Using Bite-R in Speech Therapy

 

Happy Friday! I am really excited share a therapy tool that I have been using with my students (and my own son!) called Bite-R with you all. Before I start telling you all about my Bite-R experience, I want to introduce you to Susan Haseley. She is a speech-language pathologist and the creator of Bite-R. Susan had two students that were unable to achieve the R sound and ended up being her inspiration to invent this device in 2013. I met Susan at ASHA a few years ago. I was intrigued by her demonstration and the research she presented on her invention. At the time, I didn't have many articulation students on my caseload so I did not end up purchasing a kit. But fast forward to this year where I have a ton of kids with only R on my caseload... I reached back out to Susan about giving Bite-R a try, and here we are today!

What is Bite-R?

The Bite-R is a tactile therapy device that helps bring awareness to the movement, tension, and stability needed to produce the /r/ sound correctly. The device is made with an elastic tension band that helps create sensory motor memory. /R/ has always been one of the hardest sounds to teach because it is produced in the back of the mouth making it more difficult to show our students correct placement. The Bite-R gives the student the tactile cues of correct placement along with our verbal cues for correct production. I am definitely more of a visual learner, so if you are like me and want to see how this works, you can check out  Susan's video demonstrations, here. 

What's Included?

I personally own the Start Up Kit. The Kit includes 2 Bite-Rs with Cases, 1 Practice Deck, 1 Manual, 1 Instruction Booklet, Charting Form and Sentence Analysis forms. The Practice Deck provides a list of 30 functional words that contain R in a variety of positions and contexts (vowels, blends, consonantal) and the common misarticulations for each word with instructions for remediation. The Manual includes a chapter specifically on vowels and a chapter that goes in depth with those children who don't make successful productions right away. All kits come with a certificate for free live online training with Susan, which I highly recommend. 

So, how did it work?

I really was pleased with Bite-R and how well the tactile cues from this device works. It's important to make sure the client is comfortable with the device being placed in their mouth. Letting him/her hold Bite-R and really check it out to learn how it works first was helpful. Students don't practice their words with the device in. They use it for a way to feel correct placement for a few seconds, then take it out to practice target words now that they knowl how /r/ should feel. Since this is something I am placing in a child's mouth, I made sure to share this program and the evidence based research with my students' parents before we started.  

My personal opinion is that this product would be ideal for private practice therapists working with students one on one. Not that school based therapists wouldn't benefit from this, but you really want to give the student maximum attention for placement using the device. I love the practice deck with cards showing mouth placement for students to imitate. The words are very functional and ideal for making a copy of to send home for practice. I would highly recommend this product to other therapists working with children with speech sound disorders, especially those that only have R left to correct and are really struggling for correct placement. 

This post was sponsored by Bite-R. I was given the start up kit in exchange for a blog review. All opinions expressed in this blog post are mine. 

Making Magic Words in Speech!

And for my next trick.... Magic Words!  Don't you just love when you find an activity that makes your students just light up? Occasionally, speech can become a little dull, especially if you have a student that has been with you for a while. Finding new ways to make speech practice fun and exciting can be a little difficult. Magic Words is a fun way to get your kids excited and get a lot of practice in, too!

All you need for this activity is a plain piece of white paper, a white crayon, watercolors, and a paintbrush. I got this Crayola watercolor set with a brush from Target for just over a dollar. Before the kids come in to speech, I write their target words for the day on the paper with white crayon. When they arrive, I tell them the paper is magic paper that makes special words appear when they paint! (or you could say the paint is magic.... whatever works!) 

As the students paint on the paper, the paint won't stick to the crayon, so it makes their words appear like magic! When they discover a new word, I have them practice that word 5 times or put it in a sentence, depending on their level. The amount of giggles that come out of this activity is pretty darn amazing. 

I have used this activity for more than just speech words. I have also written sight words, spelling words, numbers, letters, a secret message... just about anything will work! Just this morning I  drew shapes for a little guy learning those.  I personally haven't tried this, but was a great way to get kids engaged during teletherapy! You would have all the materials on your end and do the painting. The student can practice their word as it appears on your paper! 

I hope this activity will bring a fresh, new idea to your speech room!

Speech Therapy Games That Get Lots of Repetitions!

 Who doesn't love games? I know that more than half of the reasons that my students look forward to coming to speech is to see what game we get to play that day. I mean, I chose to be a pediatric speech therapist as my profession because I wanted to have fun with kids every day (among other reasons of course!)

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I am constantly looking for new games to play in speech. But when looking at games, there are certain criteria I require for it to be a game we play in speech. It must be a simple game. Not a lot of rules, not a lot of complicated pieces. And definitely not something that takes a long time to set up. It's a bonus when the game is open ended enough that I could easily make up my own rules for the game. I also need the game to be fast paced. And one that easily allows turn taking.

I have these criteria in place because I want to get lots of repetitions of speech productions during my short sessions with the kids. Research has shown that successful speech therapy is tied to at least 100 speech productions in a session. Fast paced, turn taking games allows the student to get in lots of practice between turns in the game. We want maximum productions in a minimal amount of time. I complied a list of my go-to speech therapy games and linked them below. 

Have one you love to use? Please share!

Games shown above:

Pop the Pig

Greedy Granny

Pop up Pirate

Shark Bite

Let's Go Fishin'

 Jenga

Candy Land

Connect 4

Chutes and Ladders

Using Written Language to Improve Spoken Language (and Vocabulary!)

Sometimes speech therapy can get monotonous. Working on the same sounds, using the same games... it can get a little boring. Which is probably why we find ourselves constantly perusing the Dollar Spot at Target and searching Pinterest on a regular basis. We are always looking for new, engaging activities. Sometimes the things we think are boring old activities, are actually something new and fun to another therapist. So today, I want to share with you an activity I've been using for years to teach and engage my articulation students. 

If you have worked in an elementary school setting, you have probably heard the term, "rainbow writing." If you're unfamiliar with it, rainbow writing is having a student write a word multiple times, in different colors. It gives great opportunities for lots of repetition and their papers just look so colorful. Typically this was done with sight words, but I started using this technique with articulation words in my speech sessions. When I was in the schools, I had a rainbow writing center that I used with my groups. (If you're interested in using centers in your speech sessions, here is a blog post I did on the (informal) research project I did on speech centers back in 2013.)

To make this activity as easy and low-prep as possible, I created a "Rainbow Doodles" printable packet. In this packet, each sound is listed in words in the initial, medial, and final positions. Have your students rainbow write these words as they practice them. Multisensory learning (seeing, hearing, saying, etc) can enhance learning and help with processing the information. When the child hears his/her therapist say the word, reads the word, copies the word (multiple times), and says it out loud, they are engaging all their senses. 

A 2019 study posted by the ASHA Wire looked at how written form during instruction aids vocabulary learning. The results of the study showed "strong evidence that the presence of a word's written form leads to improved learning of its spelling and spoken form. There is also some evidence that it may lead to better learning of a words meaning." 

When I read this study, it made me think of using the Rainbow Doodles activity in therapy. Instead of just repeating words produced by the therapist, seeing the words can help the child with spelling. Seeing the letters in the word and associating letter names and sounds is directly related to articulation skills. The article written on the study also mentioned that "a small number of studies have also shown that the presence of a word's written form benefits vocabulary learning in children with developmental language disorder, autism, down syndrome, and reading difficulties." Vocabulary is the foundation of language and comprehension. It's directly associated with listening comprehension, reading, writing.... all the skills we work on as speech therapists! 

You can download a copy of my Rainbow Doodles packet by clicking on the image below. (This is actually a very old activity I have had on TpT for years. I recently gave it a facelift and added some more sounds to it. If you already own it, go re-download it!)

Happy writing!!

Source: https://pubs.asha.org/doi/full/10.1044/2019_LSHSS-VOIA-18-0135

2 Goals, 1 Therapist......Working on Articulation& Pronouns in the Same Session!

Over the past 11 years as an SLP I have seen so many students qualify for speech, but not language therapy. Either their scores aren't low enough to qualify in their school setting or their language difficulties don't show up on the test they are given at that time. But, after working with them on their articulation skills and having conversations with the child, you can hear that many of them also need some help with grammar. I have found pronouns to be a big part of that.

A research study done in 2013 showed that "a difficulty in the acquisition of grammar can interfere with the ability to communicate successfully and may flow into other grammar and language-based tasks." As SLP's we want our students to communicate at the best of their abilities. In the study, children were provided play-based grammar instruction that was made up of teaching, modeling, prompting, recasting, and then given feedback on their productions. The children in the study made great progress, however, they did find that children were less likely to make progress when they had articulation errors that affected the sound or sound pattern needed to produce the targets.

I have been trying to incorporate grammar instruction into my articulation therapy sessions, without taking away the from the actual articulation therapy. I have done this through reading books, modeling through play, and structured activities that can target both goals at once. Because so many of my students needed pronoun practice in addition to articulation, I created an interactive activity that can work on both goals at the same time.

 The activity includes mats for speech sounds in the initial, medial, final, and combination positions. There is a mat for each of these sounds to use in a sentence with the he, she, him, her, they, or them pronouns.

 The mats are left open ended enough that you can use these in many different ways to meet your student's individual needs. Since making this, I have laminated them and used them as smash mats (smashing a ball of PlayDoh on the target as they are practiced), stacking mini erasers on the words as they practice, I've stamped dot markers on them, kept this file on my iPad as a no-print activity, and even taped them to the wall and shot nerf gun targets at the words! Whatever gets your students motivated, do it!

I am a private therapist and see all my students one on one, but these mats would be great for mixed groups since you can print one for each child and their individual need during a group lesson. 

I have this entire packet available in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. 

Click on the image below to check it out. 

Resource: Smith-Lock, K. M., Leitao, S., Lambert, L. & Nickels, L. (2013). Effective intervention for expressive grammar in children with specific language impairment. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 48(3), 265–282. 

Articulation Cut & Paste!

Raise your hand if you have a lot of students on your caseload that need hands on activities to keep themselves focused during speech? I try to incorporate movement and fine motor opportunities as frequently as I can in my therapy sessions. Research has shown that movement increases blood and oxygen flow which positively affects cognitive development. Plus, how many little ones can sit still at a table for 60, 45 or even 30 minutes?

 Because of all the wiggles I was getting, I decided to create a new cut and paste articulation packet for my students. Each page has a visual for mouth placement for correct production. I find this very helpful during sessions to point to as a reminder during practice. 

 Each page has 10 target words for each articulation sound. I purposely chose 10 words to make it easier to get to 100 repetitions before the activity is finished! (Research has shown that a high number of trials is needed to have success in therapy sessions) Have your student practice the word 5 times before they color it and 5 more times before he/she pastes it. You can even add 5 more in there before the child cuts the pictures out!

 There is a version of this activity for readers and a version for non-readers. The reader version includes words and pictures. The non-reader version is pictures only. This will help your students feel a little more independent when completing this! 

 This packet can be used in individual therapy, group therapy, or even sent home for homework. I have it available in my TpT store now. I can't wait to hear what your students think of it!

Click on the image below to see this activity in my store!

Words to Stick With! Homework Freebie

I am a big fan of sending home speech folders. Not just for sending homework, but for communication with the parent. They need to know what we are working on and hear about their child's progress so they can help him or her, too. Last year I wrote a post about what I include in my speech folders, you can check that out here. 

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But in addition to the communication aspect of speech folders, I do like to send homework once a week. Nothing major. Nothing that will take up a lot of time. But something that will help the child practice his or her goals when they aren't with me. I am a huge fan of simple things to send home. I am also a huge fan of pretty colorful things. So, with those two things in mind, Words to Stick With was created! Plus, I am totally digging the cactus right now... along with pineapples and flamingos :)

The cacti are actually a font from A Perfect Blend.

 3 slips fit on a page and they are black and white so they are friendly to your color ink! Don't these look awesome on AstroBrights paper?! 

To use these, just print and cut! I leave these in the front pocket of my therapy binder so I can easily grab one when I need to. It takes 10 seconds to fill these out and send home in their speech folder. And they are the perfect size to put up on a refrigerator and keep up all week to practice!

You can download these for FREE in my store, here!

Gone Fishin' for Good Speech!

Maybe it's just me, but I have a habit of rotating therapy games. Since I am a traveling SLP, I can't carry my entire inventory of games on me at all times (trust me, I have tried!) So I tend to carry the same game or two around with me for a few weeks before I switch it out for another. 

(This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. That means if you purchase something from Amazon using my link, I my earn a few bucks!)

Lately, this Let's Go Fishing game has been a HUGE hit and requested daily. When the kids love a game this much, my first reaction is to create an activity that will allow them to use the beloved game while working on their goals at the same time. 

So I created Gone Fishing for Articulation Mats! To play, have your students take turns fishing. When they catch a fish, have them put the fish on the mat on top of one of the target words. They can practice the word or make up a sentence for the word, depending on their skill level. But there really are a ton of ways you can use these mats, I have even used them as smash mats!

My daughter got this game for Christmas last year and loved it so much, I knew my students would too. I found the game on Amazon for $7.99! You can check it out, here.  Happy fishing!!

My Favorite Therapy Game, KAPOW!

I am constantly on the hunt for any fun ways to get my students excited about therapy, especially articulation. I have a love/hate relationship with articulation therapy. There is so much room for creativity when planning your sessions, but the games and crafts can get old quick. 

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For years I have been playing a game called Kaboom! If you haven't heard of it, it is simply a game that requires popsicle sticks and a container. Target words are written on the popsicle sticks. Students take turns choosing a stick out of the container (I use a recycled 32oz yogurt container.) If they say their word correctly, they keep the stick. If they don't they put it back. (Now here comes the fun part!) If they pick a stick that says KABOOM on it, they have to yell KABOOM and put all their sticks back. So simple, right? But I swear the kids LOVE this game and you can elicit SO many good speech sounds in a short amount of time... data win!! I did not come up with this game, another fabulously creative teacher did, but I have seen this game used for letters, sight words, addition facts... anything!

The best part about this game is that it can be used for SO many goals. The bad part about this game was that I was purchasing way too many sticks and running out of room to store them. You can check out my blog post about this game from 2013 here. This was when I first started using the game and my baggie method of organizing the popsicle sticks were working. Throw in some mixed articulation groups and 7 different Kaboom game versions and that method quickly failed me.

So flash forward to 3 years later and I finally came up with a way to organize my sticks. In fact, the new and improved game I now call, KAPOW! Only requires 25-30 sticks. I created target pictures/cards that I organize in a binder and attach to the sticks with velcro. (I bought a giant roll of velcro dots on Amazon for under $15)The game can be changed in a snap depending on what goal you are addressing.

I am so excited to have this new and improved version of the game and I am very excited to share it with you! You can download KAPOW from my TpT store by clicking, here! 

Articulation MOVE!

Not a day goes by that I don't hear something on the news or from a student about the Pokemon Go app! I have not personally played it, but I can feel the excitement about the game so I decided to make a speech version! I thought this would be the perfect back to school game to get your students excited about speech... I would like to introduce you to Articulation MOVE!

This activity includes a cell phone for each child and adorable little articulation monsters. Before you play, print, cut, and laminate the phones and monsters. I cut out the middle section of the phones so can see through them. 

Before the students come into your room, hide the monsters around the room. Then, give each child a phone and let them go hunting for target speech words! This activity includes sounds for /p, b, d, t, m, n, w, s, z, sh, ch, th, and r/ so you can use this with large groups or even for center work!

I also included some accountability worksheets so the kids can record the words they found. I included a worksheet for listing the words, recognizing their target sound in the words, and making a sentence for the words they find. 

I plan on making versions of this game for letters, sight words, basic concepts, and other common goals. Please comment below and let me know what goal you could use this with!

You can download your own copy of Articulation Move in my TpT store here! 

It's 50% off for the next 24 hours!

My Speech Snow Globe Craftivity!

I am a sucker for a good craftivity. Any time I can incorporate movement and hands on interaction into a lesson, count me in! Since the weather has been quite chilly lately (yes, even in Florida!) I created a snow globe activity for my speech students.

Included in this packet is a color and black and white version of the snow globe. I found the snow globe clipart from Teacher's Clipart store on TpT. It is purposely left as a simple template so you can use it for just about any goal you are targeting. 

 Last week I used this with my preschool articulation students. I download target words from Mommy Speech Therapy and had the students practice their words or put them into a sentence before gluing them onto their snow globe!

They turned out really cute! I sent them home so they could practice the words in their snow globe that week with their families. You can download this craftivity for FREE in my TpT store here!

How I Use Articulation Activity Notebooks!

We all know that articulation therapy can get a little dull. There are only so many times you can practice your sound before you play Pop the Pig. I am always on Pinterest searching for fun, new ways to make articulation therapy more fun. Interactive notebooks have been super popular lately.  I am in love with the idea of each student having their own notebook for so many reasons. Kids loving having their own notebook. They take ownership and pride in their notebook, so they really do their best work (most of the time!) It also is like a running record of the students' progress. You can see as the notebook goes on through the year how they have moved from simply practicing sounds, to words, and now phrases. It's great for sharing with parents and teachers. It also helps when it comes time to write up new goals, IEPs, or plans of care.

So, needless to say, I joined the fun and created some interactive activity notebooks for my students. Here is how I use them:  I usually pull the notebook out once a week. Before the session starts, I will print off an activity from the packet and have it ready for the kids. The nice thing about all of these notebooks, is that each and every sound packet has the same activities in them. So, if you are working with a group of students that are each working on different sounds, they can all complete the candy jar activity, just with their own target sounds on their page!

Some examples of activities included are: Rainbow Writing, Tic-Tac-Toe, Word Searches, Color by Word, word sorting, Arctic 4-Square, and lots of cut, color, and glue activities. My students have really enjoyed using these notebooks. It's a great change of pace from skill and drill therapy, but still targets their speech goals!

It's a work in progress, I don't have all the sounds finished yet… but they are coming! Those of you that have already purchased some of the notebook activities from my store, thank you! I see your requests for more sounds and I promise, as soon as the baby gives me a good nap, I'll crank a few more out! Please leave a comment letting me know what sounds you would like to see a notebook for! Check out the notebooks that are already in the store here!