The Weekly Review: Week 39

Interesting Online Article of the Week

A New York Times blogger discusses an interesting study. You think your child is willfully ignoring you when playing. Instead, they may genuinely not hear you.

The Weekly Project

I dove back into cardsets this week. I am enjoying being able to work with Ava in a regular and structured manner and I needed some new cardsets to address my current objectives. So I made and shared some.

Crazy Week

This has been a stressful week. My parents have been out of town and we are dog sitting their two chihuahuas. My wonderful mother usually helps with picking the children up from their two different preschools, but she could not do that when away. I've been sick. And of course, Ava's evaluation was this week. However, even with all of that, the week has gone by swiftly and the evaluation day was oddly anticlimactic (more on that later).

The Weekly Vent

So I'm an Amazon Prime Member. Essentially I pay an annual fee to get free 2-day shipping on all orders for a year (plus a few other perks). I ordered a Christmas present for one of the children 10 days ago. Today it dropped in price by almost $30 dollars. $30!!! Now that's enough of a drop that I'm willing to pay to ship the original gift back and rebuy one at the lower price. After all, shipping on the new one is free for me.

However, that seemed silly. Why should I pay to ship one back, and Amazon pay to ship me a new one when they could simply credit me with the price difference? I was perfectly willing to take a credit rather than a refund. I was also willing to let them deduct one set of shipping costs. I managed to get a customer service agent on a live chat to discuss the issue.

They wouldn't even consider it. Their policy is to not refund price drops. Period. Even if it is ultimately going to cost them more money to refund my original purchase, to pay to ship me another one (2-Day shipping at that), and to pay someone to restock the original item. They still wouldn't even discuss offering me a credit or acknowledge that my argument made sense. The customer service agent simply cut and pasted their price drop policy without even discussing my specific situation or argument. He did helpfully point out that I was welcome to return the item.

So, I politely thanked the agent for his time, shut down the chat window, and bought the new one. As soon as the box arrives, I'm going to open it up, remove the invoice, stick in my return order authorization, and ship it right back to them for my refund keeping the original one I already unpacked.

Rarely am I disappointed in Amazon, but this time I certainly was. It's just wasteful.

Ava and Michael this Week

This week the children have been doing something new and irritating interesting. They are both trying to talk to me simultaneously. They are upset that the other child is stealing my attention and each handles it slightly differently. Michael just wordlessly whines at an ever increasing volume until my attention returns to him. Ava will chant "excuse me" over and over and over until she gets my attention. This simultaneous whiny neediness sends my blood pressure skyrocketing and I usually choose whichever child I feel initiated the conversation first and focus my eye contact and attention on that one after telling the other I will be with them in a minute and holding a finger up to try to put that one on "pause" until the chosen one can get their message out.

If I step back from the high emotions generated in all three of us, it probably looks hilarious to anyone watching.

Today is the day.

Later this morning Ava and I will be at her evaluation. By this evening we should know if we'll continue to receive services after her birthday or if we'll be on our own. Wish us luck.

I'm trying to keep a win-win outlook about this situation. If she doesn't qualify, that'll be because she's made more progress than I could have possibly imagined a year ago. Now that we have a good rhythm going with therapy at home, I can probably handle working with her myself for a while. We also have the advantage of working with a local apraxia expert twice a month who is guiding me on what to work on in between sessions with her. So even if we don't qualify, I have a plan. And it is a plan I can live with.

Apraxia Therapy Materials: Kids Express Train Set 1 - Therapy Music

Therapy Materials Review: Kids Express Train Set 1 (KET Set 1)

This is a review of The Kids Express Train Set 1 (referred to from here on as KET Set 1 for short) created by Rachel Arntson, M.S., CCC-SLP. Rachel was generous enough to provide me with a complimentary copy of this set to review. At it's core, this product is music. It is therapy music. The KET Set 1 comes with two music CDs, a CD-ROM of therapy resources, and a manual.

Target audience

I'd say this music would be most appropriate for children between the ages of 12 months and 5 years of age. The music could certainly be listened to by younger and older children, but in a therapeutic setting I see it being used most with toddlers and preschoolers. There are always exceptions where the kit might be appropriate for older children.

The music and materials would be useful to therapists providing services in a clinic, school or home setting, and also to parents in the home. The music has a wide enough appeal that it could also easily be enjoyed in a preschool or daycare classroom as well.

Description of the Kids Express Train Set 1

This set contains two music CDs with 30 tracks. There are 25 unique songs with lyrics and 5 additional instrumental versions of some of the tracks. The set also contains a manual and a CD-ROM with additional materials. These songs are composed at a slightly slower rate and in a key that is high enough for young children to easily sing along. Adults and children are singing together and the cue, "Your turn." is built into each song. Each song provides many opportunities for children to imitate, often in sets of three repetitions. The topics covered by the songs and vocabulary used in the songs are accessible to young children.

• Imitation Station - CD1 The goal of Imitation Station is to encourage verbal imitation through singing with music and rhythm. There are 13 songs on this CD. I will list the song titles and the primary therapeutic objective of each song. I will also link to a song sample when available.
  
  
  1. Express Train - taking turns talking
  2. Animals - animal sounds
  3. Puppy, Puppy, Puppy - actions / puppy sounds
  4. Noisy, Noisy, Noisy - making noises
  5. Monkey Song - vowels / actions
  6. Dump and Fill - concepts of in and out
  7. Owie - actions / common vocabulary
  8. Milk and Juice - foods and choice questions (Sample here. Scroll down a bit until you get to the KET Set 1 section to find song sample.)
  9. Baby Blowing Bubbles - words / phrases (Sample here. Scroll down a bit until you get to the KET Set 1 section to find song sample.)
  10. Put the Sound on the End - ends of words
  11. Barefoot Toes - two-syllable words/phrases
  12. Go in My Car - vowels and the word, "go"
  13. Bye, Bye - two-word phrases / common objects
  
  The manual provides a brief description and 2-4 simple activities for every song on this CD. The CD-ROM has .pdf files that provide additional resources all of which can be printed (in both color or black and white). Those resources are:
  
  • Lyrics for all songs.
  • A list of speech and language goals and the specific songs that can be used to address them. Some language examples include action words and motor imitation (tracks 3, 5) and daily routines and social stories (tracks 6, 7). Phonemic awareness is addressed in track 10. Some of the speech goals include noises and animal sounds (tracks 2, 3, 4) and vowels/vowel combinations (tracks 5, 12).
  • A song request sheet. This sheet is like a pictorial table of contents. You print it and the child can choose which song they want to hear.
  • Follow-along sheets. These sheets are single or multi page sheets with the lyrics and pictures printed out to help the adult/child follow along with the song visually and sing along. (Available for all tracks except 6, 7, and 11.)
  • Flashcards. Some of the songs have the images from the follow-along sheets blown up into flash cards. (Available for tracks 3, 10, and 13.)
  • Activity sheets. These are fairly simple activity sheets available for about half of the tracks. They are more like a visual prompt for an activity rather than a worksheet designed to be completed with pencil and paper.
  
• Vocalocomotion - CD2 The goal of Vocalocomotion is to encourage verbal imitation through speaking with music and rhythm. There are 17 songs on this CD. The first 12 tracks are original (with one repeated at a slower pace) and the final 5 are instrumental only versions of a few of the first 12. I will list the song titles and the primary therapeutic objective of each song. I will also link to a song sample when available.
  
  
  1. Express Train - two-syllable combinations
  2. Hi - two-word phrases
  3. The New BMW - B, M, W in syllables (Sample here. Scroll down a bit until you get to the KET Set 1 section to find song sample.)
  4. Tongue Tip Time - T, D, N in syllables
  5. Let's Eat - foods
  6. Yee Haw - Animals / sounds
  7. Bath Time - body parts / bath words
  8. Hi - slow version - two-word phrases (Sample here. Scroll down a bit until you get to the KET Set 1 section to find song sample.)
  9. Row Your Boat - interaction song
  10. Put Them On - clothes
  11. Bouncy, Bouncy, Bouncy - interaction song
  12. Instrumental of The New BMW
  13. Instrumental of Let's Eat
  14. Instrumental of Yee Haw
  15. Instrumental of Hi
  16. Instrumental of Gonna Get You
  
  The manual provides a brief description and 2-4 simple activities for every song on this CD. The CD-ROM has .pdf files that provide additional resources all of which can be printed (in both color or black and white). Those resources are:
  
  • Lyrics for all songs.
  • A list of speech and language goals and the specific songs that can be used to address them. Some language examples include action words and motor imitation (track 12) and daily routines and social stories (track 7). Early emerging speech sounds in syllables are addressed (tracks 3, 4).
  • A song request sheet. This sheet is like a pictorial table of contents. You print it and the child can choose which song they want to hear.
  • Follow-along sheets. These sheets are single or multi page sheets with the lyrics and pictures printed out to help the adult/child follow along with the song visually and sing along. (Available for all tracks except 4.)
  • Flashcards. Some of the songs have the images from the follow-along sheets blown up into flash cards. (Available for tracks 2 and 8.)
  • Activity sheets. These are fairly simple activity sheets available for about half of the tracks. They are more like a visual prompt for an activity rather than a worksheet designed to be completed with pencil and paper.

How to Use the Kids Express Train Set 1

I think these songs can be useful in a wide variety of situations:

• Minimally verbal children - use the songs targeting animal sounds to try to get verbalizations.
• Children who are having difficulty imitating - music can often help you get children who are reluctant or unable to imitate in more structured therapy to verbalize.
• Home practice - this is wonderful for the car, or during a music time at home. Children are getting in speech practice while listening to music.
• Integrated intervention - If you are a school therapist doing any intervention in the regular classroom these songs would be ideal whole class activities.
• Individual or Small Group Therapy - These songs could be used as the core of a therapy lesson. Choose one or two songs and design your lesson around the song. Play the song two or three times during the session and use the activity pages.

Pros and Cons of the Kids Express Train Set 1

Pros:
The music is a wonderful therapy tool. The songs address a wide variety of early speech and language goals while providing you with a completely different type of activity to do with children.

The kit is applicable to a wide variety of settings and situations. It can be used with minimally verbal or even nonverbal children, children with early language goals, and children working on early speech production goals (early emerging consonants, single and multi-syllable utterances, two-word phrases, etc.). It can be used in the home, in a clinic or private practice, or in the schools.

The songs are also really catchy and well produced. My children, husband, and I all genuinely enjoyed listening to and singing along with the music. The children listened to several tracks two or three times in a row at their request the first time we listened to the CDs.

Cons:
The set is a little pricey at $39.99, but it is a pretty reasonable cost for two full CD's of therapy music plus goals/objectives and activity suggestions for each song. You also get several printables for each song as well.

It could be easy to get caught up in the music and forget to focus on getting enough speech repetitions from the kids. Some of the songs are heavy on participation from the kids and some are light. You'll want to balance the fun and usefulness of the music while still being focused on getting enough actual speech productions from your students.

Bottom Line

I like the KET Set 1 a lot. I would definitely recommend it as a great therapy resource to have for your practice.


There is a coupon code for the site. It is for $5 off any order. The code is KET201102.