Therapy for Speech

This video talks about auditory processing disorder and introduces the series of auditory processing tests.

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A short video about how the brain of a person with autism works. The brain takes more time and effort turning details into a coherent whole.

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I was sick recently, and out of action for more than a week. (It’s hard to conduct speech therapy sessions when you have no voice…)

I found that recovering from laryngitis was like speech language therapy. There were times when I was feeling particularly deflated and frustrated with how long it was taking me to recover.  I would look at my antibiotic tablets and not feel like taking it.

“What good is taking this little pill? I still feel lousy..”

I had to remind myself that it is not that one little pill that is going to help me recover. It’s the entire course of medication, taken faithfully, on time, one at a time, that’s going to make the difference, and get me back on my feet.

Well, I went from being really laid up, feeling as if nothing helped, and finally making some breakthrough, to gradually getting my voice back for a couple of hours at a time.

Then one day arrived when I was back to my usual self, able to teach all my classes for an entire day with my normal voice. All the inflammation and frustration was  just a memory behind me.

In the same way too, there are days when I see ‘overnight success’ with my students. I have a session and see that “Wow, Keith has suddenly really improved his classroom behaviour!”

He’s not throwing himself on the floor, or repeating my instructions four times before complying, or refusing to write his answers!

Some students achieve success with steady, gradual improvements. Some work  at something for months, then make a quantum leap.  Even after all these years of therapy, I still get astounded at these seemingly  ‘overnight successes’.

Yet I know, and Keith’s parents know, that it wasn’t his session last week that ‘worked’. It was turning up consistently week after week, and persisting for months, that made it happen.

And then it looked like an ‘overnight success’.

“Every Master was once a disaster.” – T. Harv Eker

What is your own experience of ‘overnight success’-that isn’t? What you did with ‘no expectation’, then turned out to be a cause for celebration?

Please share your thoughts and experiences.

Have you  heard about Justin Bieber sharing that he’s been bullied in school?

Picture the Justin Bieber I saw  in a video as they were introducing the movie ‘Bully’- with his iconic hairstyle, his youthful cheeky smile, and his usual pose with arms crossed.  I couldn’t help thinking: what’s not to like about a boy like Justin Bieber? How could someone like him get bullied too?

It was such a coincidence that on the very same day I also came across statistics submitted to the UK government that children with speech and language difficulties are three times more likely to be bullied, compared to other peers.

Children with SLI or Specific Language Impairment are no different from other children except that they have difficulty specifically with developing language skills.

They therefore do not just ‘pick up’ language the way other children do, and need aspects of language (the vocabulary, sentence structure, grammar rules etc) to be specifically taught to them. SLI affects about 7% of children.

It is not difficult to understand how such children can be more susceptible to bullying, if they are not able to express themselves well, or perhaps to understand what other children are talking about.

Sadly, apart from being bullied by other children, children with speech and language difficulties sometimes get mistreated by adults, including teachers, sometimes unintentionally. Here are some scenarios, based on actual experiences of my speech and language therapy clients:

1. Children may miss out on instructions given in school due to difficulty with auditory processing in a noisy background or language comprehension difficulty. (For example, the principal announcing during school assembly that students have to turn up for a special school event.)

When the child fails to comply with the instruction (for example, does not show up for the event) he may be mistaken for being malingering, un-cooperative or defiant. Sadly, I know of students who have even been physically punished publicly because of this.

2. Children who are not very good at expressing themselves may  just repeat or ‘parrot’ something they heard instead. Unfortunately this may be something a parent said in exasperation (“Have you lost your ears?”), or possibly something said in amusement  (“Really, I didn’t know a duck has four legs.”) Imagine how it might sound to a teacher if a child repeated that verbatim word for word…

Please share your thoughts on bullying or speech and language difficulties.

What are some of your concerns or worries? What have you found helpful?

A short video description on children speech development delay. It talks about the milestones you should be looking out for in your child, and what to do should your child not meet those milestones.

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Speech Language Therapy: Using LeoMagan puzzle to help your child with WHO questions

- Uses the 2nd smallest and smallest ring of the LeoMagan puzzle.

- Asking “Who” questions in relation to the puzzle. e.g. “Who builds a zoo?”

- Turn taking. e.g. “Whose turn is it?” “My turn!”.

Speech Language Therapy: Using LeoMagan puzzle to help your child say long sentences

- Uses the 3rd biggest ring of the LeoMagan puzzle.

- Answering ‘who’ questions (reading words or describing the picture) e.g. “Who does the referee blow the whistle at?” “At the team captain”.

Speech Language Therapy: Using LeoMagan puzzle to help your child with WHY questions

- Uses the 4th biggest (last ring) of the LeoMagan puzzle.

- Discuss cause and effect, answering “Why…?” questions with “because…”

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As a speech and language therapist supporting children in their speech and language development, I work with parents and support them too. If you are a parent helping your child with any area of school work they struggle with, (not necessarily just with language), here are principles you should be aware of:

1. Do remember that if your child is struggling with a skill or a concept, and you are the one trying to explain or teach it, the two of you have very different ways of thinking, or processing. What seems to be a good, logical explanation that you make up, using your way of thinking may not be the best way for your child to understand, with his or her way of thinking.

(There is a name for this phenomenon, coined ‘the curse of knowledge’. While the name may sound very serious and threatening, my understand of what the author is saying is that, in effect, once you know something, it is hard for you to know what it is like to not know it; i.e. if you are a teacher, teaching something you know how to do, it is hard to understand what it is like for your student who does not know. You can Google  the term for more information if you wish.)

What this means for you is that it is important to observe your child and do your best to ‘get inside his head’ to find the best way to help him understand from his perspective. Ask him to show you, or observe how he approaches a problem or question before jumping in with your ‘better idea’ or solution. Be aware that there are alternatives, and seek out ideas.

For example, if a child is already struggling with language and having difficulty answering questions about ‘When…?’ or “Why…?’, it is probably not a good idea to add more lengthy explanations and linguistic information that is taxing for him to understand. It may be logical and ‘easy’ to you, but it likely is not going to be easy for him. (If it were, he wouldn’t be having trouble in the first place!)

A really compelling case for this pitfall is presented in the book ‘Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World’ by Jeffrey Freed. While targeting ADD or attention deficit, this book is highly relevant to understanding children with language difficulties because the language areas of the brain are predominantly (though not exclusively) in the left brain.

I will be posting more of ideas I find myself sharing with parents. These are tried and tested techniques that have proven effective, not because I think so, but because hundreds of children have proven them so.

Please join in the discussion and share your tried and tested ideas or simply post your biggest frustrations. Has this helped you?

A cartoon and story-based video about dyslexia, interesting and entertaining enough to be shown to children.

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Cluttering is a relatively little known fluency disorder characterised by excessive breaks in the normal flow of speech that seem to result from disorganised speech planning, talking too fast or in spurts, or simply being unsure of what one wants to say.

It is often accompanied by other symptons such as language or phonological errors and attention deficits.

A typical picture of someone who has cluttering would include:

• Does not sound “fluent”, that is, does not seem to be clear about what he or she wants to say or how to say it.
• Has little or no apparent physical struggle in speaking
• Sounds “jerky”
• Has pauses that are too short, too long, or improperly placed
• Confusing disorganised language or conversational skills

For more information on Cluttering, please view the article here.

Here is a video clip to give you some ideas on how to use LeoMagan puzzle to help children learn about sentence structures and questions.