The Speak Boutique
Yonge and Sheppard Toronto, ON, Canada

Peace Out, 2020! Though this was a surreal year, I appreciated the silver linings: * The Speak Boutique went virtual and I discovered a love for online therapy! * Party Animals! was released! I was flooded with and support from so many. My Toronto/GTA and BC peeps especially came through for me. * The Speak Boutique opened an online store. 2021 will bring new products. Watch this space . (Link to store in bio). ... Wishing all a healthy, prosperous, bright year ahead. Hello, 2021!

A Go Fund Me has been set up for Addison’s family. I will link below. Hoping the future will start to bring better news for people on the front lines. Martin Addison was a romantic. He was the guy who on the fourth date spent all day building your Ikea furniture. He was a proud father to a 4 month old son and 2 year old daughter. He was also a speech and language pathologist, and a good one at that, who loved what he did. On April 29th, 2020, he died from Covid-19. He... was 44. https://www.forbes.com//we-need-to-talk-about-the-covid-1/

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com//smartphone-dialling-up- Prof. Zahra Moussavi, biomedical engineering program and department of psychiatry researcher, as well as the Canada Research Chair in the department of electrical and computer engineering, is doing two research projects aimed at making it simpler to diagnose the novel coronavirus and keep track of its after-effects. Moussavi needs volunteers ([email protected]).... "Anybody with a smartphone can be part of it," she said. Officially, the two studies are entitled "A touchless tool to screen for COVID-19 for reopening industries" and "Post-discharge tele-monitoring of coronavirus survivors for long-term impacts and point-of-care." For the former, Moussavi said she needs 200 volunteers who have been referred to get the swab test and she needs to get them before too much time passes from the referral. "We’re looking for anybody tested for COVID-19 within the first five days while waiting for the test results," she said.

I Dr. Abdu Sharkawy for his compassionate and informed updates from the front lines, and today he sent a shout out to his colleague, Gordon, an SLP. Highly recommend the memoir article Dr. Sharkawy just wrote for Toronto Life: https://torontolife.com//i-lost-three-patients-in-36-hou/... Tweet link: https://twitter.com/sharkawymd/status/1349788575253098502

Not speech related, but interesting! We found a statistically significant inverse correlation between mumps titer levels and COVID-19 severity in people under age 42 who have had MMR II vaccinations, ....This adds to other associations demonstrating that the MMR vaccine may be protective against COVID-19. It also may explain why children have a much lower COVID-19 case rate than adults, as well as a much lower death rate. The majority of children get their first MMR vaccination around 12 to 15 months of age and a second one from 4 to 6 years of age. https://asm.org//MMR-Vaccine-Could-Protect-Against-COVID-19

Since #CAS is considered a severe speech sound disorder, sometimes #SLPs and parents make the mistake of thinking that all CAS is severe. The severity of CAS is... not determined by the number of words or sounds a child says. Rather, the severity of the deficit in motor planning and programming for speech determines the severity of CAS. The best way to determine the severity of the deficit is with dynamic assessment, in which the SLP provides multisensory cueing to the child and notes the response and any changes in movement accuracy. In this video, Dr. Edythe Strand explains different speech sound disorders, including CAS, and shows videos of children with various speech sound disorders. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEOy3APLA-g For more information about the severity of CAS, check out www.childapraxiatreatment.org/severity-levels/ #apraxia #apraxiaofspeech #slpeeps #everychilddeservesavoice See more

the average magnitude of [Apraxia World - a motor-based virtual therapy’s] treatment effect was comparable to face-to-face SLP therapy. Automated therapy management systems may be able to accelerate speech development and support communication resilience to counteract the effects of the COVID-19 restrictions on children with speech sound disorders. Technology-based strategies may also provide a potential solution to the chronic shortage of SLP services in rural areas into the future. https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2020_PERSP-20-00128 https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2020_PERSP-20-00128

Party Animals! is proud to be one of the prizes at this year’s WESS conference!

True story: My house literally smelled like latkes when I was doing this session. (No thanks to me - my husband is the cook in our house.) In any case, this was the perfect book/toy combo to compliment the first night of #hannukah . We were working on L, and had Loads to choose from here. The first page of this adorable book is Latkes, we talked about whether we Like ours with sour cream or Lots of sauce. Next we spin for Letters on the dreidel, Load up on gelt and Light t...he . Finally we Look at presents. We followed up with a menorah Lighting craft on @lessonpix @learningresources #countingsurpriseparty gave us lots more Ls to practice: Lift the Lid to take a Look. Do we Like the Little toy? Lucky us! Happy Hanukkah to all those celebrating! #thespeakboutique #hannukahtheme #ideasforL #articulation #articulationtherapy

I am surrounded by incredibly supportive people. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you Nikki!!!

Important post from my amazing colleague Irini!

There’s a Wall in the Middle of this Book by Jon Agee is a brilliant book about a knight who has a small PRoblem: a BRick has fallen out of the wall on his side of the book. As he climbs the ladder on the GRass to fix the wall, he relates the PRoblem with the other side of the wall. Unbeknownst to him characters on both sides of the wall face PRoblems - e.g. there’s a CRocodile on his side, and a GRoup of animals on the other. I use this book for R-blends - in particular ...repetitive practice of PR and BR (PRoblem, BRick, BRave) - on each page we discuss which side has bigger PRoblems. Other R-blends also appear incidentally: GRass, aFRaid, CRocodile, DRown, TRouble). I created a story companion on @lessonpix for continued opportunities to practice the blends. The @eebooalwaysgood game: There’s a Lion in my Way, is a perfect compliment to the book. This game consists on two sets of cards: one card features obstacles/PRoblems (e.g. a wall, an ogre, BRoken glass etc.), while the other set are tools. Players must offer up the best solutions for the PRoblems presented. There are 100! tool cards, which allows SLPs to pick deal cards with the student’s target sounds. This game would be fantastic for groups! Affiliate link for book: https://amzn.to/3pw7Br5 #amazonaffiliate #talikellerstein #thespeakboutique #ideasforrblends #literacybasedtherapy #picturebooktherapy #speechtherapy #articulationtherapy #languagetherapy #problemsolving #speechlanguagepathologist #speechsounddisorders #torontoslp

Many tests we use weren’t designed to be administered remotely, but several test development experts say preliminary studies of remote versus in person administrations show no significant differences.

#roadtripraccoon from #partyanimals is designed to help kids practice and master their - you guessed it - R sound. The poem is loaded with 17 R words (e.g. ready, , ) and a few more seek-and-find words at the bottom of the page, as well as more initial R words in the speech movers and section at the back of the book. I usually introduce this poem when children have established placement for their R sound, and are now ready to practice 2 word phrase combinations. The poe...m pairs perfectly with #raccoonrumpus by @educationalinsights where players must roll a to match colours to a raccoon’s outfit. Each outfit in the game represents a different occupation, so this game lends itself to the R-in-2-word-phrases target. (E.g. pRincess Raccoon, Rockstar Raccoon , etc.). I’ve added the game to my #amazonaffiliate store link in my bio. #teletherapy hack : You can still play memory with physical cards in teletherapy! What I do is arrange the cards in three Rows, and number the columns with #postitnotes . The child then directs me to which card the want to choose. (I.e. top Row, column 5). Once we pick we decide whether it was the Right Raccoon or the Wrong Raccoon. . So.much.R!!! #thespeakboutique #talikellerstein #articulationtherapy #roadtriptheme #raccoontheme #picturebooktherapy #speechsounddisorders #speechlanguagetherapy #instaslps #instaslp #slpgradstudent #slpsofinstagram #communicationdisorders #communicationdisordersmajor #communicationdisordersandsciences

Great work by Professor Kelly Farquharson!

This was such a fun session! Teatime Toad is very fancè. He has his top hat and tie, and tasty treats ready for his favourite part of the day - teatime. This poem in #partyanimalsbook is loaded with T sounds as well as a few extras hidden in the image (Tadpole, Tennis, Tutu etc.) @lessonpix has a great toad bingo dabber template, that complimented the book nicely, and allowed us to further practice vocabulary from the poem. We followed up with the @eeb...ooalwaysgood #spintoplayteaparty which was a perfect compliment! Target words: Take, Turn, waiT, Teacup, Tidbit, Tiny, Taste, fruiT, biTe, puT, Tart, Toast. #thespeakboutique #teatimetheme #teatimetherapy #motorspeechdisorders #childhoodapraxiaofspeech #speechsounddisorders #speechsounddevelopment #speechsounddisordersinchildren #speechsounddisorderstreatment #therapyfort #speechtherap

#howtocatchastar by @oliverjeffers has been a long time therapy fave of mine. It tells the story of a little boy who longs to catch a as a new friend. After several unsuccessful attempts, the little boy find a and friend in an unexpected place. This book was perfect in today’s session for lots of repetitions of the S-Blends in: STar, SKy, didn’t STop , STill lonely. In addition, my client was consolidating mid-tongue sounds: SH, CH and J, and the book is rich with... those: wiSH, catCH, (couldn’t) reaCH, SHooting star, beaCH, oCean, Jet . We followed up with a story companion I made on @lessonpix and the @ravensburgerglobal game #twinkletwinklelittlestar . In this board game players collect stars for the SKy above their homes. I adapted my board a little for therapy by addition stickers to winning spots. That way my clients say: STep to STar, before they put the STar in the SKy. Loads of opportunities for great repetitive practice here! #thespeakboutique #ideasforsblends #startheme #literacybasedspeech #literacybasedspeechtherapy #articulationtherapyideas #articulationtherapybooks #articulationdisorders #speechtherapy

I recently began implement this very simple but powerful strategy to help kids see how well they are slaying their new sounds. I’ve recommended that parents find two jars at home. Label one EASY, Label the other HARD. At the start of therapy many new words or phrases will be in the HARD jar, and with practice, they will migrate to the EASY jar. The words/phrases can be written on post its and crumpled into a ball so that they occupy some volume in the jar, and make progress very visible. The past accomplishments can remain as a reminder that the future challenges are not too great to overcome. SLPs - what are your ideas to show kids how far they have come? #speechtherapylife #speechlanguagetherapy #thespeakboutique #motivation #speechies #speechieforlife

Friday was a very exciting day at #thespeakboutique . It was the first time I ran a pair session on #teletherapy and it was so.much.fun!! My roots as a speech therapist come from running motor speech groups @the.speech.and.stuttering.inst When you find a group that works - there are fantastic benefits: kids see that they are not alone in their challenges they get practice using their sounds with more conversation partners and therapy activities can often be more natural ...in a group since it starts to mimic a class format. It’s not always necessary to match kids by sound error, in fact with my kindergarten students, we rarely did. However, in this case, my clients were both working on R after a vowel, (AR + consonants in particular), and #iggypeckarchitect was a GREAT book for this. We started the session with a dice game I created on @lessonpix and followed up with reading the book. On each page, I read the text, and then the students took turns summarizing the page events. E.g Iggy Peck built a towER from diapERs. We didn’t have time this session to build houses using the architecture set from @lakeshorelearning but that will be first on our agenda next session! #rtherapy #rtherapy_practice #articulation #teletherapyslp #grouptherapy #picturebooktherapy #talikellerstein #amazonaffiliate #articulationdisorders #speechlanguagetherapy #speechsounddisorders #speechstudent #speechies

#whereswalrus by @savageillustrator is a new addition to my library, but an instant fave! This wordless picture book with simple, colourful and nostalgic illustrations tells the story of a talented walrus who escapes the zoo and hides in various parts of the city, much to the zookeeper’s bafflement. As the book’s title suggests, the book would be great for repetitive practice of W. I used it to a help a client with the AIR r-controlled vowel. Each page we asked whERE is wa...lrus? and found him thERE. We folded in other R-after-a-vowel words from the story: with a mERmaid, on a chAIR, with a hat on his hAIR, as a bricklayER, with the fIREmen, kicking his fin in the AIR, etc. My client absolutely loved this book, and asked insightful questions such as: Why does the zookeeper have such a small net to catch such a big animal? #wheredoilive by @orchardtoys was a fun follow up that ties in nicely thematically and offers more R practice! #thespeakboutique #walrustheme #wordlesspicturebooks #ideasforr #speechtherapy #amazonaffiliate #motorspeechdisorders #motorspeechtherapy #articulationtherapyideas #articulationismyjam #articulationtherapy #speechies #speechiestudies #rtherapy