HELP! Joint Attention Suggestions
September 29, 2008
Here is a question that was emailed to us:
“Everyone always talks about joint attention. Does anyone have concrete examples or a hierarchy?”
Because of decreased social interaction, children with autism display difficulties in joint attention, a skill that children who interact with other children develop naturally. Therefore, children with autism need to be taught how to play and develop joint attention skills. Joint attention is the ability to attend to the same object or activity that someone else is attending to while acknowledging that both are attending to this object or activity.
· Some joint attention activities can be the following:
throwing and catching a ball
hiding a favorite toy in a clear Tupperware and pointing to it while encouraging the child to point to it as well
taking turns blowing bubbles
taking turns eating raisins
racing together to a bean bag chair to tickle the child while the child has to follow your lead running, stopping, etc. The idea is that the child has to take the other person into consideration by having to do exactly as the other does.
Marci Taylor, OTR, BCABA resently presented with this and much more information. She is the director of Tree House Pedatric Center in San Antonio. www.treehousepediatriccenter.com
Common Spanish-Influenced Articulation
September 22, 2008
Some articulation differences commonly observed among Spanish speakers learning English are the following:
-b/v substitution: berry/very
-ch/sh substitution: chew/shoe
-schwa sound is inserted before word initial consonant clusters: eskate/skate, espend/spend.
-silent /h/ in the beginning of words: old/hold
-The /j/ in the word ‘judge’ does not exist in Spanish, therefore speakers usually use ‘y’ : Yulie/Julie.
-ee/I substitution: peeg/pig, leetle/little
-t/voiceless ‘th’ substitution: tink/think
-final consonants may be devoiced: dose/doze
Increasing Parent Involvement
September 15, 2008
One of our summer workshops for The State of Texas was on ways to increase the participation of our parents in our therapy. Two of the most important ways that came up during discussion at the workshop were:
- Including therapy activities in daily routines (e.g. meals, bath time, driving in the car, etc.) so that parents don’t feel overwhelmed with very busy schedules; providing therapy strategies in writing to decrease any confusion with what to do at home (e.g. using the SMILE book for the ECI population provides a comprehensive, easy to understand book full of activities for parents to use at home).
- Explaining to parents the purpose of the therapy activities so that they understand that when we are “playing” with their child, we’re also working on cognitive and linguistic skills. Helping parents understand the importance of their involvement in their child’s therapy.
We will be presenting to the Austin Area Association of SLPs on Increasing Parent Involvment on Thursday, November 13th. It will be at Seton Hospital on 38th, McFaddin Auditorium, 6 P.M.
RTI in the Schools
September 8, 2008
For those of you entrenched in RTI in the schools, I found this website that has tons of articles and resources related to the subjects. Many of the authors are heavily pro- or anti-RTI. The articles make for good comparisons.
http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/rti.index.htm
For those of you in the Central Texas area, our first 2008-2009 Bilingual Speech-Language meeting for the Region 13 Education Service Center is on the topic of Response To Intervention. We’ll talk about how RTI is affecting bilingual students and how to work with teachers to facilitate their role in the process. Come and share your experiences! September 12, 9-12 a.m. at the Region 13 ESC.
Ellen
Working with Cleft Lip and Palate with the ECI population
September 1, 2008
Thanks to everyone for attending the Cleft Lip and Palate presentation at the State of Texas telecast. It was a great success. For those who were asking, yes the State office is videotaped it and will offer it through their library. We will also launch it as an online continuing education course in the near future. We will let you know when it is available.
Scott