The Speech Umbrella

Episode 79 is an interview with Char Boshart. Char is the president of Speech Dynamics, an author of several books, and a presenter. Char has a deep understanding of the fundamentals of oral motor movement. If you know oral motor techniques work but are at a loss to explain why, Char has the answers. In this interview we discuss: stability and mobility the human tongue oral resting posture carryov...

Starting hard conversations with parents and clients is so much easier when you know how to say difficult things honestly and gracefully. Here’s where the right turn of phrase, examples, and analogies smooth the way.    What this episode has to offer: finding the right words to introduce difficult topics  Join me under the umbrella for tips on talking about Frequent absences and no-shows Insurance...

Some clinical skills are difficult to teach at the university, and one of those is how to establish client-parent-clinician rapport, otherwise known as your “bedside manner.”   This episode explores six ways therapists can show they really care. They are:  •    Read the room •    Mindful conversation •    Do your work •    Perspective taking •    Own your mistakes •    Stay mindful until the end  ...

Task Oriented Movement Activities support executive function. Activities that meet the criteria for TOM activities have: •    Multiple steps •    A problem to be solved •    A plan •    Opportunities to reflect and record •    Variations  Seeing how to implement these activities is helpful, so this episode can be viewed on Youtube, in addition to listening on your regular podcast platform.  Check...

Don’t we hear some of the funniest, wisest, all around best things from children? Here’s a collection of some my funniest moments with clients in 2022. Enjoy Kids Say the BEST Things, 2022. 

Has it ever come to you in a startling, clear as a bell moment, that one of you clients has totally missed, skipped, and never even approached a skill they need in order to master the skill you’re trying to teach?   Do you have a client who:  •    struggles with curiosity •    lacks complex language development   •    has a very narrow range of interests  If so, it’s worth exploring whether they w...

Sometimes our university training doesn’t leave us feeling confident treating pediatric voice disorders. Which makes it intimidating, to say the least, when you’re faced with a child with a voice disorder. You might even feel like you’ve landed in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language. Been there, done that! The good news is • You know more than you think you do. • There are lots of...

This episode is an interview with Dr. Teresa Ukrainetz, who specializes in school-age language intervention.   Her current research centers on how to help students with language impairments gain control of the words and ideas of informational text, and her brilliantly simply method for this intervention is called Sketch and Speak.   Here is a snippet from the interview:    “I really wanted to look...

When it comes to articulation carryover at home, wouldn’t it be great if all parents understood how to support their child?   This podcast does what we often don’t have time to do—it explains all about carryover, and gives parents realistic ways to support carryover at home.   Today’s episode covers: •    What’s a tipping point and why is it important for speech therapy? •    What is the SLP’s rol...

Therapy prep can be time consuming or painless— we all want more painless prep than painful! As you prep for therapy do you find yourself thinking:  •    What can I do today that both fun and productive? And I’m sure my clients would appreciate something new! •    I don’t have a big budget for materials, how can I best spend my money? •    I need something more than fun, it needs to make a differe...

This episode is a follow up to episode 68 on assessment cluttering. It’s about treatment, using the M.O.R.E. approach. More than a to do list, M.O.R.E. is a framework to help clients first make the cognitive changes that will lead to behavioral changes.   M.O.R.E. stands for motivation, ownership, recognition and earned fluency. If you’ve been wondering how to help a client who has plateaued in cl...

This is part one of a two part series. Episode 68 covers nine areas to assess when treating cluttering, while part two covers the M.O.R.E. treatment technique. In part one the following assessments areas are discussed:  syllable collapse  articulation   mid sentence revisions   lack of complex language  run on sentences  missing details and context in personal narratives  syntax  prosody rate of s...

Today’s podcast is focused on L. While there’s no doubt R can be a puzzler, L isn’t far behind. Final L can be one of the most perplexing sounds for clients to master.   In this podcast SLP Angie Lewis explains how to elicit precise final Ls. And we find out that it’s not so different from final vocalic R! Tune in as Angie walks us through all the steps needed to master L in all positions. 

Too many R clients get stuck somewhere between the sentence and conversation level, and can’t make the leap to mastery. Helping these clients achieve mastery of R (or any phoneme) involves a philosophy about how to engage a learner in learning. The closer you get to less structured therapy tasks, such as conversation, the fewer worksheets there are, because therapy becomes more about you —the pilo...

Getting on the same page as parents when it comes to articulation therapy is challenging, and this is especially true when it comes to complicated sounds like R. As much as we want to educate parents, who has time to thoroughly explain co-articulation and motor requirements, let alone diving into secondary issues like phonemic awareness?   Concepts that are elementary to us can be hard for others...

Tongue ties, also referred to as tethered oral tissues (TOTs) can seem like a complex issue, but what it really comes down to is understanding when functional eating, speaking and sleeping are impaired.   This episode is a review of Merkel-Walsh and Overland’s book Functional Assessment and Remediation of TOTs. With the information in this book, SLPs gain a clear understanding of their role in dia...

Getting a valid measurement on complex language skills is challenging. Rubrics are a great tool for measuring multiple skills with multiple levels of complexity. They can also be valuable motivators for clients to monitor their own progress. Rubrics to the Rescue! discusses the when, how, who, and what of using rubrics in language therapy. 

As SLPs, problem solving is something we do every day with our clients. But add behavior challenges into the mix and progress can come to a screeching halt. Many of us don’t receive training in this area, even at the graduate school level.    Sometimes the solution to challenging behavior shows itself when we step back and look at our clients in a new way,  or “with new eyes.”   This episode discu...

A constant message in modern superhero media is that BIG reactions are the ONLY solution. That’s not a great message for any child, let alone those who already struggle with outsize reactions. In The Dark Side of Superheroes, I explore • Skills that are fundamental to controlling reaction size • Problems with modern media • Fantastic books that model matching the reaction to the size of the proble...

When you teach your clients conjunctions, a little knowledge can become a dangerous thing. Sometimes clients start throwing conjunctions around like they’re going out of style, and their stories become one big mess. This episode describes ways to help clients get conjunctions under control. Be sure to check out the Simple Tools video, Conjunction Function, showing a fun idea to make conjunctions v...

Have you noticed your clients with language impairments really struggle to recall names? This can be a real communication barrier, both socially and in literacy development.       Stories are the fabric of our existence and they make up a large part of our conversation. When our clients are telling stories, not only do they default to vague and non-specific language frequently, they can't eve...

Are you ready to talk about grammar? Infinitive verbs are early developing, and too often overlooked, but they are critical in early language and cognitive development.  To Infinity and Beyond! explores infinitive verbs in depth, and how they empower communication.   Included in this podcast are: •    Defining infinitive verbs—of course! •    A quick overview of Developmental Sentence Scoring •   ...

What About ABA? covers a few key questions to ask parents that can help them figure out whether ABA therapy is right for them. Look for the following in episode #57: •   Questions to ask a potential ABA therapist •   The philosophy behind ABA therapy •   The philosophy behind relationship based approaches, such as Hanen and Floortime The complexity of language development 

While we understand that communication is more than talking, it’s not always easy to explain why this is so to parents. Concepts that are so familiar to us—joint interaction, pragmatics, gesture development—are a whole new language for parents of kids with social communication disorders.   Hanen More Than Words gives SLPs the tools to coach parents on the non-verbal aspects of communication. Paren...

We know many of our clients struggle with executive function. What’s one powerful way families can teach executive function to their children? Chores! In episode 55, Nate and Melanie Young describe their chore system. Their system teaches skills for executive function and self regulation in a realistic setting, and it just works.