, or what SLP's across the globe lovingly refer to as ''Better Speech and Hearing Month''! This year the slogan for BSHM is ''Helping People Communicate''. In order to properly kick off the month, today's post offers a list of ideas and resources for speech therapists to utilize during OUR ...

One of the things I love about being a Speech Language Pathologist is that we never stop learning.  Nowadays, with technology and all of the amazing social media sites, keeping up to date is easier than ever.  All you need to do is find the time, which I know for many that may be problematic.  My next set of blog posts will be a ...

The week of April 15, 2013, was stressful, tragic and emotional to most people at some level, beginning with the bombs at the Boston Marathon, and the search for the suspects in Boston, as well as the explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas. As the proverb goes, ''Bad news travels fast.'' It certainly is human nature to discuss tragedies, ...

 Thank you to my fellow blogger, Alexander Streeter, for being the only voter on my last blog (regarding which topics I attended at my state convention and what the readers would like me to blog about). Per her request today I'll start to blog about the presentation on transitioning from PECsTM to SGD. There is so much I could blog about this ...

Spinal cord injury, stroke, and hundreds of congenital and acquired disorders impair the use of hands--an essential body part for using touch-screen technology. A handful of apps are switch-accessible, but these consist mainly of AAC apps and some early childhood books and games (Jane Farrell keeps a list here). For all other apps, these users are ...