Thursday, April 25, 2013

Palatometry and Speakers with ASD

Check out the article from CompleteSpeech Blog site called "Working with Adults on the Autism Spectrum."  This is a nice article of how moving beyond traditional speech therapy has made a difference in helping people "see and find their voice".    I was able to be a part of this as I trained the Therapists at Scenic View.  I love their willingness to give so much.   Their patience, time, talent and giving their best resouces to their students has paid off.  Using the SmartPalate System has been a great choice for so many students.

http://completespeech.com/speech/blog/?utm_source=Master+List&utm_campaign=02c17ca6dd-March+1%2C+2013&utm_medium=email

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Speech Services

A+ Speech Therapy helps with the following speech needs.
1. Stuttering/Cluttering
     Saying words without hesitations, repetitions, prolongations, blocks, or secondary behaviors; twitches, eye blinks, tension.   For cluttering, add false starts, mazes, revisions, interjections, unaware of rushing, so on.

2. Articulation issues
    Usually this can mean lingering articulation errors on one or more sounds. Most common errors being distortions like "S, Z"  being dentalized or lateral (uni or bi lateral) and "R" sounds being substituted or diminished.  For some people it can be difficulty reaching full articulation gesture or maintaining clear articulation throughout the word and sentences.

3.  Literacy
     Difficulty with reading and writing difficulties.  Maybe from core auditory processing deficits of phonological awareness and phonological rules. not being able to retain or recall sequence of letters/sounds and or numbers.  Difficulty comprehending what was read.  Maybe a slow reader.

4. Voice
     Vocal nodules, vocal fatigue, quiet voice, or too loud of a voice, monotone, pitch issues, oral resonance issues, strained voice or too breathy of a voice, etc.

6. Language
     Difficulty understanding instructions, events, stories, general conversation. 
Difficulty expressing one's ideas and thoughts.  Difficulty with social-emotional language, like those with autism, ADHD, hard of hearing, so on.



Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Correct Sound Placement; Connect the Dots

Remember dot to dot drawings?  The SmartPalate speech therapy might be as simple as that!

See the dot to dot connection for correct /r/ placement (yes two right triangles).  How did my client's tongue know how to make two right triangles?  Your tongue is amazing, it will adapt to where it's suppose to because we are visual learners with mirror neurons. We want to match with what we see.

It's not new science, it's proven science that we do best with "multi-modality learning"
We learn, retain and recall  better with "hearing, seeing and doing." 
With traditional therapy, the student can't see inside the therapist's mouth to match what their tongue is doing.   But now with the "SmartPalate" system, the client can see what the instructor does and match their "dot" placement better.   Kids and adults love it!

 Female, age 10,  Consistent correct /r/ placement after 2 sessions
 Consistent correct sound and placement after 5 sessions in sentences.
 Below is a sample video of Millie teaching me how she does her homework to generalize her good /r/.