Hello Speech2me followers and happy Friday! I hope that you have enjoyed celebrating my one year blog-a-versary this May! So far, I have raffled my favorite Smarty Ears app: Sunny Articulation and Phonology Test; posted one of my most popular Mother's Day Activity; and hosted TWO, fabulous guest bloggers who gave us some fun and functional activities for this summer! Rose, at Speech Snacks, shared an ice cream activity with a healthy recipe and Jenn, at Crazy Speech World, created: SPEECHMarks, which have simply stunned and amazed many of my client's teachers and caregivers!! Be sure to check out these posts that my peeps worked so hard to put together! Thanks again ladies!
Like the end of a fireworks show, I would like to close out my month long celebration with some show stopping giveaways from two more companies that have changed the way I service speech and language clients! Next week, I will be holding a raffle for TWO of my most used apps from Kyle at Mobile Education Store: Communication Builder and Communication Builder Teen! Be on the lookout for the rafflecopter!
However, today I am starting the week long raffle for, hold onto your seats: A COMPLETE SET OF SPEECH BUDDIES!!! This set valued at $300 includes user-friendly, kid approved tools that help manipulate tongue placement for the following target sounds: s, sh, ch, r, and l. For more detailed information about Speech Buddies and the online site where you can gather and collect data, go to this link. I was fortunate enough to receive a kit last October and trial several of these tools with some of my articulation only clients. In January, I posted this review and raffled a Speech Buddy of the winner's choice!
Since my post in January, I have discharged three clients that used the s, sh, and ch tools! While another client, a second grader, made remarkable improvement using the /s/ buddy, he will continue to receive speech services since he lost three front teeth prematurely this year. His family has asked for information to purchase a speech buddy so they can implement it at home! In February, I qualified another second grader and she has been using the /l/ buddy with success and will be starting the /s/ buddy when we return to school in August. Finally, I submitted a proposal to present my results at ASHA for my use of the /r/ buddy with a fourth grader who also just qualified for services this school year. She has gone from not being stimulable for the /r/ sound to achieving all but the final position in words! We started the school year with traditional therapy utilizing the, "Entire World of R Sounds" protocol, and finished the second half of the year using the speech buddy. I believe in these tools and have seen first hand the remarkable difference they have made with the population that I carefully chose to participate in trial runs! All clients were in a private school setting and had just speech/articulation needs with no other cognitive concerns. On another note, after speaking with my mentor from my practicum program back in 1999, she decided to purchase the /sh/ buddy for a client with aphasia post stroke. I recently received an email message from her indicating that the speech buddy helped her client achieve speech goals in the matter of months!! Finally, after over a decade later, I felt great about helping my mentor who taught me so much about counseling and clinical therapy in a hospital setting, not to mention assisting a geriatric patient with articulation!!
I hope to continue educating my peers about my success with Speech Buddy tools and I will keep my fingers crossed that ASHA accepts my proposal this July to present a poster session for Speech Buddies at the November 2013 conference in my kind of town: Chicago! Until then, I am thrilled to host this raffle for a set of Speech Buddies!! I can just hear those fireworks popping away! Good luck with the raffle below and as always, thank you for following my little blog!!
a Rafflecopter giveaway