Why I Made My Speech Cards

When I finally pulled my head out of the sand and acknowledged that Ava's speech was delayed I needed to decide how to best help her. At the age of two, Childhood Apraxia of Speech is not officially diagnosed, but Ava had many of the red flags for a motor-speech planning disorder. I did not have a lot of professional experience with very young children whose speech were as delayed as Ava's so I began to research. I decided to spend approximately $200 to invest in the Kaufman Kit - Level 1 (read my Kaufman Kit review). It is one of the most commonly used therapy resources for working with children with severe speech delays with a motor-speech component (CAS).

I had high hopes for the kit and waited anxiously for it to arrive. When it came, I was frustrated by the manual's brevity. I felt like I wanted more explanation, theory, advice and instruction for the cost of the kit, but I worked through that. What most frustrated me was how little of the kit I was able to use with Ava. Her speech level was so low that I was able to use only two sections of the kit (VC and CV). On top of that, she wasn't able to make several of the vowel and consonant sounds yet so I was left with about 10 cards to work with from my $200 dollar investment. (Ironically, six months later when I pulled the kit back out to try it again I realized that most of the kit was then too easy for her.)

I was a speech-pathologist. My only client was my daughter. Trust me. I knew exactly which sounds were in her inventory and which were not. I knew what she needed to work on next, and the Kaufman kit was not giving that to me. I needed more CV and VC words (and eventually CVC) that included the sounds she could make with a wide variety of vowels. First I tried commercial sets. I ordered several articulation card sets with simple consonants (/p/, /m/, /t/). Again, I ended up with a lot of words I couldn't use. Children who need to drill /p/, /b/, and /m/ aren't going to be able to start with multi-syllable words. They don't need consonant blends in those words. They don't need a lot of /l/, /sh/, /ch/, /s/, and /th/ thrown into the words. Again, I was forced to eliminate most of the words in the card sets leaving me with only 3-5 words to work with. I didn't want to plan an entire therapy session with 3-5 words day after day. Not only was it boring, but it didn't allow for the phonemic variety necessary. There are 14 vowels. 3-5 words weren't combining my targeted consonant with enough vowels.

So I started to make my own sets. I spent hours at it. But it was immediately obvious to me that they were working. I was able to drill with real words. I was able to drill with picture cards she found engaging. I was able to drill with words that combined my targeted consonant with different vowels so that her motor-planning system could learn the different coarticulation patterns involved when you change the vowel.

On top of that, aside from time, they were free. (Hmm. Technically they aren't free for me. I pay to be able to use the images, but that was worth it to me.) If they get colored on, or crumpled, or spilled on, I can simply print another set. If I want to share them with her therapist, grandparents, or another parent, I can simply print additional sets. If I want to cut some in half to make puzzles, if I want to play go fish with them, if I want to turn them into fish for a fishing game, I just print more. I like having my own printable sets. I like that they are small and easy for my hands and the hands of children to hold.

I've stopped spending money on articulation materials that aren't meeting our needs. When I have a new target with Ava I invest several hours and make a new card set that addresses our needs perfectly. I see the sets as a hybrid of the traditional articulation approach (targeting specific consonant phonemes) and a motor-speech planning approach (combining targeted consonants with a wide variety of vowel contexts, simple syllable shapes, mastering words with less complex motor planning before moving on to words with more complex motor planning, etc.). Once I spent the hours necessary to make each set, I wanted to share them. I sincerely hope that other parents and other SLPs would also find them to be useful. I hope they you help other children learn to talk.

Two decades behind the curve...

I have recently discovered the joy and usefulness of warm liquid caffeine. Now most people discover coffee when? High school or college perhaps? Well, I never liked straight coffee and therefore made it through high school, college, graduate school, and the early years of mothering without relying on caffeine at all.

My recent purchase of an automatic tea maker led me to try a wide variety of teas over the past couple of months. One of those teas (well, tea-alternative technically) is JavaVana by Teavana which, ironically enough, is coffee and chocolate flavored. I drink it because it is amazingly good. When prepared to my liking (one-two extra scoops of tea, 205 degrees, a little milk, 7 minutes!) it is a calorie free alternative to a mocha hot chocolate that is better than hot chocolate. I kid you not. This stuff is amazing.

A cup also happens to have the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee. Well I had no idea of the effect of a cup of coffee's caffeine. I am completely truthful when I say it makes me a better mother. Even when fighting a cold. I'm perky, patient, energetic, and cheerful. All that and so yummy. I did discover that drinking it through the afternoon and evening is a VERY BAD IDEA. Hmm. No sleep that night. If I just switch to some other pot of tea after around 3pm, all is good though. Lovely, lovely chocolate, coffee flavor, and caffeine.

The Weekly Review: Week 50

Blog Post of the Week

I have to post two this week. Linda at All and Sundry put together a pictorial tribute to Leap Day that was amazing. I loved it. It was completely composed of pictures of her family. They are clearly better with a camera than I am.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Julia's most recent post. Julia writes long rambling posts that I enjoy in their entirety. The part of this post that made me laugh out loud and then save so that I could read it to my husband is about 2/3 of the way down. It is an exchange between herself, her older son, and her young daughter in the car discussing the family pets. Caroline would like a dog. Patrick loves the current feline family pets. You have to read the exchange to appreciate exactly how funny it was is a slightly twisted yet thoroughly enjoyable way.

Weekly Gentle Reminder

I am excited that many of you are choosing to subscribe to my blog posts in a feed reader or by email. I take it as a compliment that you are interested. I just wanted to remind you that you will not begin receiving the email updates until you confirm your interest by clicking on the link in the email that is automatically generated and sent to you.

Online SLP Resource of the Week

Learning Fundamentals has some online speech stimuli. You choose a consonant, consonant cluster, or vowel and they give you a series of pictures with a variety of audio prompts (word, word with target exaggerated, word with target separated from rest of word, phrase, and sentence). The autoplay of all of the audio prompts in sequence is a little annoying, but you can cut that off by simply clicking on the one you want to interrupt the auto play. The word selection can only be fine-tuned so much and includes many higher level words, but it is online and free so I'm not complaining.

Weekly Now What?

Many moons ago, when Ava was first diagnosed I tried NutriiVeda (read about it here or here). At least at that time, you had to sign up to receive it through an autoship program. We stopped using it months ago. I kept meaning to call and cancel the autoship - really I did. I finally called yesterday. Now what on earth am I supposed to do with this (and the one more on the way)?

Ava this Week

Third birthday. Wonderful girl. Family. Celebration. Happiness.

Weekly Michael

My years of parenting experience come to a grand total of 4.25. In that time I have found that my enjoyment of parenting with each individual child waxes and wanes a bit. I think that is natural. As part of growing and becoming more independent children go through... "difficult stages".

Michael is coming out of a difficult stage and I am thoroughly enjoying him right now. He's polite, thoughtful and demonstrating a wonderful mastery of appropriate 4 year old manners. He's usually sweet with his sister. He's also cuddly lately. He wants affection and positive attention and is asking for it appropriately so it is so easy to give it to him. I am getting hugs and snuggles. I'm getting sweet comments and smiles. And his eyes are gorgeous. He's earnest and oh so eager to share the many thoughts in his head. His imagination is exploding exponentially and his play is a wonder to watch.

I suppose that's just my overly wordy way of trying to say that I'm enjoying being his mom so much right now. (Not that I don't always, but you know...)

Weekly Bittersweet

We said goodbye to our early intervention therapists this week. The children didn't really realize that they were saying goodbye in a way that is different from the usual "see you next week." I did though. Those last hugs brought tears to my eyes. Such good people. Such important and valued jobs. May they continue to make a difference in the young lives of so many more children and families.

Ava's (and Michael's) Weekly Home Therapy Notes

I'm working through the dynamics of changing from individual therapy with Ava to group therapy with both Ava and Michael. I regret losing the intensity I could achieve working with Ava alone, but Michael needs some speech time too and Ava's needs are less critical than they used to be. I'm toying with different ideas though. Every other night individual? 30 nightly minutes together? 15 minutes each? Hmm... I'll get it worked out eventually.