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Allison Fors, Inc.

Speech Therapy Tools for SLPs and Educators

Nonverbal Communication Skills: Making The Implicit More Explicit

nonverbal-communication

Welcome and thanks to my guest blogger, Allie Gallinger! Today she is sharing how she works on nonverbal communication skills in speech therapy. When I was studying in the speech language pathology program, we were never explicitly taught how to help children with their social communication skills. Instead, it was an area that I have learned about…

May 12, 2022 allisonfors Leave a Comment Filed Under: Social Skills

What’s the Difference Between a Prompt and a Cue?

prompt versus cue

Prompt versus cue – Have you ever wondered the difference? You’re not alone! It’s common for people to get hung up on these two terms. It seems like many use them interchangeably, but it is a critical distinction when goal and report writing. Both are strategies used to help teach a student new skills. But…

March 29, 2022 allisonfors Leave a Comment Filed Under: Speech Therapy Education

Tips and Tricks: How to Use Clipart to Create Speech Activities

how to use clipart

Have you ever had a student with a specific interest and you wished you had the perfect activity for them? Or needed a specific resource type to work for a mixed group? I think we’ve all been in a situation where we want to quickly create something for a particular student or group. I have…

February 21, 2022 allisonfors Leave a Comment Filed Under: Therapy Ideas, Tips and Tricks

A Guide to the Language Processing Hierarchy

The language processing hierarchy is a general overview of language acquisition skills that can serve as guide for professionals. Language Processing Disorder (LPD) is a neurological condition that affects how language is processed in the brain. It affects the ability to understand spoken language and/or clearly express oneself. Some main characteristics of LPD are difficulties…

February 5, 2022 allisonfors Leave a Comment Filed Under: Speech Therapy Education, Therapy Ideas

Tips for Taking Language Samples

language sample

Language samples are an essential assessment tool when it comes to speech therapy. What are language samples and why are they important? A language sample consists of eliciting and gathering a spontaneous sample of one’s speech. It often consists of at least 50-100 utterances spoken by the child. Language samples are critical for assessing one’s…

October 4, 2021 allisonfors Leave a Comment Filed Under: Therapy Ideas, Tips and Tricks

Free Fall Speech Therapy Activities

FALL SPEECH THERAPY FREEBIES

Free fall and back to school speech therapy activities, reinforcers, and clipart! Download and use now! Happy fall and back to school! I have some fall-themed free resources and clipart I wanted to put in one easy place for you to grab and use in your therapy sessions and classrooms. First off, my most popular…

August 5, 2021 allisonfors Leave a Comment Filed Under: Speech Resources, Therapy Ideas

Free Summer Speech Therapy Activities

summer speech therapy activities

Free summer speech therapy activities, reinforcers, and clipart! Download and use now! Happy summer! I have some summer-themed free resources and clipart I wanted to put in one easy place for you to grab and use in your therapy sessions and classrooms. Talk Like a Pirate Day Reinforcers: Use these 2 pirate themed open-ended reinforcers…

July 8, 2021 allisonfors Leave a Comment Filed Under: Speech Resources, Therapy Ideas

Unique Ways to Use Puppets in Intervention

puppets in speech therapy

Puppets in speech therapy! Puppets are versatile and engaging and are a great tool for intervention. Here are 3 different ways I use them to teach and connect with children! Puppets are incredibly versatile! If they are motivating for a child, I will use them to target almost any goal – prepositions, verbs, demonstrate following…

January 12, 2021 allisonfors 3 Comments Filed Under: Therapy Ideas

Speech Therapy Themes By Month

speech therapy themes free

The ultimate idea list for themed therapy, plus a free speech therapy themes calendar! For the longest time, I wasn’t one for themed therapy. I was impressed with SLPs who actually remembered and had time to organize and plan each month. BUT once I came up with a system, it is so easy, and now…

November 18, 2020 allisonfors Leave a Comment Filed Under: Speech Resources, Therapy Ideas

Why You Should Be Using Board Games in Speech Therapy

board games speech therapy

It’s not always apparent, but board games are a great opportunity to work on speech, language, and social skills! I love that I can use them with a wide age range and to target so many goals. Because they vary in complexity and type, you can easily modify board games to fit your needs with…

April 27, 2020 allisonfors 1 Comment Filed Under: Therapy Ideas

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Hi, I'm Allison! A speech & language resource author who loves the creative process of making therapy materials and clipart, as well as connecting with educators world wide. Learn more about me here! Read More…

Effective communication comes in all shapes and si Effective communication comes in all shapes and sizes! Verbal, written, gestures, sign language, an AAC device...

As educators we understand this but it’s also our responsibly to relay and explain this to caregivers!
“Children gesture before they begin to speak and “Children gesture before they begin to speak and continue gesturing throughout the language learning process...children’s early gestures not only precede, but also predict, the onset of a number of linguistic milestones–nouns, nominal constituents, simple and complex sentences. Gesturing may thus play a causal role in language learning, and could do so in two ways: (1) Gesturing gives children the opportunity to practice expressing ideas in a preverbal form. (2) A child’s gestures offer parents and other communication partners insight into the child’s linguistic level, thus giving the partners the opportunity to provide input tailored to that level.”

Goldin-Meadow, S. How gesture helps children learn language. (2014)

Some caregivers worry that we are giving up on verbal language when we begin using gestures or other non-verbal forms of communication.But gestures can be an amazing stepping stone to words. They seem to help the concept of communication click for a child...If I do this, then I get what I want/need! Have you found this to be the true?
SPEECH INTELLIGIBILITY • I updated this graphic SPEECH INTELLIGIBILITY • I updated this graphic with the newest research!

Note: These numbers are based on unfamiliar listeners in an unknown context. You will notice the dark blue is the milestone (when 95% of children at this intelligible) and the light blue is the average (when 50% of children are this intelligible.)

The snapshot on the left is a summary given by the researchers (Hustad, et al.) as a quick way to remember and recite this new information.

Find these updated intelligibility levels in the Free SLP Handouts!

The paid handouts were updated a while back with this new information and have a more detailed summary, including word-level intelligibility. If you own them, be sure to redownload!

Free Speech Therapy Handouts: bit.ly/FreeSLPHandouts
Speech-Language Development Handouts: bit.ly/SLPHandouts
Save this post! 📚 Some favorite books for soc Save this post! 📚 

Some favorite books for social emotional learning >> inferencing >> verbs >> negation

You can find more book round-ups by categories at: allisonfors.com/?=books
📣📣📣 Phoneme awareness is the ability to b 📣📣📣 Phoneme awareness is the ability to break down a word into the smallest unit or sound. This includes phoneme isolation, blending, segmenting, addition, deletion, and substitution.

It’s ESSENTIAL to work on these skills starting in Preschool and continuing to focus on them in Kindergarten and First Grade!

The Speech-Language Development Handouts break down what to target at each grade level + the phonological awareness steps with definitions and examples!

bit.ly/SLPHandouts
What can we expect from toddler attention span? ⏰ It’s easy to over-expect the amount of time a child can sit and attend to a structured activity. Do these numbers surprise you or are they what you’d expect?

Memory trick 💡 You can remember the number of minutes a child can attend is approximately twice the child’s age.

Note: Don’t forget to use developmental age.

Save this post + tag an educator or parent!

Gaertner et al. (2008) Focused Attention in Toddlers

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