Over the last 2 weeks a group of upper elementary girls and I have enjoyed an app named Cookie Next Door-Rainy Days. This app is essentially an animated cartoon to which students provide the narrative using their voices. Cookie is a little guy who takes to the ocean on his boat and encounters an adventure with other characters including a huge ...

After a busy couple of weeks readjusting to the school routine and working on winter and penguins with my students, I've been trying some new apps on my iPad. I stumbled upon ''Where's My Water'' through my children and have become quite addicted! I have been able to integrate it into therapy and make it apply to language goals and ...

With only a month left to go in this school year, I thought I better get back to a blog I wrote way back at the beginning of the school year.  I had talked about four new approaches/therapy models/interventions that I'd be using this year — so far I've only blogged about two of them (Behavior Management Through Adventure and using the ...

When do you elicit a language sample? Certainly when you first see a child you would want to take a language sample. However, if the child is not comfortable on the initial assessment, there is nothing written in stone that says that it has to be completed the first time around. That in itself should tell you something. I feel that ...

A couple of weeks ago, I was browsing Amazon, and a ''Recommended for You'' item popped up. It was the book, ''The Pirate Who Couldn't Say 'Arrr'''! I am trying to be a school-SLP-on-a-budget, but I couldn't resist. I impulsively clicked on the ''1-Click'' ordering button, and the book arrived two days later. The book is by Angie ...

Dear Kathie: ''Larry speaks so loudly. I can hear him coming from way down the hall in school. No one wants to sit by him in the lunchroom and his teacher is pulling her hair out. I've talked to Larry's mother and it's the same at home, in the library and at McDonald's. Any suggestions? And is this really in the realm of speech therapy for a ...

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 ...

In last week's blog post, ''The iPad Becomes a wePad for Autism,'' I encouraged you to develop a relationship between the iPad, the child and another person, rather than letting the child with autism treat it as a ''thing.'' Let's call that with the iPad. That's when we can turn it into a wePad and make those applications come alive ...

I was hoping to share some photos of bulletin boards in response to my last blog, ''Ideas Needed: Bulletin Board!'' in today's post, but I didn't get any pictures. I did, however, get some great ideas in the comments section! If you are interested, check it out! There are some wonderful ideas from some creative people. However, I DO want to ...

Dear Kathie: What are your thoughts on using an iPad with the autistic population?'' - Mary, speech-language pathologist and parent of a child with autism Kathie's Response: I like it. I love it. I want some more of it. But, instead of calling it an iPad for the autistic population, I think we should rename it a wePad. That is because WE ...