Because it makes my heart happy

Last year, I had the pleasure of learning about Story Grammar Marker and Braidy during the annual NC Speech Conference. I had seen them online previously, but I really wasn't sure about the tool until I actually attended the session. I have used Braidy this year with many of my groups and am really happy with this tool. It's been a slow process, but we are finally learning about kick-offs and plans now. 

 I rarely ever use the hair attachment for Braidy so this is how he always appears to my groups.

I have the symbols up on the wall with some silly song lyrics. The first two songs, the character and setting songs, came from the Braidy manual. I came up with other songs to help them remember the other story elements. We sing the songs for the elements we discuss every session. Some of students really enjoy this and others are not as excited, but I have found that it helps them remember no matter how much they enjoy the singing process.

Here we used Braidy with my Whole Body Listening Group (from the first set of We Thinkers books). I like using Braidy with this set of books for my younger groups because the characters are always the same. The repetition has made them more confident even though the other elements change. I've also found that writing down the elements with a combination of pictures and words helps too. We can refer back to our "notes" at the end of the session to review what we just read.

We also use Braidy with Clifford books (and sometimes half of tv episodes on youtube) for the same reason.

I'm so proud of how far we've gotten since starting in September with my figurines. Hopefully, I will be able to use Braidy next year for some inclusion activities.

Lately....

As my Facebook followers have seen, I have been battling it out with a nasty ear infection for the past week. It is an interesting experience as an adult, particularly as an SLP. The pain was excruciating. Luckily, I already had an appointment to be checked for strep so I was put on antibotics within 3 hours of it flaring up. (My poor husband has had strep for the past week.) It really makes me wonder about the children we catch during mass hearing screenings that have had an infection for months without anyone knowing. Not being able to hear out of my left ear is about to drive me bonkers! 

In other news, I wanted to share my newest therapy tool that I created after watching the SLP Institute. They had a course about sensory bins and it reminded me of how much my students enjoy using my Mr. Potato Head bin. I found a dinosaur play set over the weekend at Mighty Dollar and couldn't resist. The total cost for the bin was about $3 including tax. I'm going to hunt for some superhero figurines, particularly Batman, and make another one before this school year is over. 

You can target so many goals with these bins and it barely takes any effort at all to make them. I will be using this one for prepositions mostly.

Thoughts on Medbridge

Recently, Medbridge ran a sale on their subscription price in honor of their birthday. I decided that I would sign up since it was a little over half-price off (around $200). I wanted to share my thoughts on the site now that I have had the chance to take several different CEU courses. 

1. Ease of navigation- I love the layout of the website. I can bookmark courses that sound interesting and go to this list whenever I'm ready to start a new course. I can also use my dashboard to view classes that I'm currently taking, review course videos from ones I've finished, and download certificates. 

2. Speakers- Medbridge does a very good job of finding clinicians who have tons of experience in their specific topic. They focus on telling you what has worked in their practices, what current research says, and often include video models of strategies with real clients. I love being able to see these video samples because most of the free courses I've taken often don't have enough time to include these or only show samples without much explanation. The fluency assessment course in particular was very helpful to me as I've recently had to do my first true fluency assessment since taking my fluency course back in graduate school. I went into it feeling much more confident because of how much practice with speech samples was embedded into that particular course. 

3. Course design- I have mostly focused on taking multi-hour course series so far since enrolling. The longest was a 7 hour course on dysphagia and the shortest so far was a 3 hour series on social language. I can pause the courses at any point and return to them without consequence. Every course that I've taken has video segments lasting as little as 10 minutes and as long as 40 minutes before a 3-4 question quiz. The quizzes add up at the end to give you an overall course score. I like the way it is broken up into short videos and quizzes rather than one huge lecture and huge quiz. It makes me feel more successful, especially since I typically do better with on site workshops. 

Overall, I can say that I'm glad that I decided to sign up for this program as the courses are all very well designed and executed. I feel like I've learned so much in the brief time that I've been a member and it is definitely improving my clinical skills. The biggest downside to me is that it is heavily focused on the medical side of speech. This is what I wanted the subscription for, but I think SpeechPathology.com does a better job of being well-rounded. They are clearly making an effort to include topics such as fluency and social language skills. I also think that the price is hard to pay when they don't have a sale going on. I would not pay $425 for a subscription. It's just too expensive in comparison to $99. (This is especially true when you already have your 30 CEUs completed.)