Get on a roll this year!

Context helps us achieve flow in our work, both in our own and students' enjoyment of it, as well as ease of planning. A study by Gillam, Gillam and Reece (2012) also found context linked to EBP, with improvements in sentence and discourse formulation measures when "clinicians treated multiple linguistic targets using meaningful activities with high levels of topic continuity." What contexts you pick are up to you, but I have one suggestion to start: the playground and recess. A couple ideas in this flow:

Scratch Jr.
This free resource from MIT Media Lab is available as an iPad app or on Chromebooks. Coding is basically language teaching, a context for us to help students follow directions, work with characters and settings, and describe movements that result. It is also a big causal (because/so) and conditional (if/then) context. Scratch Jr. provides mini-curriculums including one allowing you to simulate playground games! The teaching guides here can be modified by taking a screenshot of the key directions, like so:

Tells you what to do...

Shows your students what to do

Not so complicated, and very fun!

Practice Playground Games
Make visual supports via Comic Strip Conversations (with marker and whiteboard or Doodle Buddy/Book Creator) and practice playing active games. This will give your students many language opportunities and also be skill-building activities for actual recess.

Pair with Picture Books about Recess
Try The Recess Queen (O'Neill) or Do Not Bring Your Dragon to Recess (Gassman), both providing context for social and narrative teaching opportunities.  Psst: find read-aloud video versions on YouTube.

Playground Physics
For upper elementary students, try this free app from the series of "Noticing Tools" from the New York Hall of Science. You can video students running or doing playground actions and measure speed and various scientific measures. Lots of narrative and expository language can ensue, as well as being a social context of moving to an outdoor space together and observing ("body in the group").


Also consider that a good chunk of the fun and instructive Zones of Regulation: Exploring Emotions app plays out in a playground setting, exploring how daily events change our zones and prompt us to use tools to regulate ourselves.

I'm sure you can think of many other activities going with this context, tech-related or not! Please let us know in the comments if you do.

Considering your professional development schedule this year? Check out Sean's offerings for training sessions.

Summer Study Series on Mindwing

As you may know, I continue to blog monthly on the website of Mindwing Concepts Inc, creators of some of my favorite tools, Story Grammar Marker® and Thememaker. This summer I wrote four posts summarizing recent research and published articles. The goal of these is to provide summer "food for thought," each post with a little tech tie-in. In case you missed them, here they are:

An evidence-based inference and narrative curriculum (free) for you.

What is "rhetorical competence" and how does it connect to comprehending language in school?

Using science topics and curriculum as a context for developing expository language and use of causals at the sentence level.

Summarizing Lynne Hewitt's great tutorial on narrative language and ASD.

photo by LocusResearch on flickr

Note: author is paid consultant for Mindwing Concepts, Inc for provision of blog content and presentation material, but receives no compensation should you visit their website or purchase products.

Come check us out! 3 Presentations at ASHA Orlando in November!

I've been in solid vacation mode since the beginning of July. It's really been awesome. A week down in Cape Cod, then trips to 6 National Parks including Shenandoah, then the Utah "Mighty 5" of Canyonlands, Arches, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, and Zion, that trip in the space of one week. Something everyone should do--maybe not the 5 parks in one week part, but we did well. I'm a hiker, not hardcore, but firmly believing being so enhances any trip to a National Park, bringing you beyond the "scenic drive" to awesome vistas and offering an incredible experience in the process. Utah particularly brought me the "opportunity" to work on my aeroacrophobia- a pretty debilitating fear of high open spaces. Canyonlands, for example, puts you on a 1000-foot mesa (2000 if you count the ledge down to the Colorado), on a trail 5-10 feet from no railing. This was worse for me than what became easier and unavoidable, high exposed ledges next to a canyon wall, which I tackled at every park after that. But an amazing time.

In any case, in the meantime I received the great news that all 3 of my submissions for ASHA Orlando were accepted. I am headed to Orlando next week to conduct follow-up workshops for Orange County Public Schools across two days, so it will feel like a second home over the coming months. I am happy to again be collaborating with the awesome clinicians and telepractice trainers at Waldo County General Hospital in Belfast Maine (see below, Nathan Curtis and Amy Reid). As I have stated previously, I am not currently a telepractitioner, but my background in instructional technology has helped open great conversations about the role of tech in setting contexts for therapy activities. The info for each session is below; I hope to see some of you there!

Topic Area: Telepractice
Session Number: 1048
Title: Imagine Integration: Incorporating Evidence-Based Methodologies in Telepractice
Session Format: Seminar 2-hours
Day: Thursday, November 21, 2019
Time: 10:30 AM- 12:30 PM
Author(s): Nathan Curtis (PRESENTING AUTHOR: Author who will be presenting), Amy Reid (PRESENTING AUTHOR: Author who will be presenting), Sean Sweeney (PRESENTING AUTHOR: Author who will be presenting)

Topic Area: Language and Learning in School-Age Individuals
Session Number: 1338
Title: Not Just for Mickey Mouse: Applying Animation Tools in Language & Social Interventions Session Format: Seminar 2-hours
Day: Friday, November 22, 2019
Time: 7:30 AM -9:30 AM
Author(s): Sean Sweeney (PRESENTING AUTHOR: Author who will be presenting)

Topic Area: Language and Learning in School-Age Individuals
Session Number: 1836
Title: Show Them the World (Knowledge): Pairing Picture Books & Apps for Contextualized Language Intervention
Session Format: Seminar 1-hour
Day: Saturday, November 23, 2019
Time: 11:30 AM- 12:30 PM
Author(s): Sean Sweeney (PRESENTING AUTHOR: Author who will be presenting)

Considering your professional development schedule this year? Check out Sean's offerings for training sessions.