Last week, I was able to attend one day of Social Thinking's conference in downtown Minneapolis with one of my co-workers. The day I attended was focused on Superflex and other ways to teach social skills. When I first started working in the public school system, I really had no idea how to treat social cognitive deficits. We had covered the theory in grad class, but I didn't have a systematic way of targeting skills and improving behaviors in my students who qualified for ASD or pragmatic language services. I was not paid to attend this conference, but I wanted to share my thoughts on how it went.
I came out of the Social Thinking conference re-juvinate and feeling as though for the first time, I had a plan of attack for working with students to improve their social skills. So, what have I learned? Too much to share, however, I will give you my 3 point plan of attack for this year - just small steps to become a better speech language pathologist.
1) Teach social thinking vocabulary explicitly. Social vocabulary is not just teaching Superflex and the unthinkables. That's technically not even social vocabulary (what?!?!?). I've been jumping into Superflex without teaching the basic vocabulary. Social Thinking recommends teaching these concepts in order: thinking thoughts and feeling feelings, having a group plan, thinking with your eyes, body in the group, whole body listening, expected and unexpected, smart guesses, flexible vs. stuck thinking, size of the problem, and sharing an imagination. Taking it back a step, try helping your students understand what "social" means.
2) Teach how to evaluate social situations. What is the context? What is expected/unexpected? how do people feel when we do expected/unexpected? What do you get out of following espectations?
These are really the WHYS for learning social skills. Many of my students that I see for social skills group say, "I talk fine. I don't need speech." Helping them understand why they come to see me and what they get out of it is key.
3) It will take time! I can't tell you how wonderful it was to hear these words from the pros. Working in the schools, we are constantly striving for meeting standards, making progress, being proficient, and helping students learn as quickly as possible. Research and experience both support that it takes students with social cognitive deficits time to not only learn the concepts, but also to begin to implement them. It doesn't take 1 year of an IEP, but many consecutive, consistent years of carefully thought out social cognitive intervention.
Apple Critic
Yesterday in Minnesota we had 80 degree weather. Today we got up to 58 degrees. Fall is starting to hit us and I am excited. It's time to bring out the skinny jeans, boots, and scarves. Oh - and apples!
Today I went apple crazy in the therapy room. My students became apple critics!
We started off by talking about food critics and that a synonym for critic is "judge." What a great way to expand vocabulary.
I took my lovely sharpie collection and a piece of tag board to create our apple chart. Then I headed over to my favorite grocery store and picked up 7 different flavors of apples - well mostly apples.
My various groups of students then used their articulation or descriptive language skills to describe the apples. We talked about how the apples look, smell, what their texture is, and most importantly what it tastes like. Then I asked them to rate each apple on a scale of 1-10 and pick their favorite.
Here are 2 students taking notes on their thoughts of each apple. It was interesting to see the different opinions and a great opportunity to encourage different thoughts and perspective taking.
Just to have more fun (and because I am an evil therapist) I threw in a pear to masquerade as an apple. Some of my older students figured it out or at least said, "it smells like a pear." Those who didn't figure it out looked confused and called it gross. I guess if you're expecting an apple and you get a pear it might be gross.
When students first started describing the apples, they began with, "it looks like an apple, it smells like an apple, it tastes like an apple. With the help of my EET beads and cues, within 20 minutes students were describing the different apples as tangy, sweet, crispy, mushy, soft, pinkish-yellow, spotted, and more! Some of my favorites from the day were that one apple smelled like a rock and another tasted like a banana. Such creative minds at work. Plus, I got to snack on healthy apples all day.
Yay fall!
Today I went apple crazy in the therapy room. My students became apple critics!
I took my lovely sharpie collection and a piece of tag board to create our apple chart. Then I headed over to my favorite grocery store and picked up 7 different flavors of apples - well mostly apples.
My various groups of students then used their articulation or descriptive language skills to describe the apples. We talked about how the apples look, smell, what their texture is, and most importantly what it tastes like. Then I asked them to rate each apple on a scale of 1-10 and pick their favorite.
Just to have more fun (and because I am an evil therapist) I threw in a pear to masquerade as an apple. Some of my older students figured it out or at least said, "it smells like a pear." Those who didn't figure it out looked confused and called it gross. I guess if you're expecting an apple and you get a pear it might be gross.
When students first started describing the apples, they began with, "it looks like an apple, it smells like an apple, it tastes like an apple. With the help of my EET beads and cues, within 20 minutes students were describing the different apples as tangy, sweet, crispy, mushy, soft, pinkish-yellow, spotted, and more! Some of my favorites from the day were that one apple smelled like a rock and another tasted like a banana. Such creative minds at work. Plus, I got to snack on healthy apples all day.
Yay fall!
Classroom Makeover
I am very blessed. Last year, my classroom was a former storage closet with questionable ventilation. This year I have a new classroom. It's not a full sized classroom, which I'm glad about (it would have been very difficult to decorate). Starting this summer, I began to go into my new classroom for a couple hours at a time to work on creating a fantastic space for my students.
Below are 2 before/after shots of my classroom. It started off pretty barren as I didn't have many pieces of furniture moving from my storage closet. The overall theme I chose for the room was gray with orange accents and some flair from Pixar's Inside Out. My favorite color is orange and so I send home everything on orange paper. I painted some of the metal furniture gray so that it would coordinate and be less of an eye sore.
One thing that I picked up from other bloggers is how to organize a room. I tried to split my room into different zones. The first zone is in front of the smart board and I plan to use it for my instructional home base, particularly for my older students. The zone is surrounded by wonderful cabinets filled with my favorite therapy supplies and all my board games. I hope to get curtains to cover up the games and calm down the space. The second zone is my work space. I wanted my desk to face the door so that I could see anyone who enters and also see into the hallway. The final zone is my individual or small group space. I have a smaller, shorter desk that I plan to use with my younger students. Behind the small work table is a play therapy area. I found a great car mat at Ikea for $20 and I just know it will be a hit.
When students enter, they can pick up their brand new folder out of the milk crate. Because I have 9 grades that I work with, I've found that a milk crate is really the best folder system for me. The middle picture shows my organization for focusing on vocabulary. I have a easy-to-grab bucket for high stakes testing vocabulary for the upper and lower grades (courtesy of Natalie Snyders) and a bin for my prefixes/roots/suffixes vocabulary. Keeping classroom rules and visuals next to the smart board was a must.
I was able to re-do my desk area and have a working desk along with a computer part. This is definitely not the prettiest part of the room, but it functions extremely well.
There were 2-3 layers of labels on these drawers. This room has been used for FACs, a testing room, and a special education room. Goo-gone was my friend when removing these labels. Because I change my mind all the time, I went with chalkboard labels so that I can move materials around and label them as many times as I want.
Does your school use PBIS? I included our PBIS phrases in my visual classroom matrix (left) and on an Inside Out themed bulletin board. I plan to have students pick one word that is a positive attribute and add it to the bulletin board (We are... strong, smart, funny, etc.). Below my smart board is a bookshelf I brought in from home. This is fantastic as I have put all my resources that I use on a daily basis here. On the shelf are my quick artic activities, social skills lessons, and some language materials.
I hope you enjoyed a tour of my speech room. I am in love with it and can't wait to see the kids' reactions!
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| Zone 3: top left, top right, bottom right Zone 1:bottom left |
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| Zone 1: work area |
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| Zone 2 |
I was able to re-do my desk area and have a working desk along with a computer part. This is definitely not the prettiest part of the room, but it functions extremely well.
There were 2-3 layers of labels on these drawers. This room has been used for FACs, a testing room, and a special education room. Goo-gone was my friend when removing these labels. Because I change my mind all the time, I went with chalkboard labels so that I can move materials around and label them as many times as I want.
Does your school use PBIS? I included our PBIS phrases in my visual classroom matrix (left) and on an Inside Out themed bulletin board. I plan to have students pick one word that is a positive attribute and add it to the bulletin board (We are... strong, smart, funny, etc.). Below my smart board is a bookshelf I brought in from home. This is fantastic as I have put all my resources that I use on a daily basis here. On the shelf are my quick artic activities, social skills lessons, and some language materials.
I hope you enjoyed a tour of my speech room. I am in love with it and can't wait to see the kids' reactions!
Desk Makeover - How I Grew to Hate Scotch Tape
With my excitment over not only staying in the same school for the second year, but also getting a bigger room that functions for me, I started projects early this year. This summer, I decided to take the time off and focus on things such as cleaning, cooking, blogging, and creating materials. Sooo, when I found myself on Pinterest looking up classroom makeovers, I said to myself, "Huh, I could do that! It'd be easy." Ha... well, the good news is that I did it. I also learned quite alot about DIY projects. I started with what I thought was a simple paint job. I walked into my new classroom and found that my desk and a huge metal cabinet were rusty and in very rough shape. I enjoy pretty things and decided to follow the lead of some bloggers I follow (AKA Natalie Snyders and The Speech Bubble). My hands have not lifted a paintbrush since I was 14, but I braved the process.
The workers at Home Depot and Ace Hardware were so wonderful and patiently explained what paint would be best and waited for me to decide which colors I wanted. Since my pieces had already started to rust, I followed recommendations and applied a coat of primer followed by 2 coats of my chosen paint. Here are a few things I learned.
1) There is alot of surface area on a desk to paint. I ended up having to buy a bigger paint roller and paint brush than I thought I needed. Having the larger roll made it so much easier and the job went much quicker.
2) Having a sink in the room where you are painting is amazing! However, it hadn't been used in over two months, so when I turned it on to rinse my brushes and rollers, air from the pipes made water and paint spray EVERYWHERE.
3) When I primed the furniture, at first I was trying to get every little spot. I was disappointed with my primer job because the old metal still showed through the white a little bit, but then I realized that I was not painting the desk white. Reminding myself to not be a perfectionist was important.
4) I HATE Scotch tape. On both the desk and the cabinet, I found dozens of pieces of scotch tape from years of attaching important information. The masking tape was easily removed with goo gone, but the scotch tape did not respond to the goo gone. I thought about using a putty knife, but I didn't have one and I didn't want the metal to scratch up the surface. So, instead I used my nails to peel off every piece I could find. Turns out they make plastic putty knives, wish I had known that from the get go. But! even after all my hunting, I found MORE scotch tape after I started priming. Ugh. I am never using scotch tape on furniture again. Masking tape, maybe.
In the end, I had extra primer and paint and was able to paint one more storage pieces to match. No more mismatched school hand-me-downs, whoop whoop!
The workers at Home Depot and Ace Hardware were so wonderful and patiently explained what paint would be best and waited for me to decide which colors I wanted. Since my pieces had already started to rust, I followed recommendations and applied a coat of primer followed by 2 coats of my chosen paint. Here are a few things I learned.
1) There is alot of surface area on a desk to paint. I ended up having to buy a bigger paint roller and paint brush than I thought I needed. Having the larger roll made it so much easier and the job went much quicker.
2) Having a sink in the room where you are painting is amazing! However, it hadn't been used in over two months, so when I turned it on to rinse my brushes and rollers, air from the pipes made water and paint spray EVERYWHERE.
3) When I primed the furniture, at first I was trying to get every little spot. I was disappointed with my primer job because the old metal still showed through the white a little bit, but then I realized that I was not painting the desk white. Reminding myself to not be a perfectionist was important.4) I HATE Scotch tape. On both the desk and the cabinet, I found dozens of pieces of scotch tape from years of attaching important information. The masking tape was easily removed with goo gone, but the scotch tape did not respond to the goo gone. I thought about using a putty knife, but I didn't have one and I didn't want the metal to scratch up the surface. So, instead I used my nails to peel off every piece I could find. Turns out they make plastic putty knives, wish I had known that from the get go. But! even after all my hunting, I found MORE scotch tape after I started priming. Ugh. I am never using scotch tape on furniture again. Masking tape, maybe.
In the end, I had extra primer and paint and was able to paint one more storage pieces to match. No more mismatched school hand-me-downs, whoop whoop!
Ode to Summer
Oh summer, how do I love thee! I know many schools have already started and I am one of the lucky few in my remaining week of summer. Don't worry, I'll be jealous of you all in June when we are still in school. This summer, I did not have a paying job, however, I will share with you ode to summer.
I'm learning. CEUs yes, but also I'm learning about blogging, instagram, twitter, and teachers pay teachers. There is an amazing digital support system for SLPS, teachers, and other professionals that I'm just starting to learn about.
Lack of social interaction makes me talk to my cat and myself. No lie, I was in target and I started talking to myself OUT LOUD.
Over the summer, I tried to be a wonderful wife for my husband. At first, he was sad that he no longer has summer breaks and I was worried he would begin to resent me. However, once I began cleaning, cooking, and doing laundry on a more regular basis, we both saw the advantage of having me home.
Summers off is a misnomer. As professionals in schools, we may have 3 months where we are not required to go to work, but our work never ends there. First, we cram a full year of work into 9 months. Second, I think about my students, dream about them and come up with ideas to use throughout the summer.
Most importantly, dear summer, I'm going to miss my naps.
Love,
Caroline
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