Cultivating Language with Apps

1. Cultivating Language with Apps By: Allyson Pashko, Elena Scanlan, Jaclyn Shurman, Lauren Madoff

2. Advantages of Using Mobile Devices and Apps in Educational Settings • Improved communication • Monitor progress • Motivation • Literacy development • Support tools

3. Areas We Will be Discussing • Receptive Language • Expressive Language • Pragmatic Language • Categories • Describing • Literacy • Intelligibility in sentences • Articulation • Parent Resources

4. Our Role in the Classroom • Combine communication goals with academic • and social goals • Integrate classroom objectives • Help students understand and use basic language concepts • Support reading and writing • Increase students’ understanding of texts and lessons

5. Receptive Language Skills • Receptive language skills can be targeted by: - Having students respond to questions (e.g., who, what, when, where, do/does, is/are, etc.), based on a story or illustration. • Example goal: The student will produce at least 10 grammatically correct sentences, when answering (is/are, do/does, who, what, where, when, why, how) questions, making comments, and giving messages. • Applications: WH Question Cards (Super Duper), WH Questions (Happy Frog Apps).

6. Expressive Language Skills • Expressive language skills can be targeted by: • Having students ask questions (e.g., who, what, when, where, do/does, is/are, etc.) to obtain clarification and to interact about stories and/or illustrations during discussions. • Example goal: The student will produce at least 10 (is/are, do/does, who, what, where, when, why, how) questions to obtain clarification and interact about stories during discussions. • Applications: Asking Therapy – Yes/No & WH.

7. Pragmatic Language Skills • Pragmatic language skills can be targeted by practicing: • Using appropriate body language (facing the person who is speaking, making eye contact) • Turn taking • Asking appropriate follow up questions • Tuning into other people’s facial expressions. • Example Goal: The student will maintain appropriate body language for at least 3 exchanges, over 5 topics. • Applications: Flummox and Friends, Between the Lines

8. Categorization with Apps • Targets both receptive and expressive language skills • Example of goals: • 1. The student will group familiar items belonging to the same category and say a carrier phrase to label the category, • (“These are all toys.”) • 2. The student will label a picture and identify the category it • belongs to and say a carrier phrase to label the category, • (“The _________ is a toy”). • Apps that target categories: STOP- Categories Word Game

9. Describing with Apps • Targets expressive language skills • Example of goals: • 1. The student will describe actions, events, or pictures with no more than one prompt or reminder. Sentences will be grammatically correct • and meaningful to the context. • Apps that target describing things • -Bag Game: you can hide objects in a brown bag and have the child ask questions to guess what’s inside • (ex: what does it look like?) • -GuessPerson: an app that is just like the game • Guess Who. The child can answer questions • Based on the character they have chosen.

10. Literacy with Apps • Targets decoding, spelling, grammar and writing skills • Example of goals: • The student will write at least 10 grammatically correct sentences with proper spelling, capitalization, word order, and punctuation. • The student will decode/spell at least 10 multi-syllabic words with common prefixes/suffixes. • Apps that target decoding: Bluster! (rhyming, prefixes, suffixes) • Apps that target spelling: Spelling Bee and Word Beach

11. Literacy cont. • Pre-reading activities • -read the synopsis or look at the illustration and make a prediction about the story • -before reading, practice flash cards of sight words from the story • -listen to the story • -preview important vocabulary words • 2. Reading Activities • -record the child reading to measure reading fluency • -mark errors and make into flashcards for later practice • -work on reading comprehension skills & ask wh-questions • -have the student verbalize important events in order to address sequencing • -talk about the characters, setting, problem, and resolution

12. Articulation with apps • Targets producing speech sounds at the objective level (isolation, syllables, words, phrases, sentences, connected speech). • Examples of Goals: • The student will produce voiced /th/ and voiceless /th/ in all positions at the sentence level. • Apps that track intelligibility/promote carry-over: • Articulation Apps by Erik Raj • Listen Close Articulation • I Dare You Articulation • Articulation Test Center by Little Bee Speech

13. Intelligibility with apps • Targets producing clear speech during connected speech tasks (e.g., retelling a story, describing a scene, conversation) • Example of Goals: • The student will produce clear speech in conversation/to retell a story/to describe a scene, across at least 10 trials by utilizing strategies (slow rate, over-articulation) to reduce rate of speech. • App that track intelligibility: • Articulation Test Center from Little Bee Speech (compatible with iPad)

14. Parent support with apps • Apps provide a social network for parents of students with autism and other special needs. • My Autism Team by MyHealthTeams • Apps provide many opportunities for communication and teach social interactions. • Charades! by FatChicken Studios • Apps help to control aspects of the environment. • Visual Schedule Planner by Good Karma Applications, Inc.

15. Parent Resources • http://www.speechlanguageneighborhood.com/ • -website with apps and ideas for SLPs and Parents • -the website is broken up by speech and language with various apps under each category

16. Questions/Comments