Phonologicaltherapy meets Twitter

This chat occurred Feb 3/4 2013 and is now archived here.

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Caroline Bowen PhD CPSP, whose Speech-Language Therapy dot com website is well known to #SLPeeps worldwide, also runs the eight thousand strong discussion group called phonologicaltherapy. The emphasis in both of these online resources is EBP in children’s speech sound disorders: articulation disorders, phonological disorders, and childhood apraxia of speech. A relative newcomer to Twitter, Caroline signed on as @speech_woman (met Speechwoman yet?) in February 2012 when she was writing about Life Online for her Webwords column in @SpeechPathAust‘s Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology. One year on, she bravely steps up to the plate to take part in our first #SLPchat for 2013, “phonologicaltherapy meets Twitter”.

We think this is perfect symmetry, since our first ever #slpchat, in December 2010, was on Cycles for phonology and we’ve just passed our two year anniversary (how time flies!). We’re thrilled that Caroline has agreed to join us. We’ll also be merging the North American and Australian chats into one chat only on Sunday, February 3rd, at 6 pm EST (New York/Toronto) which is also Monday, February 4th, at 10 am AEST (Sydney). We hope you’ll join us for the chat. Here is what you can expect:

Question 1: What are your top 5 resources for child speech assessment and intervention?

What inspires your intervention sessions? Share the ‘must have’ and ‘must read’ SSD materials, equipment, sources and resources that you use or refer to all the time. These might include particular journal articles, books, manuals, games and activities, reinforcers and rewards, professional listservs, discussion groups and other social media, websites and more.

Question 2: Articulation Disorders: How do you assess articulation disorders, and which treatment approach, or approaches do you use? 
What is your assessment tool of choice? Do you implement traditional articulation therapy, a variation of it, or some other approach?

Question 3: Phonological Disorder: How do you assess phonological disorder, and which treatment approach, or approaches do you use?
What is your assessment tool of choice? In intervention, do you use any, some or all of the following, Core Vocabulary Therapy, Cycles Therapy (Patterns Intervention), Imagery Therapy, Metaphon, Minimal Pair Therapies, Parents and Children Together (PACT), or Phoneme Awareness Therapy or some other approach? Are you an eclectic practitioner who uses a mix-n-match approach – do tell!

Question 4: Target Selection: In the process of Target Selection for Phonological Intervention which of the available approaches do you employ?
How do you decide what to work on first…second…third…? Are you a fan of traditional or newer selection criteria, do you combine them, and have you implemented a complexity approach to choosing therapy targets? How was it for you?

READINGS
Explore the links above as preparation for this chat. Take the time to discover leads to interesting and useful journal articles.

REFERENCE
Bowen C. (2012). Webwords 44: Life online. Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology, 14(3), 149-152.

We-Cycle: SLPChat #1

There’s a new hot topic on the fingers of  tweeters in the #slpeeps community. It has been making its rounds across various conversations  and everyone is eager to learn more. This topic?  Cycles!

Some of us may or may not have heard of it while in grad school. Others may have dabbled in it a few times in sessions or modified it to fit their interpretation of phonological therapy. Then there are those who live by it, and use it consistently as their primary intervention technique for phonological disorders.  One such person is Speech Pathologist, Mary Huston, on whom the #slpeeps have bestowed the title ‘Cycles Guru.’  Trained by someone who worked closely with  Dr. Barbara Hodson (one of the developers of the Cycles program), you may have noticed her twitter handle @mtmaryslp imparting a wealth of information on the principles and practice of this program.  Many of the professionals have even been trying to persuade her to give a web session on Cycles. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to have a skype ‘tutorial’  from Mary, and have been using the program in my sessions ever since, with success!  Over the past few weeks we have been encouraging her to feature as a guest blogger in the slp blogosphere. She graciously accepted this request and has written an amazing post on phonology and the ‘how, when, and why’ of Cycles.  This can be accessed here.

We wanted to get all of you slpeeps involved in this discussion on the program, so Tanya and I decided that this would be the perfect topic for our first ‘slpchat’, scheduled Friday, January 7th, 2011 at 8 pm EST. You can convert this time and date to your own time zone (select Canada-Ontario-Toronto as the place to convert from). Although the main focus is the Cycles program, we also want to hear your views on treatment of phonological disorders, the techniques you are learning about in grad school or practising in sessions, and your perspective on phonology. We’d also like to give you a bit of a homework assignment to prepare you for our discussion. This would be particularly useful for those who are unfamiliar with the program or those who need a refresher course.  The following assignment should bring you up to speed on the program:

1. Read Mary’s article on Cycles found here.
2. Look at Dawn Moore’s Cycles for Phonology- Main Outline found at  http://www.expressionsspeech.com/therapydocuments.htm
3. Get an idea of what a cycles session looks like by reviewing Roderick’s sessions, also found at  http://www.expressionsspeech.com/therapydocuments.htm
4. Read the journal article below, if you can find access. ASHA members can click here.  Be sure to check your professional association or regulatory bodies as well as your local library – many have access to online journals now!
   • Hodson, B. W., Scherz, J. A., & Strattman, K. H. (2002). Evaluating communicative abilities of a highly unintelligible preschooler.American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 11, 236-242.

This would give you a couple of weeks to read and prepare for it and maybe even try the program out in a session or two by the time we have our discussion.

We’re looking forward to hearing your views,experiences and questions, and learning from you as we all continue in our professional development. Invite all of your slpeeps and let’s make our first event a great one!