The Weekly Review: Week Fifteen

Best Blog Posts of the Week

• Linda at All and Sundry makes the list again because she's just so funny. Seriously, given the following quote, how can you skip this post?
  Before beginning to work from home, she thought perhaps... "while I periodically take a break to wave at my cherubic children, who have naturally occupied themselves with some peaceful and industrious activity such as polishing the stainless steel appliances while independently serving their developmental needs, Montessori-style."
• Amy at Amalah wrote a post to tempt fate about her new baby and sleep. The pictures are a nice bonus.

Website Resource of the Week:

Ok, you're probably only going to think this is the "coolest thing ever" if you're a Speech-Language Pathologist and a particularly geeky one at that. Learning Fundamentals is a company that makes software for SLPs (apparently, I haven't actually checked out any of their software). On their website they have a tool that lets you specify exactly what types of sounds you want in what order and then it spits out a list of words that meet your criteria. Very, very cool.

The Weekly Michael

Michael is all of a sudden extremely interested in spelling words. He'll sit at the computer and ask for help spelling random words. If I help him sound out the word he can pretty much spell it himself. He'll even make editorial decisions. For example, he decided that "mommy" needed to be spelled "momme" because that just made more sense. He made the same decision for "dadde" We've also spelled Michael and Ava. He made the observation that his name is bigger. I believe cat, dog, and monster were also spelled. It's fun watching him explore writing. Well, typing. He loves typing things out but isn't the slightest bit interested in writing on paper.

The Weekly Ava

Last night as I was putting Ava to bed we got into a tickling game. Then she stopped me by saying, "Be careful Mama! No want to make hole in Ava!" I understood every word. I wonder, if I had an audiotape and played it for someone else if they would have understood it. Not that it matters if someone else would understand. I knew exactly what she was saying and it was wonderful.

Speech-Language Pathology Topics: The Flap

As I was working on my one syllable word lists I was reminded of two things: one rather obvious and the other pretty obscure.

The obvious: If you are not using blends, medial consonants are not used in one syllable words. So, if I want a list of simple words that use a medial sound I'll need to use very simple two syllable words (CVCV, CVC, CVCVC).

The obscure: I completely forgot about a rather obscure sound. When a /t/ sound appears between two vowels in connected speech it is produced as a flap. When a /b/ sound appears between two vowels in connected speech it is often also produced as a flap. Say the following two sentences quickly and naturally.

1. Look at the bike pedal.
2. Look at the flower petal.

The /d/ in "pedal" and the /p/ in "petal" are produced in almost exactly the same manner - as a flap instead of as a clear /t/or /d/.

My conclusion: If you want to practice the /t/ sound, it is not useful to try to practice it in the medial position of a simple two-syllable word (bottle, button) because when those words are spoken in natural speech a flap is produced rather than a /t/. Once your child has mastered /t/ in the initial and final position of words it would be a better use of your time to practice it in connected speech with short phrases (on top).

You might also be interested in the following articles:

Voicing Pairs

Random Example of the Complexity of Motor Planning

Random Story and Random Contemplation

It was raining as I dropped the children off at preschool yesterday morning. The dropoff at our school is a horseshoe and the entrance to the horseshoe is at the top of the hill so you can see the entire parking lot as you pull in. As I was pulling in, I saw the person in the spot closest to the door pulling out and thought to myself, "I actually got lucky!"

Now you have to understand that although I am very lucky in the big things in life (wondeful husband and children, home over our heads, food to eat, extended family to love us), I am not so lucky in the little things in life. I do not gamble because (as one of many reasons) it just isn't that much fun to spend three minutes putting $20 of quarters into a slot machine and then walk away. I'm never the person that wins the free soda when I take the cap off the promotional bottle. I never get the best prize in the scratch off in the mail. So, I was genuinely surprised and pleased that on a rainy day the closest spot to the front door magically opened up as I was pulling in.

Then I noticed that another car was leaving as well, so I slowed down to allow her lots of room to back up before I continued pulling around the horseshoe. Well, she backed up and instead of leaving, took the closest spot. There! Classic example of my luck. :-)

_________________________

Sometimes, as I am waiting at a red light at a busy intersection watching a river of cars pass in front of me I find myself thinking about their passengers. I think about how every one of those cars has a person (or people) in it. Every one of those people has a life just as rich, complicated, and interconnected as mine. Every one of those people is essential to the people who love them. I think about the web of connections that spreads out from this exact geographical point. And I very genuinely wish all of them a safe journey.