Love It & List It Linky: Behavior Management

It is that time again for Jenna over at Speech Room News to host her famous Love It & List It linky party.

This month's topic, behavior management.  We are SLPs not behavior therapists...I know I know...but after years of working in a school setting, it is SO important to incorporate some behavior management strategies into your therapy room to make life easier and get the most out of each session.

Some important tips that I have learned over the years:

• The better you plan and if you prepare for the unexpected, the amount of negative behaviors will decrease.  When I "wing" lessons or lessons "flop," I find that that is when students act out (talking, arguing, or even just lose focus).
• It is important to judge per student and group if you can wait until the end to reward or more frequently.  I have some groups that I can give them a sticker or "token" at the end of the session and have them add up to a prize over time.  I have other groups where they are working towards a tiny prize each session because they need to be rewarded/reinforced VERY frequently (every 5 minutes or trials/drills).
• In the beginning of the year, it is important to learn what the kids like!  What will they be motivated for?  Computer time?  Piece of candy?  A pencil?  I have some groups that all they want is to play a quick game at the end of the session is a motivator enough to work hard the rest of the session!
• If you say it, stick with it!  Don't just say it!  Kids learn!  If you say you are going to call home or write a note home, do it!  If you say you are going to take something away, do it if they act out again!
• You can be firm without being mean or scary.  You can still be the fun SLP you want to be!  My students know that if I use my "serious" voice, they have done something wrong!  They know, I don't like to use it!  They also know, if they are good, we will have fun!
• Do you have one student acting out and ruining it for the rest of the group?  Reward the rest of them!  It is ok to leave that one student out!  You may get tears or some choice vocabulary but in the end, it will work! 
• A lot of times, negative behavior is avoidance behavior.  Is the activity/work too difficult?  Maybe the student is too embarrassed to ask for help or get an answer wrong?!  Try to monitor and see if there is a pattern.  Try to be discrete and help that student out without singling them out.  Make them think they are getting the same difficulty level of work as the others but give them something a bit easier and more on their level, you may find their avoidance/negative behaviors have reduced!  Add some visuals, the whole group could probably benefit from them.  Maybe give them choices to help them get started!

Unfortunately, I cannot share with you some pictures/specific ideas of how I do reward systems in my speech room since I am anonymous and it may give me away!  But I have shared in the past a motivation board I have used with my low functioning students that require immediate reinforcement/reward.  You can learn more about it by clicking HERE!

I hope my tips/suggestions help you!!  Don't fear behavior management...it will make your life so much easier...I promise!

Love It & List It: Favorite Technology (linky party)

It is that time of the month again when Jenna over at Speech Room News hosts her famous love it and list it linky party!  This month, the theme is favorite technology!

As you can tell by my MASSIVE app reviews, one way I use technology is with my iPad.  I LOVE my apps, especially those by Virtual Speech Center and Smarty Ears.  How do I pick apps!?  Those that can be used with multiple students, collect data, and allow for differentiation!

I also like to use some computer games from Lakeshore Learning.  They don't collect data but they do provide some harder concepts for my older students.  It makes drilling with passages a bit more exciting.  For example, click here for an example of an inferencing game that I have.  I have used it on a Smart Board (when I had one) or a laptop on my therapy table!

I also love to make interactive games to meet the specific goals of my students.  I often use Powerpoint templates that can be found HERE!  What have I made and used?

• Hollywood Squares game to work on describing
• Who Wants To Be A Millionaire to work on answering comprehension questions using graphic organizers/note-taking strategies and a story we have read together
• Jeopardy:  to work on the different types of context clues strategies

Last but not least, I also use You Tube for a variety of purposes.  It may be to show a video clip to represent a social skill, show an example of a vocabulary concept, or to work on auditory comprehension/answering questions!  Click HERE to view my previous post on some clips I've used in the past to incorporate classroom curriculum into my therapy sessions!  Aren't you curious how I used Friends in speech therapy?!

Technology is just plain motivating for our students!  Any way possible to incorporate it, I will!  How do you use it!?  I hope I provided you with some new ideas!

Love It & List It: Fluency Favorites! (Linky Party)

It is that time again, time for Jenna over at Speech Room News to host her Love It & List It monthly linky party!  This month, the theme is fluency favorites!!

I have several favorites to share with you!  Some I have posted about in the past!  I purchased a book from Stutteringhelp.org website.  This book, Wendi's Magical Voice is a great book to read with your student(s).

It tells the story about a witch named Wendi that stutters.  It is great to read out loud because the character stutters throughout the story.  It forces you and your student to make themselves fake stutter (which is a strategy!  teaches students that they can have control over it).  This story can elicit so many conversations about emotions and situations.

Which products do I have available to work on fluency?

Fluency Activity Pack

Movie Ticket Talking

Speech Journal

Thumbs Up to Star Speech

or you can get all of these in one money saving BUNDLE!

When working on fluency, the counseling piece IS SO IMPORTANT!! It is important for students to learn to rate their emotions, fears, and own speech in various scenarios and situations.  How do they feel before the disfluency? During?  After?  Make charts with them and have them rate their fears and feelings.  Which part was worse for them?  The anticipation?  The actual getting stuck?  Or afterwards wondering what their communication partner thinks?  By understanding where and when they are feeling most fears and anticipations about their speech the easier it will be for you to plan sessions to work on it!  

It is also important that your students/clients are motivated to work on it.  If they aren't interested, you cannot force them!!  You may need to counsel the parents/teachers about this!  It is sometimes harder for caregivers/educators to cope than anything. 

Work with older students that stutter?  Check out this website called Stuttering is Cool.  This website has podcasts about stuttering with confidence.  It also has open-mic podcasts where you can call and leave a voicemail using a widget on the website or you can record and email a sound file.  This allows students to participate in conversations on the site!  I recommend browsing this site and sharing it with your older students.  You will be SO glad you did!  It is a great way for your students to realize they aren't alone, there are others out there that stutter and feel the same way about their speech as they do!

I hope my favorites have helped you out!!  Maybe you can add them to your therapy sessions?!!?  Check out what your other favorite SLP bloggers love to use by going to visit Speech News Room's site and check out who linked up!

Love It & List It: Social Skills! (Linky Party)

As SLPs, we are often consulted about or work directly with students with social skills goals.  Although in my district/building, the social workers/school psychologists take on this role primarily, I often address these skills indirectly while working on language goals or to teach my students the language skills necessary in order to then work on social skills with the other professionals.  Thanks to Jenna over at Speech Room News, it is that time again to link our blog posts.  This month's topic is SOCIAL SKILLS!

Here are some common phrases/prompts/questions you can hear me say in my speech room to address pragmatic skills goals:

• "Is that what we are talking about?"
• "Look at your neighbor and tell them it is 'YOUR TURN'!"
• "If our topic is ____, should we be talking about ____? How about ___?"
• "Let's keep the conversation going!" 
• "Tell me more!"

Over the last 2 years, I have blogged about several social skills activities that I use in my therapy room.  Below I have provided links to my favorites!

Topic Initiation

Apps that Promote Social Skills

Turn Taking & Topic Maintenance

You Are A Social Detective Product Review

Those are just several of my top favorite social skills posts.  You can easily find ALL of mine by clicking the "social skills" tab at the top of the blog!!

Below are more of my favorite games/books/products to work on social skills:

(Note...this post contains Amazon Affiliate links)

Love It & List It! Linky! (HOLIDAY ACTIVITIES!)

It is that time of the month again, (no, not that one)...but linky party time hosted by Jenna over at Speech Room News!  This month....holiday activities!!

I have been posting like crazy (facebook, blog, and instagram) my favorite holiday activities that my speech kiddos have been busy working on.  Below are some highlights:

We have been busy working on listening and understanding key story elements with my "Next Stop North Pole" activity!  Click here to view my latest blog post about this activity!  Click HERE to learn more about this activity!

We have also been busy making ugly Christmas sweaters!!  My students thought this was HYSTERICAL!!  I was shocked to see how many did not know the humor behind the concept "ugly Christmas sweater."  I found some clean/appropriate images on Google Images of people wearing these sweaters to show them!  Click HERE to learn more about this activity and using it to work on listening for details, following directions, and describing. 

Do you love Brennan Bear?  This adorable story/activity comes from Linguisystem's Listening for Language All Year 'Round book!  I took the visuals it came with and added some Boardmaker symbols to make the story completely interactive!  This helped my students understand the vocabulary and recall the sequences!  They had so much fun placing the various items into the stocking (prepositions and following directions) and then competing to answer questions about the story heard!  They even wanted to retell the story themselves!

Of course the Old Lady came to visit!!  My students LOVE when she comes out to play!!  I like to use my sentence strips made from Boardmaker symbols to help my students express my target in complete utterances.  As you can see above, we were working on answering "why" questions using "because!"

There were SOOOO many more activities jumping around my therapy room the last few weeks but I'd hate to make you read a post a million pages long!