Category: blog

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

    New research from a team of psychologists at the University of Miami finds that preschoolers produce the same amount of language whether or not they are wearing masks.  Researchers used a device which tracks the number of language sounds coming from the person who wears it, in order to monitor the language of two classes of preschoolers.  When they compared the class from early 2020 (pre-Covid pandemic) with the class of teachers and children who wore masks, they found no change in the children’s ability to learn and produce language.  The study also included children with hearing loss, who often exhibit language delays. While they anticipated that mask wearing might affect these students most, they found no difference

  It is thought that approximately 15-20% of the population are “neurodiverse,” meaning that they have received a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia, or Tourette Syndrome. With the increased prevalence of these diagnoses, many companies are beginning to focus on  neurodiversity in their workforce. Large companies, such as SAP, Microsoft, EY, JPMorgan Chase, and Ford Motor Company, are part of the “Neurodiversity @ Work Roundtable,” where including the neurodiverse population in the workforce is emphasized. One study found that “neurodiverse employees were comparable to neurotypical staff in work quality, efficiency and productivity. The bonus was ‘the neurodiverse employees excelled at innovation’.” https://theconversation.com/neurodiversity-can-be-a-workplace-strength-if-we-make-room-for- it-164859

  In August 2022, a new series of cartoon episodes focusing on explaining various disabilities will be premiering! The 10 episode series provides information for children, families, and educators covering the topics of assistive technology, transportation, communication, and service animals. The episodes are targeted for viewers in kindergarten through third grade to increase understanding and awareness regarding peers and their differences. The videos will aim to explain how children with varying ability levels complete various tasks. Over the course of the next couple of years, these videos will be piloted in schools. Please visit the link below for more information! https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/12/cartoons-about-disability-will-educate-children

  A recent study conducted by The School of Psychology’s Centre for Human Developmental Science revealed that playing with dolls independently lead to frequent talk about others’ thoughts and feelings compared to when playing on a tablet. The ‘internal state language concept’ is linked to increasing a child’s opportunity to develop social skills and can be beneficial to a child’s emotional development. Lead researcher Dr. Sarah Gerson said, “When children create imaginary worlds and role play with dolls, they communicate at first out loud and then internalize the message about others’ thoughts, emotions and feelings. This can have positive long-lasting effects on children, such as driving higher rates of social and emotional processing and building social skills like empathy that

In her TedTalk, pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom discusses three trends that teachers have reported over the course of the last 30 years: increases in children experiencing difficulty paying attention in school,  changes in spatial awareness (possibly evidenced by children running into each other or into objects/walls or falling out of chairs) and an increase in children’s frustrations. In an effort to discover the causes behind these trends, Hanscom completed a study to look at core strength and normal balance reactions and compared these results with standardized norms from 1984. Her results indicated that only 1 out of every 12 children was meeting the averages of those children in the 1980s. Why? A factor that may have contributed to these

Due to the surge of COVID-19 cases in the last few months, your child may have transitioned to using a teletherapy platform when receiving services. If your child is receiving a speech/language evaluation, here are some important tips a caregiver may take into consideration to make the process smoother: Have your child positioned in a quiet environment with minimal distractions; when possible, a chair that allows for a child to have their legs positioned at a 90-degree angle is optimal (small benches/boxes can be used for foot support if a smaller chair is not available) A headset with a microphone is beneficial – not only can headsets cancel out external noise, it can ensure a higher quality of audio input