Hi All - I hope everyone had a peaceful Thanksgiving. My husband and I travelled to Connecticut to visit my relatives. I am so grateful to have a few family members who are still alive and live close by. My 95 year old aunt was there who started reminiscing about my father who passed away in 1993. She was sharing humorous childhood stories about the family from 85 years ago!! She is so cognizant and has an amazing memory! I am hoping to write a story about her. We will see! How was your Thanksgiving?

Decorate a Christmas Tree is the FREEBIE for Dec. Please check out all my WINTER products in the Seasonal Section (scroll down to WINTER). More to create!!

Check out the2 new products too! I also started a waterproof vinyl sticker collection which is a physical item that gets mailed directly to you. Free shipping with $10 purchase! Check out SHOP PS+ STORE!

The main reason for this BLOG is to share info about the TPT Sale this Monday and Tuesday AND to share favorite FREE SPEECH IDEAS you will find invaluable. It’s all in this BLOG. I wasn’t sure what I was going to get out of the Virtual ASHA Convention this year…but I was amazed how much I learned in the 15 courses I attended. In addition I learned that SSD strategies I’ve been using for many many years (pre-internet) have names! Although, PROMPT Method is a technique I actually learned in 2014 and so glad I did. In the PROMPT section you will now find speech activities which work well with PROMPT. I also took the DTTC (Dynamic Temporal Tactile Cueing) course by Edith Strand several years ago which I highly recommend.

Listed are awesome links from the ASHA Conference. Anything underlined in this BLOG is LINKED. I have chosen 4 of the 15 courses to share with you today. I am happy to share the PDF handouts with you but I am not able to attach a link. Please email me with the PDF’s you would like. I can send one or all 4.

1. Language - Literacy Dyslexia Connection by Jeannene Ward-Lenergan, Ph.D and Robert A. Pieretti, Ph.D - they present myths about dyslexia , give definitions and suggest tests (they believe that SLP findings are key), They mention the model of phonological processing as phonological awareness, phonological memory and rapid naming. There is a hyperlink to the Sacramento State Literacy Connection. Finally there are a plethora of ideas for remediation including Wh questions to ask during reading and language intervention to support literacy skills, semantics and figurative language! The references have links too! (e.g.Jan Brett phonograms - she wrote The Mitten and many others - one of my favorite authors who I met years ago.

2. Resources for working with SSD (speech sound disorders) - by Dr. McLeod (one of the authors of Speech Sound Disorders) referred to Charles Sturt University which has in depth information about speech acquisition, intelligibility, and more for numerous languages. I like her speech sound development chart the best (see below.) She states that only 4 consonants were not acquired y 4.11 in her study of 16,159 children learning English in the US - r, zh, th V & UV. She includes a free assessment of consonant clusters and intelligibility scale for parents. Dr. McLeod also mentions polysyllables - I call multisyllables - I work on this in every session as a warmup. If you work with any bilingual children, this information will be especially helpful.

3. 20 Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders (SSD) - OMG - this is amazing! I finally have EBP techniques all in this PDF! Each author presented for about 2 minutes and then showed a video of the strategy (videos are not included but a description of each approach is.) Below is a list of all the interventions in this PDF. I use a variety of strategies - I use Minimal Pairs, Multiple Oppositions, DTTC, Cycles, Naturalistic Recast, Morphosyntax, PROMPT, Speech Motor Programming, Core Vocabulary - YIKES - bottom line I do whatever works for the child I am working with. They also provide which approach to use for what problem.

4. Vowels and Prosody: Building Blocks for Intelligibility and Communication - Lori Cochran and Theresa Jones - they talk about vowel development, vowel placement, assessment and cueing hierarchy. I included this course because I liked the vowel development chart below.

i HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS INFORMATION-FILLED BLOG. Please let me know if you have any questions. If interested in any or all of the 4 courses please reach out to ricki@preschoolspeechieplus.com