Apps for Therapy Archives - thedabblingspeechie

Monster Speech Therapy Materials That Are Fun!

by thedabblingspeechie | Oct 8, 2019 | Apps for Therapy, Therapy Materials

If you are new to planning therapy around themes, then you will love all the ideas in this blog post. Today, I am sharing about monster speech therapy materials that are fun for your students. I think you will like using them, too!

To plan therapy around a theme, you simply pick a topic or a book that you want to use in therapy. Then, you find books and activities that will support your theme. By using a theme, you can heavily target specific vocabulary used with that theme. Amazon affiliate links are included for your convenience.

Using monsters as your next theme is perfect for increasing engagement with your students, because most kids seem to love talking about those silly creatures.

Monster Books You Can Use in Speech Therapy

There are a ton of great monster-themed books. You can work on story retell, vocabulary, answering wh- questions, describing, grammar, and social skills using books. I listed some of my faves below and what target areas you can focus on.

The Color Monster by Anna Llenas is great for teaching emotions.

How to Catch a Monster by Adam Wallace can target vocabulary and story retell.

Go Away, Big Green Monster by Ed Emberley is great for students working on simple vocabulary and language.

The Monster Who Lost His Mean by Tiffany Strelitz Haber can be used for social skills and also has opportunities to work on phonological awareness skills.

Monsters Love School by Mike Austin has a ton of unique verbs to target while reading the story.

Little Shop of Monsters by R.L.Stine has so many great adjectives and describing words to introduce to your students.

What are your favorite monster-themed books to use in your therapy sessions? Share in the comments. Please let me know what skills you target, too!

Build-A-Monster Speech Therapy App

Making your very own silly monster is very motivating for children! Your students will love creating their own monster using the Sago Mini Monsters App. This app is under $5, so it is affordable for you SLPs on a budget.

With this Mini Monsters app, you can target the following skills:

-Initiating requests and comments

-Working on describing skills

-Targeting verbs

– Practicing sequencing steps to make the monster

Watch a YouTube tutorial to see the monster app in action. How would you use this app in therapy? Let me know in the comments!

Target Following Directions and Prepositions with Silly Monsters

Have your students make their own monster puppets with the FREE monster puppet printables in my TPT store. Use popsicle sticks (Amazon affiliate links included) and tape to create fun monster therapy materials.

You can work on following directions and using prepositions with your monster puppets.

With your monster puppets, you can also work on has/have and “who” questions. Place the monsters on the table and put mini objects next to the monsters. Students can explain what each monster has with a grammatically correct sentences.

Ask your students “Who has ____?” or give clues about an item and have your students identify “who” has the item.

Reinforcer Games For Mixed Groups

When I have a group working on different goals, one way I keep the students engaged is by having a generic game to play in between turns.

If you want to use a monster theme in your mixed group, then you can use this roll and color monster game that is a FREE printable in my store. You just print the sheets and grab a die and the stimulus items your students need to work on in speech therapy. Whatever number the student rolls on the die is how many monsters they get to color. Whoever colors all of their monsters first wins!

Learning Resources has a Twist and Match Monsters game that is great to use as a reinforcer for any goal. You can have some fun describing the monsters as you play, too.

Make Monster Paper Bag Puppets

I saw this paper bag monster puppet idea on I Heart Crafty Things. I thought it would be perfect for my younger students. During the craft you can work on requesting, commenting and the basic concept “on.” Then, your students can use the puppets to work on pretend play, following directions, doing verb actions and more!

You just need paper bags (I found color bags on Amazon), construction paper, scissors, and glue. If you want to use googly eyes, Dollar Tree has packages or you can use these eye stickers that I found on Amazon.

Teach Word Opposites and Adjectives

Work on teaching adjectives with the feed the monster activity. Students can work on describing the items by adjectives, as well as work on verb tenses.

To get some movement going in your therapy room, tape the word opposite monsters around your room. Then, students use the checklist to find the word opposites that the monsters are chomping on. These activities will help your wiggly students stay focused. See the picture below for an example of this word opposite activity! It is all part of my Monster Push-In Language Lesson Plan Guides for K-2 students.

Have your students work on initiating communication, describing, and practicing sequencing with this design a monster file folder activity. Kids will feel motivated to participate knowing that they get some say in what the monster will look like. Need these materials for your K-2 caseload? Grab them in my TPT store. There are a lot more tools included, such as a Google Slides presentation, a newsletter home to parents, book recommendations, YouTube video links, and more!

Need More Monster Speech Therapy Ideas?

In this blog post, I shared some other monster speech therapy ideas you can use with your students. My students especially loved making their own monsters with play dough!

What Monster Speech Therapy Materials Do You Use?

Do you have a fave monster speech therapy material you love to use with your students? I would love to know about it! You know I am all about adding new materials to my speech therapy stash. Let me know your favorite material in the comments.

Articulation Reading Passages & Activities To Help With Generalization

by thedabblingspeechie | Jan 16, 2018 | Apps for Therapy, articulation

Are you stuck with where how to get your student to generalize their speech sound? The student has it at the word and sentence level, but when they walk out of your room, they go straight back to their old speech sounds. I am right there currently with several students on my caseload. So, I have been trying to find more articulation carryover activities to help with generalization.

If you need articulation therapy ideas that will help you high repetitions, you can check out my articulation therapy ideas HERE.

Easy Articulation Carryover Activity Ideas Using Youtube

Youtube is your friend! Simon’s cat videos are perfect for practicing your student’s speech sounds while retelling the video, and answering wh-questions about the videos. Check out my blog post for how I use these free videos in therapy HERE.

Find How-To videos on youtube with your student’s target sound. The SLP can have their student watch the video and then explain “how to do” the process. So, if you have a student working on /r/, they can watch a youtube video about how to make popcorn. If you have a youtube channel, you can find videos and make playlists for the videos that you use by sound. I made QR codes and have the kids pick which video they want to watch. These are in my articulation carryover activities sets.

Articulation Carryover Activities At The Multiple Sentence Level

Some of my students are 80-90% accurate with single sentences, but they aren’t ready to be reading or doing conversational tasks just yet. So, I have activities that I use to work on my student’s articulation sounds at the multiple sentence level.

Find words that are related that have your student’s target sound to compare/contrast by similarities and differences.

Another activity is to have your student’s answer would you rather or what would you do questions.

An Idea To Work On Articulation Carryover At The Conversational Level

If you have students ready to work on their sounds at the conversational level, you can set a challenge before the session begins. Make a set number of errors that your student can not go over. Then, during the speech session, you can monitor your student’s production with whatever conversational task you plan. If the student has speech errors over the challenge number, then they didn’t meet the challenge.

I have set up that a speech challenge met can be turned in for a game day, bring a friend to speech, a bag of chips or whatever else the student and myself can come up with to earn.

If you need more conversation ideas for how students can practice their speech outside of the speech room, check out this blog post and how I use these activities.

Apps To Use For Articulation Carryover Activities

Have you heard of the voxer app? It is an app that acts like a walkie talkie. I was introduced to voxer by one of my previous principals that used voxer to communicate with her staff. The charter school that I worked at was very tech savvy, so the kids were all about using tech tools. With parent permission, I was able to use the voxer app to work on self monitoring with articulation generalization. We would ask the principal questions on voxer or tell the principal about the week. Then, I would have my students play back their recording to listen to their speech sounds.

If you own an ipad, the news-o-matic app is a great resource for working on articulation at the reading level. Kid friendly news articles are available every day. There are sometimes videos attached to the app, questions and key vocabulary that is defined. You can read more about this app on my blog post HERE.

Little Stories Pro by Little Bee Speech is an app that has 82 short stories that are loaded with targeted speech sounds. This app can be very helpful for meaningful articulation practice when reading as well as when answering comprehension questions and story retell. I like this app because when I don’t have time to search for books that have my student’s sound in the story, I can easily bring up this app.

Resources For Finding Reading Passages To Work On Articulation

Read Works is a free website that you can find leveled reading passages that are aligned with common core standards.

Newsela is a website that has differentiated, high interest texts that are organized by content area, so you can find all sorts of reading passages in different subject matters.

In my TPT store, I have Articulation Carryover Activity resources that include fiction & non-fiction reading passages for /r/, /s/, and /z/. These texts include visual cues and the occurrence of the sound in the passages have been counted, so documenting the student’s accuracy is a lot quicker.

Reader’s theater is a great way to work on self monitoring and students working on articulation practice with a structured speaking activity. If you are buddy buddy with some of the kinder/1st grade teachers, you may even be able to book a time when your students could go into the classroom and perform the reader’s theater for the class.

Scholastic Books a series that I really like to use for my mixed groups. The True or False series (amazon affiliate link included) have short non-fiction paragraphs that pose a question and students have to decide if it the information is true or false. Then, they turn the page to see if their answer is correct. These are great for reading to practice your articulation sound.

Scholastic Who Would Win Books are another series that align with common core curriculum and can help you target your student’s speech sounds in structured conversation. The SLP can have the students read a paragraph, summarize the facts from the book, or answer comprehension questions.

Using Visuals To Help With Self Monitoring With Articulation Carryover Activities

Visual reminders can help reduce the SLP using verbal cues/prompts. I have some visual speech sound reminders that I put on popsicle sticks, which you can grab the free printables HERE. Whatever the activity, the SLP can utilize these visual reminders during the articulation practice.

Articulation Carryover Weekly Homework Sheets

Trying to find ways to encourage students to practice their speech at home? I created an articulation carryover weekly worksheet that can be used to monitor their speech for the week. You can grab this download for FREE on my TPT store.

Kiwi Speech also has a weekly home practice tracker that is free in her store. I have used with students that I want them to see that practicing just 5 minutes a day can help them make progress. This tracker is really helpful for showing kids how to break down minutes they practice each week.

What resources or strategies do you use to help your students generalize their speech sounds into conversation? I would love to add some more tips to my SLP toolbox.

Need CEU Hours and Want to Learn More About Articulation Carryover

I took Pam Marshalla’s Carryover Techniques in Articulation and Phonology Course on Speech Therapy PD for CEUs and it was very helpful. It was practical and helped me to feel confident with how to provide with students in articulation therapy.

Use my code: SLPROCKSTAR to get $10 off either Speech Therapy PD subscription. I love that I can spend under $100 a year and get a ton of practical training and my CEUs covered!

Using the DUBSMASH app in speech therapy!

by thedabblingspeechie | Jun 26, 2016 | Apps for Therapy, social skills

Have you ever tried using the dubsmash app in speech therapy? It’s FREE and super entertaining. I wanted to share how I used the dubsmash app in speech therapy with my middle school students. I also prepared a little DUBSMASH video for your viewing pleasure, scroll down to the bottom of this post!

If you haven’t heard of dubsmash, You can download the app HERE! Dubsmash is an app that allows people to lip sync and video themselves performing a TV show, movie or music clip. It’s pretty entertaining and my family has enjoyed playing around with it.

Last year, when I worked with middle school students, I used it with my life skills students. Big Disclaimer here: Make sure you have previewed and chosen which soundbites you want to use. When I was experimenting at home with the app, I would sometimes click on a dub that looked “kid friendly” and was met with flavorful language to say the least.

I used the app mostly to engage my students who were working on functional social language and as reinforcement for participating in the group. This is what I discovered with trying out this app! I saw smiles emerge from my middle school students when I showed it to them. Initiating and commenting increased without me “teacher” prompting them to talk. I built trust and a relationship with my students using this app.

Here are a few other ways I thought you could use this app in therapy:

You can work on identifying emotions based on the tone of voice of the soundbite.
Work on facial expressions when the students create their dub.
Students can use their AAC devices to request, make comments, and engage how they feel about the dubsmash.
Expressing why you liked a dubsmash clip with a conjunction such as “I really liked this dubsmash because…….”
Practice turn taking and waiting. Also, working on sharing positive comments even if you don’t like the person’s dubsmash.
Give your students a social situation and then they have to chose which dubsmash would fit how the person could be feel or thinking during the social situation.

And last, but not least, use the dubsmash in speech therapy to send to your SLP colleagues and SPED team. You can send dubsmash videos via facebook messenger and text messages! Dubsmash is all about bringing the joy to communication and I dig it!!

So, if you have been following me for a while, you know that I like to have FUN! I invited, I mean coerced, I mean black mailed all my speech therapy blogger buddies to help me make a Dubsmash compilation. Check it out!! We had so much fun.

How would you use the dubsmash app in speech therapy?

Articulation Test Center By Little Bee Speech App Review

by thedabblingspeechie | Aug 9, 2014 | Apps for Therapy, articulation

Today I have the pleasure of sharing my personal experience with using the Articulation Test Center by Little Bee Speech. An app code was provided to me, so that I could try this app out with my speech students. No additional compensation was given. The words I am about to write are my own opinions and insights! BTW, I had to administer this test to my two year old because school is not in session. So my insights are reflected of working with the toddler age population. Take a peak at Little Bee Speech’s youtube video tutorial to get some more insights about this app.

Instantly, my daughter was very excited to see the vivid, real pictures. She loved having me record her voice and giggled when she heard herself on the voice recorder.

If my daughter didn’t know the word, I could push on the picture and it would be modeled. I could also record her response which is great when you aren’t sure of the production. Hanna loved hearing her voice and wanted to record every time after she saw me use that feature.

If there is an error, you slide the white tile up to the sound tile and it will replace the correct sound with the error. You can also document phonological processes and write notes in the event the student exhibited a distortion or an approximation.

Check out these cool picture scenes! These are for the speech sample that you can RECORD and transcribe. If you swipe your finger, you can access more of the picture scene. This is my favorite part of the app. I could also see you using this to grab a story sample or an informal language sample to analyze MLU, grammar and vocabulary usage.

If you have a little guy or gal that is quiet, you can have them click on the different characters in the picture scene and it will become enlarged on the screen. There will be a prompt question underneath the character that the student can answer.

What I love about this app:

Love the ability to record a sample of a student’s speech in conversation. This is a very cool built in feature. They have picture scenes and questions to help prompt elicitation of sounds.
The pictures are real photos and by purchasing this app, you will always have really good pictures that will never go out of date.
Don’t have to remember to bring an artic test between sites! This is a great resource for a traveling SLP.
You can email and/or print the results from the test. It also shows age of mastery for sounds, which is helpful for explaining speech development to parents. I love that I can copy and paste into a report in the event that I have given other measures in different areas such as language.
Great for progress monitoring and probing for new sounds especially with the picture scenes. You can see if the sounds are carrying over into spontaneous speech.
There is a rating after you give the speech sample for speech intelligibility. Although, it is an informal judgment, it helps provide a snap shot of the student’s overall speech.
The speech sample is an awesome feature! I love that I can record on my IPAD and it is with the student’s profile, so I don’t have to search around for the file. I am also able to transcribe the sample and it will be included in the report that is generated.
I like that the screener portion of the app is broken down by age. There are not a lot of cards in the screener portion except for ages 6 and above. This makes it a very quick tool to give to see if further testing is needed. A perfect solution if this student has RTI or on an SST plan.

Things I would like for the future in this app:

In the school setting, most SLP’s have to obtained standardized measures to determine eligibility. There are limitations with this assessment as it is not standardized. If you need a progress monitoring tool, this is definitely something that you would use often.
This app is priced reasonable for school districts and private practices, but some SLP’s may find the price for the app ($49.99) to be out of their price range to purchase with personal funds. I would definitely be more willing to spend money on this app if it was standardized.
There are 59 pictures in this test. My 2 year old had to take a break from the activity due to attention. For younger kids, this could be a problem and they may want to exit the app to play other apps.
There is no error code to mark a frontal or lateral lisp, but the app provides a notes page on each picture, where you can put a note about the students error.
It is very cool that there is a Screener and I wished that the screener for the 6 and up ages, would be shorter. There are 48 stimulus cards in the screener and 59 cards in the full test.

Overall, this app is pretty handy for an SLP and would be great for SLP’s working with those younger kids. I can even see this app being adapted to collect language samples, which is a plus! Grab this effective and easy to use articulation assessment tool on ITUNES and if you shop the back to school sale, you would be getting a great deal!

Who’s in the dog house? A Functional Communication Activity

by thedabblingspeechie | Feb 17, 2014 | AAC Communication, Apps for Therapy, Therapy Materials

I work with 5-6 year old moderate-severe students who are on the Autism Spectrum and many of them are working on simple cause/effect, joint attention, using 1-2 word phrases, and expressing their needs with pictures.I have found a material that many of the students enjoy, so I wanted to share in case you were needing some therapy ideas! This population stumps me all the time because finding what interests them is like a giant puzzle. Once you find the puzzle piece that fits, therapy is a blast!

You can find this toy on amazon (affiliate link included) or over at Learning Resources. My school district let me buy this toy last year and it has been very useful! Most of my 5-6 year old students are either emergent or entry level AAC users. The little ones that do use words are still needing a multimodal communication approach (words, visual pictures, sentences strips, etc) to help facilitate language in social situations and the classroom. So, I have been trying to find ways to use a set therapy material and tailor it for all levels of communication.

I made a Doghouse Activity Communication Board for my students that I want to build 2-3 word phrases without some any verbal prompts that you can grab on boardmaker share. I also made a Doghouse Activity using Go Talk 20 template because I am trying out the Go-Talks with a couple of my students. Trying to build MLU and the use of attributes, so I put the colors and how the bones feel on my boards. Tried to get some comments in there as well!

I also made a static communication board using Expressive from Smarty Ears Apps. It is $29.99 and contains 10,000 picture icons you can use to set up for your student’s communication needs. This app has helped me figure out if a student can put together 2-3 icons independently and understand how to erase and add a message. I did not really use this app as an advanced communication tool where the student had to navigate through several folders to create a message because I work with lower level students.

One of the cool features is that I can use REAL photos, so this is helpful for students who may need visuals of their teachers or a photo to understand the vocabulary words.

It is very helpful to be able to add a color to certain buttons to help with teaching verbs, nouns, and descriptors. You can add more than 24 icons in a folder, but the student would have to be able to scroll up and down to create messages. Check out the video tutorial on Smarty Ears Apps which is very user friendly and a quick overview of how you can navigate the app.

What I love:

1. Great price for the amount of picture icons you receive with this app and what you are able to customize.

2. I love most of the picture icons and feel they are easy to understand. The option to use photos helps when there is not a good picture for the word a person is wanting. I also like that the option for real photos can open the door for using this app with emergent and entry level students.

3. I like how I can create folders for set activities and organizing lessons is very user friendly.

4. This has been a tool for me to determine if a student is able to navigate a static board and could potentially move to a more advanced communication device or if they need to stick in the entry level devices.

Improvements:

1. Sometimes the voice output is difficult to hear and understand.

2. When I played around with this app by myself, it took a long time to formulate a message because I had to go to different folders to find words. It would be nice to have easier access to core vocabulary and phrases, but I think you could customize this by making a folder with common phrases for the particular user. In terms of advanced users, they may get frustrated with creating a message quickly. I don’t believe there is a keyboard either, which is also a limitation.

3. It did take me some time to program one activity (what AAC device doesn’t take a long time)! This is more of a question: Can I upload an activity folder I created onto another IPAD or would I have to re-program that device with the icons all over again?

Overall, I like this app a lot and I think for the price it is a useful investment for trying out a communication app with a student. It has been helpful for my students who need visual supports for communicating. This app appears to be best for intermediate communication users, but can be use with entry level if customized with the different folders. What do you think of this app? I would love to hear your feedback about my communication boards I made with boardmaker. I am still learning how to create AWESOME AAC boards!!

Graphics by JW Ilustrations and I’m Lovin’ Lit

Phono Learning Center by Smarty Ears App Review & Giveaway!

by thedabblingspeechie | Sep 1, 2013 | Apps for Therapy

Today, I am going to share a MUST HAVE app from Smarty Ears that is designed for your students with a significant phonological processing sound system disorder. The awesome part about this app is that it has been designed to fit the evidence-based cycles technique from Barbara Hodson. Watch this Smarty Ears Tutorial for a visual demonstration on how to use this app in therapy!

To set up for a student, you press ‘add player’ and then you can confirm your student’s profile. There is an option to include auditory bombardment and if you want to work at the word, phrase or sentence level. Then, just pick which processes you want to remediate. I love the feature of being able to put in a picture of the student. My students loved getting their picture taken with my IPAD and then seeing their face each time we went to work!

After your student completes the auditory bombardment activity, your student can pick from four different activities: hot air balloon, matching, basket paper, or puzzle. As they do each activity, there are a set of words with visual supports that the students practice throughout the activity. This app closely follows the cycles approach and chooses only 5-6 words that the child says over and over to reduce the impact of co-articulation. This allows the child to really work on the correct placement, manner and voicing for the targeted sound.

The other cool feature about this app is that you can take data while the activity is taking place. I love how you have the option of taking data based on cues/prompts or the traditional correct/incorrect approach.
Why I love this app?

The graphics are bright, colorful and engaging.

There is an auditory bombardment activity to start each session, a much needed component to cycles approach therapy

I love how this app has 4 different activities to choose from, so students won’t get bored easily and will get lots of practice in!

Being able to choose how you want to take data, is a nice bonus. I love how I can store data on each student and email it to myself or parents!!

The option to add a photo or cartoon avatar is a great feature for little ones to feel independent and successful knowing they have a special page just for them.

Having a bad day? Numerous IEP’s, assessments and paperwork taking away from planning therapy? This app allows you to not have to plan out all the elements for a cycles approach. Of course, you have to mix up therapy, so the little ones don’t just use an IPAD every session, but this app is great for the traveling SLP who can’t take lots materials in his/her car or when your little ones are needing something to keep them focused!

This app is a great for taking progress report data because it is quick and easy to navigate as well as you can easily store data and input that information later on the IEP.

All in all, this app is well thought out and worth every penny. Thank you Smarty Ears for allowing me the opportunity to try out this wonderful app and share my thoughts (no other compensation was provided, just this cool app for review)! Grab your copy on ITUNES. Smarty Ears graciously provided a copy for one of my faithful followers to win!! Enter below to get a free copy!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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