Past projects 59
They've Gotta See Us Talk!
Funded Aug 25, 2020Thank you very much for your donations of our special face shields. We have been able to wear them as we provide speech therapy to our students. Our students have been able to recognize us instead of focusing on the stranger with part of their face covered up. Masks and having our faces half covered make some of our students anxious. When they are anxious, we don't get much work done. Seeing our whole face is more relaxing and familiar to them.
Our students are also able to see our mouths move as we speak to them. This is important as we have done articulation and feeding. We can model what our mouths should look like. With the extra fabric around the shield we are protected from droplets. We are safe and in turn can keep our students safe.
Thank you again for helping us stay healthy and safe during this time!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Susannah
Zoom into Speech Therapy with Puppets
Funded Jun 19, 2020Thank you so much for our puppets. We have already started using them. The puppets have been able to help grab the attention of students who find it difficult to attend to the computer screen. They have shown an interest and watched them with smiles. It helps as a book is being read or a song is being played to see the puppet reacting to what is happening.
The puppets have provided context for some of our sessions. The Octopus puppet, Mr. O, is helping to introduce our Beach theme. The purple hairy puppet, Monkey, is helping when we brush our hair and teeth. The wizard is helping retell a story by pulling objects out of a magic hat.
Using each puppet with a Green Screen helps give the picture being shown on the screen more legitimacy. The students see the puppet, as well as the provider, interacting with the scenery. This helps the students connect with what we are doing.
Each of the puppets also are helping with pragmatic skills. By introducing a puppet into a session, the student gets more practice in using greetings as they greet the puppet or asking how they are feeling or even giving the puppet a turn.
Thank you again for your generous donations. The puppets are really making our tele-therapy even more special.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Susannah
iGaze With An iPad!
Funded Nov 5, 2019Thank you again for your donation. Our new ipad with eye gaze capability has been having an impact on the students who are using it. Right now we have been using the calibrating section of the program. this has been the hardest part for our students. hAving them focus on one point so they can control the pointer has been hard. We are getting closer and closer to that point. The students are spending more time watching the calibration symbols and starting to move into the communication section of the apps. This is huge. We hope by the end of the year we can have a child use their eyes to guide the app to say "yes" or "no" out loud for their classmates to hear.
It is slow and steady process. It will take time for big gains to be seen, but the small steps are exciting and being celebrated. Thank you again for your dontation.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Susannah
This classroom project was brought to life by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and 7 other donors.I Have More to Say!
Funded Jun 19, 2019I am so excited by our new tangible object symbols for the Proxpad. They have allowed my student to communicate in ways he has been unable to before. My student can now answer YES or NO to a question. He has been able to use his device to let the teacher know he is finished with his work.
The staff that works with my student is very excited to create new symbols for him to use throughout the academic day. Up until now, he has had symbols that only relate to daily living. Those are wonderful, but they are not as effective in an academic setting.
Now my student has a more of a voice to interact in the lesson. His friends now can listen to him participate in the lesson. In the past he did not have symbols that helped him interact so the whole class could hear what he had to say.
We are so excited with what will come next. Thank you so much for your donations.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Susannah
We Need to Assess-orize Our Program!
Funded Jan 15, 2019Thank you so much for your generous donations. We have been using our new assessments. They have proved to be very helpful to us in seeing what our children need.
We are using the ipad as an assessment tool. We have loaded up Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) apps to use as trials for our students. Often we think a child is ready to move from a low tech AAC to a high tech one. We have to state why and the best reason is to show that a child can use one. So we loaded up the ipad with such apps and we share it as needed. We have recommended several children for their own AAC devices in the last few months.
The assessments have been very helpful. The Test of Early Communication and Emerging Language (TECEL) has been updated. It is shorter but just as comprehensive. The assessment has allowed us to also involve the parents in skills we may not see (it gives us interview questions!!!). So we feel that we get a bigger picture of the child as a communicator.
The Early Functional Communication Profile (EFC) has been very helpful in really zooming into what early skills child needs to focus on so we can scaffold their communications skills well. The language is also good at helping us craft clear and easy to understand yearly goals for their Individualized Education Plans (IEP). The Functional Communication Profile Revised (FCP-R) does the same for slightly more advanced students.
Thank you again for all of your help. You are making us a stronger program!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Susannah
Let's APP it Up!
Funded May 3, 2018Thank you so much for your wonderful donation. I was able to purchase several apps for our therapy ipads. My students have such diverse needs and interests. Sometimes free apps or "lite" apps don't go into enough depth.
With your donation, I was able to buy apps that help with questioning skills, conversational skills, pronouns, attributes, social skills, sentence building, and language development. I also purchased a Thomas the Tank Engine app as a reward for working hard. An Augmentative Alternative Communication App was a must for some students.
The AAC app was a hit. It was an app that allows you to take pictures and create hot spots (buttons) on the picture that activates a recorded voice. This helps children who are not able to think abstractly yet and use symbols to represent their requests. We took pictures of the yard. Students were able to tell us where they wanted to go by pressing on the picture of exactly what they see.
Trains seem to be a very popular preference for a lot of our students. So the Thomas the Tank Engine app is a great motivator. There are also a lot of skills the students work on, matching, puzzles, sorting, etc.
Students with Autism often lack the subtleties of social interaction and conversations. The pictures along with the conversational starters and questions have helped student engage in a back and forth conversation. Often there is a one word answer and now we can have more.
The language development apps are great. I have seen progress in telling the difference between he and she. I have seen students develop reading skills. Theses apps are helping the students develop a larger vocabulary which helps as they verbally express themselves. We have been able to extend their receptive understanding as well as expand the length of their utterances by adding a few attributes.
Thank you again for your wonderful donation.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Susannah
iCommunicate iSpeak iFunction iAutism
Funded Jan 29, 2018Thank you very much for you generous donations. Our speech team is thrilled with our new ipads. We have been using them in different ways. We have been using them to download new apps that help the children work on meeting goals. We have been using them to download AAC apps to help the children communicate. We have been using them as a reward to work towards.
The apps that we have downloaded are great. We have downloaded reading apps. We have downloaded letter identification apps. There are apps that are specific to to the needs of our students with Autism. Some students have been working with apps that teach social norms, i.e. using a public restroom. Other students have been developing vocabulary skills, i.e identifying verbs to be later used in their communication.
It takes time for some non-verbal or verbally limited to obtain a device of their own. We as therapists try out different devices and apps to help decide if a student is ready for their own AAC device. The new ipads are able to download the newer AAC apps that are available. We have been testing out different apps with our students to be able to make appropriate recommendations for their future communication needs.
The ipad is loved by many students. Many of them try to deflect away form work, as do many children. The ipad is a great motivator to have them participate in some of the more challenging activities they are provided with. 10 minutes of an activity and 2 minutes of an ipad helps motivate the children.
Thank you again for your amazing donations. We appreciate it. You have given our students a great tool to help meet their communication goals.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Susannah
This classroom project was brought to life by The First Million Fund and 6 other donors.Chugga Chugga Choo Choo Along the Motivational Express
Funded Feb 5, 2018It has only taken a few days for our new materials to have a huge impact on my speech students. I knew that I was picking materials that they would like and would find engaging, but even I did not realize the huge impact in just a few sessions!
With the visual symbols we already have and the static communication boards I have created for my non-verbal students, the students have a lot to say about the new materials. My students are working towards their speech goals with fun. Students are requesting the materials with utterances from 1 - 4 words long using a picture exchange system from a single picture symbol to a sentences strip with picture symbols. Students are using their AAC devices to request the materials. This is having the same impact on verbal students.
With the new materials the student have been able to expand their mean length utterance by adding an attribute to their request, i.e. "I want the blue car." "I want the big train." The new materials have given verbal students more opportunities to work on their Syntax and Phonology, i.e. adding an article to a sentence, producing the /tʃ/ (ch).
I am excited to continue using the materials. There are opportunities to use these materials for receptive language, not only expressive. Some students will move onto working with prepositions, following directions, and expanding vocabulary.
Thank you so much for this amazing donation. You have made a lot of children very happy to learn and to want to communicate with their larger world.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Susannah
Speak Up!
Funded Oct 9, 2017Thank you so much for your generous donations. We have happily been using our materials for a couple of months. The students love all of the different materials. There was excitement in being able to manipulate the soft toys that match books. The books are already well worn. They have been adapted and puzzles have been made to go with them. Reading "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" and then feeding a mouse cut out was fun!
We have been using the Eric Carle magnets for vocabulary building, identifying nouns, adjectives, and prepositions. The mystery box , along with the touch and match guessing game, are great for identifying common nouns/objects and talking about their functions. We have used the Eric Carle materials as visual prompts to answer "wh" questions, matching, and sequencing. The token boards have helped regulate some of the students during sessions. They can see that if they do the work, they will get their preferred reward for a few minutes in between the activities.
The storyteller box has been used for so much more than just story telling. It has been a great resource for learning how to answer "wh" questions, identifying verbs, and being able to differentiate between different pictures based on information provided.
As we move forward, we will be playing more of the social games so we know more about social norms. We will use the storyteller box to tell a story that we can illustrate. There is so much more we can do. thank you again for your donations.
The Mystery Box
Social Skills Board Games Touch & Match Guessing Game”
With gratitude,
Ms. Susannah
Height, Width, & Depth of Learning
Funded Jan 18, 2017Thank you so much for your generous donation. We loved the geoblock materials. We have been studying 3-D shapes and really know the names of most shapes. We went on a walk to see public sculptures and discussed the different 3D shapes used. Then it was our turn.
The students were so excited to use shapes they were familiar with from our math unit. The geoblocks were also smaller versions of what they use in the block area. The students were able to recreated favorite structures within their sculpture. The students were able to use geometric names as they described what they created.
It was such a fun activity. Everyone was engaged and excited. We have a big academic museum exhibit coming up soon and this will be a huge hit. Not only will visitors like it but the students will be able to talk to what they did and use the correct vocabulary.
Thank you.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Susannah