Category: Therapy Tools

Articulation, Language, Open-ended, Resources, Seasonal, Therapy Tools

St. Patrick’s Day!

Lisa Geary

Here is an oldie but (updated) goodie! Lots of messages from all you Bingo lovers out there — and there are a LOT of you! So I thought I’d share this open-ended favorite for a fun St. Patty’s Day week activity. Use this no-prep (just print and go!) activity to target a variety of receptive and expressive language skills — object identification/labeling, visual discrimination, auditory processing at the word/phrase/sentence levels, comprehension of WH questions, seasonal vocabulary, language formulation, use of vocabulary and related descriptive concepts — and also articulation/phonological skills. These open-ended boards are perfect for differentiated instruction and always a favorite it seems. Enjoy!

Articulation, Language, Open-ended, Resources, Seasonal, Therapy Tools, Winter

Winter Olympics

Lisa Geary

Who is excited about the 2022 Winter Olympics?! ME!! With the opening ceremonies happening today, I am really excited about sharing my Olympic love with my students. I plan on using lots of Olympic-themed therapy ideas from the amazing Home Speech Home page, as well as some of my own personal faves. Here’s one thing that seems to be a universal favorite — Winter Olympics Bingo! You all probably know how much I love open-ended activities that can be differentiated to meet the needs of a variety of students (hello, time-saver on planning! Side note: I used to tell my graduate students that if you you know your students well and know their goals and current levels of performance, then you can create meaningful therapy with an empty pizza box!) Fortunately activities like this Winter Olympic Bingo are a lot more fun and relevant than an old pizza box.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Winter-Olympics-Bingo-Activity-Set-7703022

This Olympic-themed set is perfect for introducing winter sports that may be unfamiliar to your students. Events like curling, ski jumping, biathlon, or skeleton…say what??? I like to introduce these events and the corresponding Bingo board pictures by reviewing information on Olympics.com site. You just click on the sport you want to learn about, and you can learn about the history of the events, updates on the events taking place, and even see videos.

Skeleton event

Once we’ve reviewed the vocabulary, then the Bingo fun starts. What a wonderful way to celebrate winter and a world-wide tradition while targeting everyone’s speech-language goals? How are you highlighting the Winter Olympics for your students? I’d love to hear!

Animals, Articulation, Language, Open-ended, Resources, Seasonal, Therapy Tools, Winter

Winter Wonderland

Lisa Geary
Winter fun in the speech-language therapy room!

Winter Greetings! I hope you are staying WARM!! Even in Virginia, we are getting hit with some icy temps and even some snow accumulation. Despite the cold weather, this season is one of my favorites for speech-language fun. I love to grab a huge mixing bowl and go outside to gather a big pile of snow to bring in my therapy room! In addition to sensory play, snow is perfect for fostering speech-language opportunities — everything from /s/ and /s/ clusters to descriptive vocabulary, formulating sentences, answering WH questions, modeling core vocabulary, and more. If you have snow in your area, take advantage of the opportunity and grab a bowl!

I also have a couple other favorite speech-language activities, perfect for open-ended fun no matter what the goals or objectives. My students absolutely LOVE this Feed the Penguin game!  

Feed the Penguin Speech-Language Therapy Game

I use this open-ended activity to target a variety of speech and language skills, and also as a reinforcement. It’s the perfect activity for differentiated groups! This set includes winter vocabulary words (or you can add your own pictures to match any theme, language target, or speech sound)! Fish can be offered as reinforcements/rewards, or students can take turns selecting fish (I like to add a small magnet or paperclip to each fish and use a magnetic fishing rod for extra fun). With each turn, students can answer wh questions about the word, formulate utterances using the word, provide descriptive utterances to help other students guess the word, and more. Extra fish are included so you can use your own pictures or speech sounds. I also love using this activity to model and promote use of core vocabulary words like want, more, go, eat, help, etc. Instant reinforcement built into this activity! This open-ended game allows you to differentiate in groups and target virtually any speech-language goal – my students love to earn the fish and then feed Mr. Penguin!

If you are looking for another open-ended winter game that is perfect for your classroom push-ins or differentiated groups, check out this Winter Bingo Game! This 14-page print-and-go set can be used to target object identification/labeling, visual discrimination, auditory processing at the word/phrase/sentence levels, comprehension of WH questions, seasonal vocabulary, language formulation, use of vocabulary and related descriptive concepts, and articulation/phonological skills. These open-ended boards are perfect for differentiated instruction of students in your small groups or larger classes. This activity set includes 6 unique color bingo game boards, each containing the same vocabulary words but in different positions on the boards; 6 unique black and white game boards for students to color; and a page of calling cards you can print (I like to print doubles of these for an instant matching/memory game!).

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Winter-Bingo-Set-7380693

What are you working on this winter? Any special finds or therapy resources? I would love to hear! Thanks for reading and STAY WARM!

Articulation, Resources, Therapy Tools

Oldie but Goodie! Resources for Tricky Sounds

Lisa Geary

One of my most popular posts dating wayyyy back to 2012 is a post I created in response to multiple requests — people asking for HELP with tricky sounds s, z, sh, and ch for people with a non-developmental lisp or lateralized airflow distortions. I thought I would repost for those of you newer to the blog! Here you go!!

https://livespeaklove.com/2012/03/19/tricky-sounds-correcting-for-lateralized-airflow/
Articulation, Holiday Theme, Language, Resources, Therapy Tools

Thanksgiving Craft Activity Set!

Lisa Geary

ONE LAST THANKSGIVING RESOURCE FOR YOU! I decided to create one last Thanksgiving resource for this season…and I really love this one! If you are looking for some Thanksgiving FUN that also targets speech, language, and literacy skills, here you go! This set includes multiple craft activities centered on a thankfulness theme. With these activities, you can target:

articulation – use thankfulness words as stimuli for target productions at word and connected speech levels

receptive and expressive language – target a variety of language skills using the included activities to address following directions, sequencing, answering wh questions, sentence formulation, and more!

literacy – reading and writing – review of everyone’s thankful items after crafts are completed

social-pragmatic language – theme of thankfulness promotes awareness of others’ feelings and can be used to promote conversation among peers

What you get:

1 thankfulness turkey craft activity with picture supports/AAC symbols (picture supports can be printed again for memory game or vocabulary review!)

1 thankfulness feather headband

3 additional Thanksgiving coloring pages

I definitely plan on using this resource in my therapy room this week!!

Articulation, Holiday Theme, Language, Therapy Tools

WOULD YOU RATHER?

Lisa Geary

Thanksgiving fun continues in my therapy room! We’ve been busy at play, utilizing lots of my favorite toys that elicit language and can easily be paired with stimulus cards for any goal (spoiler alert: stay tuned for a blog post in the near future on that very topic!). I’ve also been using my seasonal favorites like my Articulation & Phonology Thanksgiving Bingo Bundle and my Open-ended Thanksgiving Game Board and my Thanksgiving Dinner Core Vocabulary Set. My clients all love these resources, but I’ve found myself needing something that tapped into some additional skills like descriptive concepts, inferential thinking, stating opinions, and formulating sentences to support an opinion. So I’ve just created the perfect tool to target those particular skills as well as many, many others! Here it is, my WOULD YOU RATHER – THANKSGIVING EDITION!!

This Would You Rather Activity Set provides the perfect seasonal tool to target a variety of academic, speech-language, and literacy goals including vocabulary, receptive & expressive language, articulation, choice making, inferential thinking, phrase & sentence formulation, organizational language, written language, and more! This minimal prep (just print, cut, and go!) activity will be a hit with your students, and gives you the flexibility to use with differentiated groups and in multiple sessions.

WHAT YOU GET:

  • 4 pages of Would You Rather text cards with 16 total Would You Rather Questions
  • 4 pages of Would You Rather picture cards – for students not yet able to read and/or to use as visual support for students using text cards.
  • 1 page of three model sentence starters for students to use when formulating verbal responses and when writing.
  • 1 graphic organizer to organize thoughts for written explanation/rationale.
  • 1 paragraph page for students to write their rationale for a choice they made on a select question (can be printed multiple times).

I hope you enjoy this therapy resource! I know I will, and I have a hunch my clients/students will too! Let me know how it works for you.

Articulation, Assistive Technology, Free Downloads, Holiday Theme, Language, Resources, Therapy Tools

Pick up the PACE! FREE Pacing Boards

Lisa Geary

Anyone else love FREE therapy tools?! Here’s a new one just for you this Thanksgiving season. I’ve got three, FREE pacing boards you can download for your therapy room, classroom, or home! Pacing Boards are an excellent visual support you can use for so many purposes. Use these Thanksgiving-themed pacing boards to give students visual/tactile/kinesthetic feedback for reducing rate of speech, sequencing sounds/syllables in multisyllabic words, increasing mean length of utterance, formulating sentences, increasing conversational reciprocity and more!! These pacing boards can be essential tools to increase student’s independence as they practice skills; perfect for students to use at home, too! Just print onto cardstock or durable paper and/or laminate. Can also be used as game score cards, token reinforcement cards, pattern sets or sorting cards. I LOVE pacing boards because they are super versatile and students really benefit from these low-tech visual supports. Here you go! Free from me to you.

Articulation, Holiday Theme, Language, Resources, Therapy Tools

Sweet November

Lisa Geary

It’s finally November! Early Fall/Halloween season was such a fun, festive time, and now I am ready for MORE! I am of course looking forward to the winter holidays, but I am not the type of person who immediately starts singing carols on November 1st. NOOOOO. First we need to savor this special time of year when we count our blessings and offer thanks — and also look forward to a delicious feast! Thanksgiving season in my therapy room over the years has fostered some special memories. And I have created a LOT of Thanksgiving themed resources! Here are just a few I thought I would share:

  • Thanksgiving Descriptive Vocabulary Set – Target descriptive vocabulary in a variety of receptive and expressive language tasks with this bundled activity set. Skills addressed include: Thanksgiving Food identification and labeling, comprehension/use of color words in phrases and sentences, identification/use of adjectives to describe object attributes, categories and word classes, identification and description of similarities and differences…and MORE!

This Thanksgiving Articulation & Phonology BINGO Bundle is the PERFECT resource for your therapy room Target a variety of articulation and phonology skills with Thanksgiving-themed Bingo Bundle. This 84-page set can also be used to target object identification/labeling, visual discrimination, auditory processing at the word/phrase/sentence levels, comprehension of WH questions, seasonal vocabulary, language formulation, use of vocabulary and related descriptive concepts, and additional articulation/phonological skills. These open-ended boards are perfect for differentiated instruction of students in your small groups or larger classes. What you get…84 Pages in 6 different Bingo Sets:

  • Thanksgiving /k/ and /g/ Bingo
  • Thanksgiving /f/ and /v/ Bingo
  • Thanksgiving /l/ Bingo
  • Thanksgiving /r/ Bingo
  • Thanksgiving /s/ Clusters Bingo
  • Thanksgiving Consonant Clusters Bingo

Each Bingo Set includes:

  • 6 unique color bingo game boards, each containing the same vocabulary words but in different positions on the boards.
  • 6 unique black and white game boards for students to color
  • 1 page calling cards (color).
  • Thanksgiving Receptive and Expressive Language Bingo – Super popular resource that I love to use year after year. And…NO PREP!! Target receptive and expressive language skills with this Thanksgiving Bingo Game. This 14-page set has been newly UPDATED and EXPANDED! Use the Bingo game to target object identification/labeling, visual discrimination, auditory processing at the word/phrase/sentence levels, comprehension of WH questions, seasonal vocabulary, language formulation, and use of vocabulary and related descriptive concepts. These open-ended boards are perfect for differentiated instruction of students in your small groups or larger classes.

What you get:

  • 6 unique color bingo game boards, each containing the same vocabulary words but in different positions on the boards.
  • 6 unique black and white game boards for students to color
  • 1 page calling cards (color).
  • Thanksgiving Dinner Core Vocabulary Activity Set – This set is one of my personal favorites. Target functional communication, vocabulary, and a variety of language skills with this Thanksgiving-themed activity set! These activities are designed to provide students practice with making comments, expressing opinions, and formulating phrases and sentences using core words and Thanksgiving vocabulary.

WHAT YOU GET:

  • Sorting Activity Page – students can sort Thanksgiving foods into categories to express their opinion and show what foods they like.
  • Thanksgiving Food Picture Cards – Use for sorting activity; you can also print extras for a matching/memory game, or to use in literacy centers, on word walls, or additional crafts/activities.
  • Thanksgiving Foods Coloring Page – students can color the pictures to show what foods they like; you can also use this page for practice following verbal directions (e.g., “place a red X on all the foods you do NOT like”). You can print extras copies for use in literacy centers, task boxes, and more.
  • Sentence Strips with Carrier Phrases – these visual supports provide support for students formulating sentences to express opinions, make comments, and answer questions. The Thanksgiving Food Picture Cards can be used here to complete the carrier phrases.
  • Thanksgiving Dinner Core Board – this low-tech communication board utilizes practical core vocabulary words that are flexible enough to use with ANY activity. Students can also engage in structured practice for Thanksgiving dinner celebrations using this core board along with Thanksgiving Food Picture Cards or other visuals. Make extra copies for your classroom or therapy room!
  • Things We Can Say Practice Pages – these visual supports utilize a variety of messages for students to practice with foods they like and foods they do not like. These phrase-based messages are perfect for social interaction with family and friends and support students as they make comments, express opinions, ask questions, and answer questions.

These are just a few of the Thanksgiving materials I’ve created; I also have other activities (with more to come!) Is there anything you’d like to see? Let me know! And in the meantime, enjoy this Sweet November!

Announcements, Articulation, Holiday Theme, Language, Resources, Therapy Tools

SPOOK-TACULAR SALE

Lisa Geary

Did you hear?? I am throwing a SALE on all of my Halloween resources! Thank you to those who inquired and inspired me to do this. Get an extra 15% off any of my Halloween-themed speech-language therapy activities! Sale runs until 11:59 PM on Halloween night! Check out everything here; just click the image below!

Holiday Theme, Language, Resources, Therapy Tools

NO PREP! Halloween Receptive and Expressive Language Activity Set

Lisa Geary

I’ve been having SO much fun creating more seasonal resources! With time to create, I’ve been dreaming up big and little ideas, which I am always happy to share. Here is a quick, little idea I had that I have actually been using in my own therapy room. I work with children of all ages and ranges of ability, so the variety keeps me thinking. I am seeing more children now who present with subtle language difficulties — they are verbal, articulate, and at first glance seem to be on track with their peers. But when you get to know them, you quickly realize that they need organizational language support and practice with both comprehension and expression. So I created this Halloween-themed activity set to provide scaffolded supports and practice with understanding and describing seasonal vocabulary. In this 7-page NO PREP set, I’ve included:

  • Formulating Descriptions Visual/Graphic Organizer
  • 24 unique picture stimulus cards to:
    • elicit verbal descriptions of attributes
    • elicit formulated sentences
    • target wh question comprehension and formulation of responses
    • you can also print doubles of the cards to use as a matching/memory game! Always fun practice and extension opportunities.
  • 10 WH question prompts to support verbal descriptions
  • 24 WH questions to be used as stimuli for targeting of wh question comprehension and formulation of responses.

I’ve been having very good success with this set and with variations I’ve created over the years. The visual stimuli, graphic organizer, and structured wh questions appear to be a magic combo! Feel free to check it out if you want:

Articulation, Holiday Theme, Resources, Therapy Tools

Nifty Fifty Motivation!

Lisa Geary

With Halloween just around the corner, I thought I’d share another fun resource I created – these Halloween-themed motivation sheets! Use these motivation sheets to elicit repeated trials in your therapy session — perfect for articulation and phonology goals or for building momentum in any given skill. My students are always more motivated to complete lots and lots and LOTS of trials when I pair the task with a fun visual and make it a game. These visual incentive sheets will keep your students on track and help to build metacognitive awareness of their progress as they strive to mark off all 50 items on the page (hence the name NIFTY 50!). These motivation sheets can be used with dot markers, highlighters, crayons, colored pencils, or whatever tool you choose! You can also color these yourself and laminate, and then use the pages as visual token boards with bingo markers or magnetic coins. Side note: My students all love using a magnetic wand to pick up the coins after their trials! I got mine from Super Duper Inc but you can find them other places as well.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this resource. More Nifty Fifty sets to come in the not-so-distant future!

Articulation, Holiday Theme, Language, Resources, Therapy Tools

Fall Articulation & Phonology Games

Lisa Geary

I’ve had a LOT of requests for this one — a 22 page bundle of articulation and phonology games showcasing Fall and Halloween vocabulary! Such a favorite in speech therapy rooms and classrooms. Board games, stimulus cards for a variety of articulation and phonological goals, word strips to use on Legos or on Jenga pieces, Bingo Boards and calling cards that can be used memory/matching games, and even some create-your-own supplies! I wanted to get this up on the blog ASAP as I have some wonderful followers who’ve made very patient requests for this content. Here you go!

Articulation, Holiday Theme, Language, Resources, Therapy Tools

New therapy resource! Halloween Articulation Set for /k/ and /g/

Lisa Geary

One of my favorite activities to use in therapy, especially group therapy, is BINGO! I love how such a fun, engaging, game that feels like a party can target so many skills – object identification/labeling, visual discrimination, auditory processing at the word/phrase/sentence levels, comprehension of wh questions, review of seasonal vocabulary, language formulation, use of vocabulary and related descriptive concepts, as well as speech sound production. These open-ended boards are perfect for differentiated instruction of students in small or large groups, as well as push-in lessons in the classroom. I’ve created a wide variety of theme-based Bingo boards over the years, and they are always a hit. I also use the calling cards from the Bingo sets to use as a memory games, vocabulary pages, card games, pictures for word walls, adapted books, and more. This particular activity set was created to target /k/ and /g/ velar sounds, but its versatility makes it also perfect for any student. I created color pages as well as black and white pages for the Bingo boards and the calling cards. Take a peek if you want!

P.S. I love using the PCS symbols from Boardmaker and Tobii Dynavox. I recently purchased a Maker License from the company (now required for copyright permissions) so I can create all sorts of visual materials and pass them on to other people! Anything you’d like to see? Just let me know!

Articulation, Holiday Theme, Language, Resources, Therapy Tools

Thanksgiving Activities from LiveSpeakLove!

Lisa Geary

Happy November from LiveSpeakLove! As we polish off the last of the Halloween candy, many of us are gearing up for the next big holiday…Thanksgiving! November is typically a blur for me with the ASHA convention, American Education Week and anticipation of the ever popular Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa holiday season. But I always make it a point to very purposefully and carefully appreciate the moment that we have for Thanksgiving. I hope you do, too! To help get you get ready for Thanksgiving in the speech-language therapy room, here are a collection of Thanksgiving activities I made targeting comprehensive skill sets from the CCSS. These activity sets allow for differentiated instruction in individual, small group or whole class settings. Everything you need for this month in one spot…Enjoy!!

Happy Thanksgiving from LiveSpeakLove!
Happy Thanksgiving from LiveSpeakLove!

 

What are YOU thankful for this November?

 

Articulation, Holiday Theme, Language, Resources, Therapy Tools

Pacing Boards – Festive Freebie!!

Lisa Geary

Do you know about PACING BOARDS? Pacing Boards are a MUST for any therapy room. I usually keep a stash of pacing boards, with varying shapes and colors in different length sets–stored in a pocket chart or hung from a magnetic clip so I can grab them quickly when I need them. They are easily accessed during a therapy session and are useful in almost any therapy activity. My gift to you on this Giving Tuesday is a holiday themed printable containing two pacing boards.  Use these festive pacing boards to give students visual/tactile/kinesthetic input for reducing rate of speech, increasing fluency, sequencing sounds/syllables in multisyllabic words, increasing mean length of utterance, formulating sentences, marking grammatical structures in a sentence, increasing conversational reciprocity and more!! These pacing boards  can be essential tools to increase student independence as they practice skills — perfect for students to use at home, too — just print onto cardstock or durable paper and/or laminate. You can print multiple sets and then cut the boards to include only two or three shapes — perfect for targeting formulation of two and three word utterances. These boards can also be used as game score cards, schedule cards, token reinforcement cards, pattern sets or sorting cards!! Hope you enjoy this freebie, and put it to good use…I’d love to hear how you use this resource, so leave a comment to let me know! Thanks for visiting LiveSpeakLove!

~Lisa

 Holiday Pacing Board Freebie

 

Articulation, Holiday Theme, Language, Resources, Therapy Tools

Seasons Greetings and Activities for All!

Lisa Geary

Very excited to be moving into the festive holiday season…ready to decorate the LiveSpeakLove headquarters with my little (and not so little) ones! I love how memories flow as we unpack beloved ornaments, and blend them with new traditions. Wishing you all a wonderful start to your holiday season, and hope that you will enjoy some activities I have for you:

Target word class skills using this colorful holiday theme.  Students will be delighted with this activity  as they label categories, list items in a given category, sort picture vocabulary into categories, highlight critical attributes of given items, explore similarities and differences of related items, describe given picture vocabulary and more! Santa Claus Categories is a defnite must for your therapy room…great for literacy centers, too!
What you get:
18 pages total with text AND visuals for each category and item
Direction Page 12 Category Cards 36 Categorical Objects
Use “Santa Claus Categories” to support students in a variety of receptive and expressive language skills. This set can be used a stand-alone activity, or can be used as a “launchpad” for higher level skills. Simply remove visual choices or require students to provide additional examples to extend or differentiate the tasks.
Help students get in the holiday spirit as they practice later developing sounds in the initial, medial and final positions of words. The colorful
theme-based stimuli cards can be used with limitless activities…many suggestions are included in this resource set.

What you get:
17 pages total (6 target sounds stimulus card sets, duplicated for easy printing to created card pairs)
– Stimulus cards for consonant clusters, /s/, /s/ blends, /r/, /l/, “sh”, “ch” and “j”
– Instruction and idea page
-Cover Page – perfect for student notebooks or RTI packet covers

This activity is the perfect way to target Pragmatic/Social Communication Skills in small, large or whole classroom groups! The holiday “present” theme highlights the unique challenges associated with gift-giving, holiday shopping, seasonal celebrations and more. Discuss social commnunication strategies, themes of friendship, diversity and general safety in public situations with thought-provoking questions that will get students TALKING! Highlights general holiday giving, Christmas, Chanukah (Hannukah) and Kwanzaa.
What you get:
11 Pages Total
Cover Page (perfect for RTI packets, File Folder Covers, etc.)
Direction Page
32 orginal Pragmatic Presents questions
If you want to create your own resources to use, share or sell, my original Holiday clipart set is just what you need! You get 35 PNG files containing various images and colors (see above preview for a look at what is included.) Perfect for creating holiday activities using ActivInspire or other Smartboard program; or for creating interactive bulletin boards, file folder activities, literacy center activites, worksheets and more. This clipart is acceptable for educational, personal or commercial use (this last statement is VERY important if you want to create activities without any copyright violations! Trust me, you want to comply with copyright laws. To do so, you must use clipart and/or graphics that are ok to use —especially if you want to sell.)
Have you been thinking about creating your own activities, and possibly posting them in your own TeachersPayTeachers store? (If you haven’t ventured over to TeachersPayTeachers, I highly recommend it — an INCREDBLE resource for you…entire unit plans, lesson plans, literacy center activity sets, thematic units and MORE…all created by the people who KNOW about teaching children. I cannot express to you what a goldmine of credible, effective and affordable resources this site is! Want to find out more about sharing your own resources? GO HERE.
Interested in finding out who is selling on TeachersPayTeachers? Check out this Resource List from Jenna Rayburn of Speech Room News!
She compiled a list of over 50 SLPs who are now sharing resources on TpT. I love how Jenna comments that most of the reosurces “cost less than a cup 0f coffee!” Take a look at her list, complete with links to each SLP’s TpT store:
Finally, to spread some holiday cheer, I will be participating in TpT’s CYBER MONDAY and BONUS TUESDAY sale!! ALL LiveSpeakLove Resources will be 20% off! You can also enjoy an additional 10%  TpT discount using the following code, for a total savings of up to 28%!! Take advantage of this holiday kick-off event:
THANK YOU for your support, and for visiting LiveSpeakLove!
~Lisa
Language, Therapy Tools, Thoughts and Inspirations

Revist: Encouraging Spontaneous Communication

Lisa Geary

As I’ve been working with graduate students and guiding them to incorporate strategies to increase their client’s spontaneous communication during therapy sessions, I’ve been covering some of the basics like:

  1. Ask open-ended questions, avoiding questions that can be answered with a simple yes/no or other one word answer
  2. Provide choices as much as possible, encouraging statements of preference
  3. Try not to anticipate the needs of a child – allow them time to formulate their wants and ideas into their own verbal attempts
  4. Set up the environment purposefully with preferred items out of reach
  5. Use visual supports to increase communication independence
  6. Provide modeling and expansion of a produced utterance– reinforce verbalizations and show them how to take it one step further

Beyond these basics, there are a few strategies I have blogged about in the past that people seem to particularly appreciate. My post on Communication Temptations is a steady favorite, along with my handouts for encouraging speech and language skills in the classroom and home settings. One particular blog post has been making the rounds again on Pinterest and Facebook — my Top Five Ways to Encourage Spontaneous Language. I do like this post quite a bit, not just because I still stand behind the content but also because it pretty much captures who I am.  Reading the post gives you a glimpse at my therapy style (and my general personality, I believe,) and highlights what I feel is a real desire to connect with children in the moment. The techniques I recommend in the post are not necessarily natural for many people, especially new therapists, but I am encouraging the graduate student clinicians I supervise to give these five tricks (and many others) a try as they discover their own therapy styles.

Interested in my Top 5 Ideas? Here is the link to my original post:

Language, Resources, Technology, Therapy Tools

Fun with Word Clouds

Lisa Geary

I’ve recently discovered a new tech tool for speech-language therapy…Word Clouds. Using word clouds is a fun way to incorporate text into your speech-language lessons, perfect for increasing the speech-to-text connections. If you are utilizing Universal Design for Learning Standards (and you should be,) word clouds are also a powerful tool to customize the display of information, highlight critical features of a subject matter and incorporate media in learning activities. They are also just plain fun. Kids seem to really enjoy seeing their words and ideas instantly transformed into art.

Below are a few word cloud activities I have used recently. I’ve been exploring different features of the available word cloud sites, and I’ve included examples of my favorites:

Tagul.com – Below is a word cloud I made with a group using the Tagul Word Cloud Generator. Tagul allows you to customize the shape, colors and fonts, and quickly produce word clouds that can be saved as images, emailed or embedded into web pages. I used this word cloud site with a group of students as we generated categorical vocabulary given the topic “Things We See Outside in the Summer.” Students verbally produced categorical lists and then we reviewed the words, discussing similarities and differences between related word pairs.

ABCYa! – ABCYa! is a simple word cloud generator that is quick and user-friendly. There are limited layout, font and color scheme choices, but the word clouds are created instantly without fuss or worry over too many parameters. Below is a word cloud we created in a group co-treatment lesson with the social worker. As a follow-up to a story lesson, we generated positive attributes and descriptive words. We instantly created the word cloud, and the students then used the word cloud words to identify five attributes to describe themselves. We ended with a group discussion in which students offered positive attributes about their peers. The activity was engaging, powerful and memorable, as students used their speech-language skills to reinforce themes of self-concept, friendship and giving compliments.

Wordle – Wordle is another fun word cloud generator that allows custom colors, fonts and layouts (not in shapes, though) to produce a visual vocabulary display. With Wordle, you do need to capture screenshots of your word clouds in order to save them as images; otherwise they are stored online in a public gallery. Below is a brainstorm word cloud I created with a group as we identified relevant summer vocabulary words in response to the questions, “What do you like about summer?” Students eagerly participated in this group discussion, formulating sentences to describe their favorite summer pastimes and memorable events. A variety of language skills were targeted using this simple visual tool.

Tagxedo – Tagxedo is one of my favorite word cloud generators, allowing text to be displayed in a shape using customizable color themes and fonts. You can even have your word cloud in the shape of an actual word or phrase. I have been experimenting with the options that Tagxedo offers, and came up with this LiveSpeakLove Word Cloud:

There are many other word cloud generators available on the Internet. You can find a generous list of word cloud sites with a simple internet search. I would love to hear if you are using word cloud tools in your classroom and/or therapy rooms…feel free to post your ideas in the comments section. Thank you for visiting Live Speak Love, LLC!

Language, Therapy Tools

Super Duper Fun!

Lisa Geary

I was very excited to come home and find this package on my doorstep today!

I will be reviewing this product from Super Duper Inc, one of my favorite speech therapy supply companies. I am really looking forward to trying this program with students that have auditory processing difficulties. The processing program (at first glance) appears to be based on research stemming from investigations of altered auditory signal presentation to remediate intermittent/delayed auditory perception in children. I find research like this –glimpses into variations of how the brain processes auditory signals as explanations for disordered comprehension– to be completely fascinating. I am very excited to learn more about the Altered Auditory Input technique proposed in this program, and will be posting my impressions very soon,  So, look for my review in an upcoming blog feature ~stay tuned!