As I began my search for helpful information regarding cerebral palsy and how it affects feeding and oral motor function, much of what I found included various cases that have been conducted on this very topic. Oral motor therapy has become quite controversial in our field of speech therapy over the past 10-15 years; therefore some of the ...

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. - Victor Hugo Let me preface this week's blog post by stating that I am not a music therapist, and that more information about music therapy can be found here. I do not read music, and I have never studied music theory. I enjoy playing percussion ...

Jigsaw puzzles and foam or wooden shape sorting puzzles can target several communication and cognitive goals during therapy. I have found packs of three sturdy twenty-five piece puzzles for under ten dollars at a local grocery store in the educational supply/ toy aisle. The puzzles I am favoring currently are made by Puzzle Patch; I like them ...

Executive functioning goals can be addressed using mainstream apps when a skilled therapist adds coaching and cueing. Executive functioning is the highest level of cognitive function - encompassing the ability to set goals, plan, initiate, and self-monitor with self-awareness and self-correction. Commonly impaired in brain injured individuals and ...

TinyTap is an unlikely candidate for my blog, falling short on two criteria I look for in good adult therapy apps - it requires customization before it will work (a no-no for busy clinicians with caseload pressures), and it is designed for preschool kids with cutesy animations and sounds. These two flaws notwithstanding, this is a very useful app ...

One might think that Speech-Language Pathologists are natural conversationalists, but that's not always so. We listen, explain, analyze, ask, and write (oh, do we ever write!), but when we need to get people talking, it helps to have some conversation starters on hand. Here are two apps that can help when you run out of things to talk about. ...

    Found It! is a scavenger hunt app where you have to find the item described before time runs out. I came across this app while trying to find something my clients would enjoy interacting with while also focusing on their language processing skills. I like this app because I can take tangible objects from around my therapy room or ...

''Do you remember what we did yesterday?'' I asked the soft-spoken elderly woman as she entered the speech treatment room.  ''We scared the cat.'' Oh right! I was thinking of the sequencing activities, elaborating on descriptions of common tasks, that I had cued her through in an attempt to increase her utterances from short phrases to ...

Short-term goals are our steps toward long-term goals and should be seen as milestones that we can use to help the patient to reach along the way to attaining a functional outcome. Therapists identify skills to target as short-term goals that can be learned in a specific time frame of three weeks or so, and these  should be updated as ...

Today I would like to share the first part of my one-on-one interview with a trained speech language pathologist who is now using her speech and language knowledge and background to work as an Assistive Technology Consultant/ Professional Development Specialist. She has worked in the school setting for over 20 years with students ranging in age ...