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I would like to thank Jocelyn Kupperman, SLP, for doing a guest blog this week. She tells SLPs how they can save money on speech therapy materials and also how to make money on selling their own materials.

Teachers Pay Teachers – Save and Earn Money

Speech and language therapy is an extremely individualized program. Each student that we come across has his or her own challenges. Because of the uniqueness of each student, the amount of speech and language materials a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) may require can really add up in costs. If you work in a private practice, you are the sole purchaser and incur the full cost of the materials you may need. If you are a school based SLP  like me, tight school budgets mean you are probably the last to receive any funding, if any, for programs or materials.

Speech therapy materials typically cost more than your average classroom resource. Even though I have found some great activities from big publishers, I rarely use the materials straight from the book or out of the box. I often have to adapt the materials to use in my speech sessions. Think about how many times you have purchased an activity book and only used one page from it, how frustrating. So, what is an SLP to do? We need to get creative and find inexpensive ways to keep our materials fresh and provide our clients with what they need. One great resource for this is a website called Teachers Pay Teachers.

Recently, the website called Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) blew up in the media when Deanna Jump, a Kindergarten teacher, earned one million dollars selling teaching units online. Of course I had to go and check her store and was amazed to find that most of her items are priced under $10.00, far less than the average product from popular teaching stores. When I looked at some of her work, I was amazed at how complete and user friendly the packets were. Knowing a teacher created and used these items, made them even more appealing.

This inspired meto start searching for Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) on TpT. Since I am not a Kindergarten or classroom teacher, I wanted to search for items that would be more appropriate for my therapy. This is when I came across Jenna from Speech Room News and Jenn from SLP Gone Wild. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many fun activities at such a low cost! Just as I was amazed at the overall completeness of Deanna’s work, I was also impressed by the thoroughness of Jenna and Jenn’s products. I started to think about how many materials I have created over the years for my students in an effort to save some money, and realized I too could sell my items on TpT and help support the SLP community by sharing these materials for free or at a low cost. You can check out my store here, http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Msjocelyn.

Creating items for TpT has truly inspired my therapy practice. The process of creating materials makes me think deeply about my students’ needs and the types of materials I would need to develop in order to help them achieve their goals. Purchasing items from TpT has also been inspiring for my therapy instruction because these materials are being created by SLPs, most of whom work in school based population, and these materials are engaging and align well with my student’s goals.

Most items sold on TpT are digital packets available as instant downloads. You could literally find a great activity at lunch, print, and use it that afternoon! Many products can end up being 50 pages or more. Because they are digital, you can print what you need, when you need it, but also you have it forever! Also, you can print multiple copies of items which is great for when you have students working in groups or you want to be able to send home practice work. Another added benefit is that your only other cost is to print the documents which you can do at home, school, or at a Kinkos. I think back to all the times I would buy new workbooks and resources after my students had used them up or lost them. Realistically, making packets from my printer is much more cost efficient than constantly repurchasing student activity books.

As I had mentioned earlier, creating my own materials came from the necessity of having to save money.  However, creating these materials from scratch also requires time. TpT offers SLPs and classroom teachers ready-made, complete products at a reasonable cost which saves you not just money but also TIME!

Toward the end of 2012, more and more SLPs started popping up with stores on TpT. As our community grows on this website, SLPs are able to find low cost materials and expand their thinking about their therapy instruction. Many SLPs on TpT also host blogs where they provide you with a look at their resources as well as ways to use them in your therapy room. At www.msjocelynspeech.com, you can find blog posts about my TpT products with suggestions for how they can be used for assessment or instruction as well as other therapy tips.

I encourage you to check out TpT for time saving, low cost, and motivating activities to use with your caseload.

Jocelyn Kupperman

Jocelyn@msjocelynspeech.com

Hamaguchi Apps has created a new series of apps, Between the Lines Level 1 HD, Between the Lines Level 2 HD, and Between the Lines Advanced HD. These 3 apps address the same skills but different levels. These apps are so comprehensive that they are appropriate for assisting remediation for several diagnoses and skills; i.e., TBI, apraxia, autism, language pragmatics (perspective-taking, body language), language (idioms), English-as-a-second-language.

By using photos and real life video clips (no cartoons) Hamaguchi Apps created apps that are appropriate for all ages and populations. In addition, the many environmental settings used in the videos provide for a variety of populations; office, shopping mall, kitchen, restaurant, park, bedroom, school, gym, birthday party and more. Each app, Between the Lines Level 1 HD, Between the Lines Level 2 HD, and Between the Lines Advanced HD, provide approximately 200 total tasks at 3 different levels; listening (still photo and audio), body language (video clip), and expressions (video clip).

The data keeping is very informative as it breaks down and keeps data on each level; listening, body language, and expressions, separately. And, of course the scores can be emailed and printed. The data allows for up to 75 users! And, of course, therapists are able to delete users who are no longer using the app.

There are many other options from which to choose in the settings – verbal praise (excellent voices) or sound praise (bell). You can choose from the 3 activities and the order in which they are presented. The number of choices from which to choose is 2, 3, or 4 – very important for some of those diagnosed with autism.

A visual reward system is built in for those clients who need a break from the skill activities. Hamaguchi Apps allows for the reward games to be turned off. The ability to turn off these games is good when the apps are being used with older students and adults.  However, young children often need these visual rewards.

Although these 3 apps are comprehensive and can be used as stand alone practice I can see how a very inventive therapist could take each scenario after the client has mastered a level and have the clients act out the scenario.  One student/client could watch the video, then act it out and another student/client or therapist could guess how the student/client felt as they were acting out that particular scene.  Using a mirror the clients could attempt to emulate the face on the video or in the photo. There could be discussions on what one sees on the face in the video vs. what is seen on the person acting it out.  The therapist can use these videos and pictures as a starting point for discussions relating directly to the client’s life.

Again, these apps are great for a wide variety of clients. And, the real life pictures and videos present real life situations that take the students/clients beyond rote learning into application of the skills into their daily lives for great carryover and generalization.

I have not received compensation for this app review. However, Hamaguchi Apps is providing app give aways for these apps. Follow this link to enter the drawing for one of the 6 apps being given away.  Click on the blue Rafflecopter and follow the instructions. To give more people time to enter (due to the holidays) we will keep this drawing open for a week.

To thank our customers for their many years of loyalty (and to also pay back the wonderful field of speech-language pathology) we will be having drawings for materials from now until Christmas. As many of you know, we are discontinuing selling almost all our products (except for Dr. Suzy Lederer’s I Can Series books). The give aways will be posted every few days on our Facebook page as well as through our newsletter. Also, many of these materials can be viewed at Children’s Publishing. The method of entering for these speech materials and assessment materials is to go to our Facebook page and click on the Rafflecopter (toward the top of the page). We like to use Rafflecopter as it is an easy way to spin for the winners and to notify them through email. If you are a winner, we will ask for your shipping address. Unfortunately, we cannot ship materials outside the U.S. due to the cost. Therefore, only those residing in the U.S. are eligible for the hard materials. However, if we have give aways (donated by various speech app developers), persons outside the U.S. are eligible.

Some of these materials are: Anthony Best (book about autism by Davene Fahy), Fluharty-2 (Preschool Screening), My School Day (CD by Social Skills Builder), Tuned in to Learning (music for autism), Introducing Print Awareness (by Marilyn Toomey), and other books by Marilyn Toomey, EEK! I Hear A Squeak and the Scurrying of Little Feet and MORE great materials for speech and early learning.

Thank you for being a customer of Children’s Publishing. We look forward to continuing a business relationship with you through our new business, www.SpeechPathologyApps.com.

Check out the drawing for two of these app on our Facebook page.

 $3.99 – what kind of speech app can a speech-language pathologist get for $3.99? How about an app that is simple enough that parents can install it on either their iPad or iPhone and SLPs can still have data keeping. And, several skills can be addressed.

 My first impression of Sequences was that it was limited in the number of sequences – only 12. However, upon further use I discovered that it was very easy to build personalized sequences with the picture taking and recording. There are several uses that came to mind immediately.

One use would be for those students who have difficulty transitioning from one activity to another. Take pictures of their schedule, record the activities, and have the students practice putting them in order.  Once he/she becomes accustomed to following the pictorial/audio schedule, insert a change into the sequence and again allow him/her to practice and then follow the schedule. The app will, hopefully, become the predictability for the child as changes are made to the schedule and followed per the app.

Another use is for home. Create the pictorial/audio sequence of daily activities; i.e., steps in brushing teeth. Have the child practice putting the story sequence in order prior to the activity and listen to it being read.

How about using it for categories and vocabulary? Create a story detailing 4-6 items he/she finds in a room or place(s); i.e., playground – slide, swing, bench, etc.;  kitchen – pan, stove, refrigerator.

Use the app for language activities. When creating the personalized sequences record time words; i.e., first, next, then, last. Have the student practice putting the pictures in order and re-telling the steps in their activity.

Last but not least – pairing relevant pictures from the child’s environment with recordings is a great memory tool.

Again, this app does not come with a lot of pre-recorded sequences. However, I think for the low price of $3.99 parents and providers are able to create a multitude of language-based activities with the simple picture taking and recording abilities on both the iPhone and iPad.

For more information on this app visit www.edninja.com.

Non-disclosure: I have not received payment for this review. EdNinja did provide www.SpeechPathologyApps.com with 2 free apps for a Give Away.