Learn Your Special Education Laws, Special Education Rights, and Share IEP Goal Ideas

Occupational therapists, physical therapists, and speech therapists all provide essential services to help individuals recover or manage their disability. It’s apparent to these professionals, or students specializing in this field, that to be able to give the highest quality of care requires extensive education to enter professions as well as continuing education throughout the subsequent career. But what is the special recipe to maximize your lifelong learning as a therapy professional? Read the rest of this entry →

Children with special needs are each very different and as such, respond to certain teaching methods better than others. Sign language, however, brings many benefits to families with children with special needs, regardless of whether they are hearing or deaf. Sign language brings advantages to all!

Autism, apraxia, or Down Syndrome—these, as well as speech and language delays can all be ameliorated by using sign language in your home or school.  Whether your child has difficulty with social situations, speech, or even tantrums, signing can be a great medium to encourage communication and more appropriate social behaviors.

Sign language does NOT hurt children with special needs. Instead, signing has been found to HELP children who have difficulty making requests, expressing themselves, or even verbally speaking. For children with limited motor skills, sign language is still an option! Children with disabilities like cerebral palsy can make approximations of the signs—which still allow both children and parents to communication and understand each other.

If you have a child with special needs, feel free to contact SignShine® for a list of available classes or programs in your area. It is time to introduce signing into your child and your family’s life. SignShine® can show you how to get started!

by etel leit

Etel Leit, MS is well known in the field of signing with hearing children and is considered an expert by many. Etel, the founder and owner of SignShine® , has extensive experience teaching signing to families, educators, therapists, and fellow signing instructors all over the world. She is also the publisher of BabySignShine.com, the largest international website for signing with children. Her articles have been published and her work has been recognized in a variety of relevant publications. Etel has made numerous TV appearances, both nationally and internationally and she has the invaluable experience of building her own business and brand.  On a more personal note, Etel has years of her own parenting experience; she is mom to two hearing children who sign.

http://www.signshine.com/

Tell me about it by Different Roads to Learning, Inc. is a language development app that utilizes the Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) framework to teach “the label, category, function, and features of more than 235 language targets over 6 levels of incremental difficulty.” The current price for Tell Me About It in the iTunes app store is $9.99. The app is designed for children with autism or language development delays. According to the Tell Me About It app page, “For students with speech and language delays or for those with Autism Spectrum Disorder, learning to simply label an image doesn’t necessarily translate into comprehensive understanding of that word. By breaking down each language target by its category, the function that it serves and its salient features, we offer students the opportunity to fully comprehend and then engage in language. This app is ideal for both home and classroom use.” Read the rest of this entry →

The Social Express by The Language Express, Inc. is impeccably produced from top to bottom. The graphics, animation and sound are all top notch. The content is wonderful and very helpful for children with a social communication disorder, autism or other forms of developmental delays. According to the CEO and Founder of The Language Express, Marc Zimmerman, “The Social Express teaches children how to think about and manage social situations through video modeling. The Social Express targets core deficit areas that stand in the way of school, social, and life success for children and young adults with social learning challenges.”

Now for my one caveat, with top notch production and content comes a high price. The Social Express costs $90, which is very expensive and will price many families out of the market. Now for the good news, I have learned that until the end of March 2012 you can purchase The Social Express for 50% off. Even better news, for those of you that don’t own an iPad the Social Express is available for your PC and Mac.

According to the website, “The Social Express comes with 16 interactive lessons featuring 30 scenes that are divided into two skill levels. Skill Level 1 targets younger users and/or those who have more difficulty understanding social situations. Skill Level 2 targets users who are aware of social rules but have difficulty using them in real-world settings. Each skill level ends with an interactive review of the Hidden Social Keys that have been learned during the preceding lessons, followed by a congratulatory presentation of a key that unlocks the Clubhouse.”

I took the Social Express out for a test drive with my 11 year old son who receives recreation therapy and speech therapy in school specifically to work on social language goals outlined in his Individualized Education Program (IEP). In his latest standardized Social Language Development test he scored in the 1% for children his age. To say he is delayed in social language is an understatement! We have been incorporating Social Thinking philosophies from Michelle Garcia Winner at home and in school so I was very curious how it would relate to what the Social Express was trying to accomplish. As it turns out the philosophies are very similar.

My son and I had a terrific time playing the Social Express. Each video modeling sequence put you in a different social situation and let the user choose how to react. No matter what your choice it showed the user the ramifications of their actions both good and bad. A few times my son would choose the incorrect answer on purpose just to see what would happen.

During the interaction on the screen the program provided teaching tips for the user to guide them to the correct answer. You can shut these tips off in the set-up screen if you don’t want to see them. After the first few lessons we shut off the teaching tips. If my son didn’t know the answer we would stop and discuss it prior to his selection.

The Social Express also incorporates the concept of a handheld digital problem solver (DPS) to help the user come up with various coping strategies when they are angry or sad.

As the Social Express progressed the concepts being taught went from very basic to much more complicated. Some of the concepts being taught included using your eyes and brain to figure things out and talking about things others like to talk about. This is very similar to the Social Thinking Philosophies of expected & unexpected behaviors and people files. It also had a lesson on idioms, you know those difficult sayings we use in everyday life that have a different meaning then their literal meanings such as, “I’m on top of the world.”

The Social Express also comes with a printable section that allows the user to build on what they learn in the program in everyday life.

As I mentioned earlier the Social Express is a wonderful app that is one of the best produced products on the market. If you are interested in this app make sure you purchase it this month so that you can take advantage of the 50% off pricing at $44.99. There is also a lite version of the Social Express that you can download for free from itunes. I highly recommend downloading the lite version first and testing the app yourself before purchasing the full product. The lite product comes with 2 lessons and is a wonderful way to determine if the full app is worth the purchase.

Studying language development since I first became a Speech-Language Pathologist has become a never ending passion with sometimes surprising twists. New studies emerge almost daily with mind boggling results from MRI research, new computer generated programs and language investigations involving younger and younger children. One such new study, by developmental psychologist David Lewkowicz of Florida Atlantic University, describes recent research wherein scientists found that babies’ language development during the babbling stage, at about 6 months, makes a dramatic change. Their eye gaze begins to shift to the mouth. In other words, babies begin to actually study what the mouth is doing when it its making those funny speech sounds. Another study reported in Live Science in 2009 by Charles Q Choi, noted that French researchers had found that newborns cry with the same melodic pattern as their native language and suggests that infants begin picking up elements of language in the womb! Read the rest of this entry →

Conversation Builder by Mobile Education Tools is the best pragmatic speech application I have used with my 10 year old son with a pragmatic language disorder. According to the American Speech Language Hearing Association:

An individual may say words clearly and use long, complex sentences with correct grammar, but still have a communication problem – if he or she has not mastered the rules for social language known as pragmatics. Read the rest of this entry →

Verbally Premium by Intuary is one of the best Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) apps on the market for older kids and adults. Its simple interface and design make it simple and easy to use and will have you holding a full conversation within a matter of minutes. According to the Verbally app page on iTunes, “Verbally brings speech to those without and enables real conversation with its simple, intuitive design. Just tap in what you want to say and Verbally speaks for you.” There are two versions of Verbally including the basic version which is free and the premium version which costs $99.99. Start out by downloading the free version to test Verbally BUT you will quickly find yourself upgrading to the Premium version. The Premium version is the one I am reviewing here. Read the rest of this entry →

When I try to explain what I do for a living, I often say “I play in food.” Hopefully, that phrase doesn’t conjure up images of Jello™ wrestling, although I have certainly been elbow deep in Jello™ many times in my career. As a speech language pathologist who specializes in “feeding”, I work exclusively with kids from birth to ten years of age, helping with everything from breast and bottle feeding to learning to eat Brussels sprouts. I’m all about encouraging kids to try new foods in order to become adventurous eaters! True, it’s tempting for parents to say “Stop playing with your food and just eat it”, but playing in food is often the first step to tasting new foods.

Before I expound upon the joys of pudding painting and building towers of cream cheese and crackers, I want you to consider the human brain. Moment to moment, our brain receives information from all of our senses, sorts it and organizes it, decides what input is important and what can be ignored for the time being and then, asks the ultimate question: “What is the most vital piece of information that applies to what I am doing at this very moment?” It requires a very well organized brain to answer that question efficiently and effectively and the entire process is nothing short of amazing.

Over 40 years ago, Dr. A. Jean Ayres introduced the theory of sensory integration or the study of how the brain processes information from our entire sensory system. She was not just talking about the five senses commonly referred to as taste, touch, smell, hearing and sight but also the vestibular system (a function of the middle ear) and the proprioceptive system, which interprets the meaning behind a muscle contraction and movement in our joints. Thank goodness for proprioceptive input: It’s how we know how much pressure we need to peel that banana without squishing it. And where would we be without a fine tuned vestibular system? Without it, every time we leaned forward for a sip of soup, we would lose our balance and do a face plant directly in our chicken noodle!

Dr. Ayres explained it this way in her book, Sensory Integration and the Child: “Sensory integration puts it all together. Imagine peeling and eating an orange. You sense the orange through your eyes, nose, mouth, the skin of your hands and fingers, and also the muscles and joints inside your fingers, hands, arms and mouth…All the sensations from the orange and all the sensations from your hands and fingers somehow come together in one place in your brain” which allows you to make the decision on how to peel and eat the orange.

So, the next time you see your kids playing in their food, join in! If the best your little munch bug can do that day is roll a Brussels sprout across his plate, have a roller derby and make some ramps. Then, he has to PICK UP the Brussels sprout and place it at the top of the highest ramp. Then, when a leaf dangles and slows down the race, he has to PEEL it off. What happens if you LICK that Brussels sprout? Will it roll faster? The more your child interacts with a new food, the more likely he will decide on his own that he likes it. You can probably convince him to bite into it, but that won’t make him like it. Tasting food over and over is how we learn to enjoy new sensations in our mouth, but making that autonomous decision to taste something for the very first time is what builds confidence to do it again. Our role as parents is to present the food in a joyful and healthy manner and set our children up for success. And, if that means a few weeks of Brussels sprout roller derby or Yogurt Car Wash, then that’s half the fun of the exploration!

Learning to eat new foods is a process and requires all of our senses to join in on the journey! Keep in mind that we all have good and bad sensory days and your child may not be able to tolerate certain tastes, temperatures or textures if his sensory system is not organized and ready to accept new input. Take it step by step and keep it creative and fun. It’s not about the bite – he will get there – it’s about the memories your family creates in the kitchen, at the dining room table or in the backyard spitting watermelon seeds. Enjoy!

(Ayers, AJ. Sensory Integration and the Child. Los Angeles, CA: WPS: 1994. 5-6.)

About the author: Melanie Potock, MA, CCC-SLP, is a certified speech language pathologist and national speaker on the topic of picky eating. She is the author of Happy Mealtimes with Happy Kids: How to Teach Your Child About the Joy of Food! and the executive producer of the acclaimed children’s CD, Dancing in the Kitchen. Mel’s tips to help your child be a more adventurous eater can be found on her My Munch Bug facebook page or on her website www.mymunchbug.com.

Last week I attended a workshop about Apps for kids with Special Needs. We reviewed many Apps, but the one that everyone seemed to like the most was Cookie Doodle. You begin by selecting your cookie recipe. The next screen is a list of ingredients, including the measurements, along with pictures of each one. You move each ingredient into the mixing bowl, thus exercising the child’s fine motor, language and sequencing abilities. Read the rest of this entry →

It is most important to first understand the complexity of speech. Speech is a means of communicating through spoken language, and therefore using proper speech by way of language (sounds) we can establish intelligent receptive and expressive communication with others.  

Errors in receptive and expressive language abilities occur when the production of sounds (articulation), and a misappropriation of the system of rules for organizing those sounds are made, hence Phonological disorders will occur. Read the rest of this entry →