Day: March 19, 2022

Android has added two new features to help those with speech and mobility difficulties to navigate their devices.The first adaptive feature is called Camera Switches which detects facial features using the front facing camera to navigate the device. You can choose from 6 gestures (i.e. look right, look left, look up, smile, raise eyebrows, open mouth) to scan the phone and select different applications. Users can adjust the feature to specific sensitivities to help with selection (size of gesture or length of gesture).The second feature is an application called Project Activate. This application lets users use specific gestures to initiate actions, such as make a call or play music. Similarly to Camera Switches, this application also allows users to adjust

    In her presentation, speech language pathologist Angie Neal discusses the use of screen time in children and its impact on development, both in negative and positive ways. In the course of the last two years, we’ve seen technology be useful for a lot of good things. Facetiming loved ones, attending school virtually and simulated learning experiences such as virtual field trips to the Great Barrier Reef or your local zoo are just a few examples. We also need to consider the negative aspects: an increase in rate of obesity due to increased snacking during screen time, disruptions in sleep and even disruptions in specific areas of brain development. How can we overcome the negative effects seen from this

A simple trip to the grocery store provides an endless source of topics to discuss. Here are a few ways to support speech and language while grocery shopping: -Practice descriptive language. Describe the foods you see (e.g., What does that bin of apples look like?, What does the cereal box look like?, describe the bag of animal crackers, etc.). -Practice categories. For example, you may ask, “How can we find breakfast bars, would they be with the hamburgers or the cereal?” or “We need ice cream, what part of the store do you think that will be in?”. -Practice prepositions. At the grocery store you can create a fun “find it” challenge by using prepositional phrases to help kids correctly