Wanted: Guinea Pig Proofreaders

I've finished the rough draft of a /s/ Card Decks and Resources downloadable, printable ebook. It is a significant expansion of some of the free resources I have made available on this website. The ebook gives you the ability to print as many copies as you'd like of card decks, minimal pairs cards, pivot phrase worksheets, homework sheets, story booklets, and games and activities.

The /s/ book contains:

• Initial /s/
• One-Syllable Picture Card Set (44 cards)
• Minimal Pair Contrasts (18 picture pairs)
• Pivot Phrase Worksheets (3)
• Homework Worksheets (Difficulty Levels 1-3)
• Story Booklets (2)
• Speech Game: Simple Speech Puzzles (15)
• Final /s/
• One-Syllable Picture Card Set (44 cards)
• Minimal Pair Contrasts (18 picture pairs)
• Pivot Phrase Worksheets (2)
• Homework Worksheets (Difficulty Levels 1-3)
• Story Booklets (2)
• Speech Game: Speech Dominos (28 Domino Set)
• Medial /s/
• Two-Syllable Picture Card Set (29 cards)
• Minimal Pair Contrasts (9 picture pairs)
• Pivot Phrase Worksheets (2)
• Homework Worksheets (Difficulty Levels 1-3)
• Story Booklet
• Speech Game: Speech Race (1 Racetrack Game Sheet)
• /s/-Scenes
• /s/-Scenes Picture Card Set (29 cards)
• Mixed /s/ Story Booklet
• Speech Activity: Speech Sort (1 worksheet)

The Initial and Final Card decks are sortable by phoneme, position, difficulty, vowel, and phonological process (velar fronting, final consonant deletion, stopping, and liquid gliding). As with all my free card sets, the target words were carefully chosen to be as simple as possible in syllable shape and to contain a wide variety of consonant and vowel sounds to increase coarticulation variety and facilitate generalization and carryover.

My (admittedly biased) opinion is that you cannot find a comparable set of /s/ therapy materials anywhere else. I need some help though. I was hoping to get 4 volunteers - two SLPs and two parents of children with articulation problems working on /s/ at home. I'd like to offer you a free copy of the book in exchange for proofreading and feedback. You'd need to be willing to print the book out (67 pages - printing in b&w draft mode is fine), proofread it carefully, and mail it back to me. Send me an email at testyyettrying(at)gmail(dot)com if you are interested and we'll work out the details.

Thank you, in advance, for all of your help. I'm very excited about this book and I hope it can be useful for many of you!

Update:
I have enough volunteers for now. I'm going to start contacting people via email. Thank you guys for the great response. As soon as I get the edits back and any corrections made, I'll be able to make the eResource available. I'm hoping to get things up in a couple of weeks.

Touching Lives

One of the things I treasure the most about working on this blog is reading the comments, emails, and blog posts of people who find the information and resources here helpful. Well over a year ago, I wrote an article about using communication boards with minimally verbal children - why and how. I included some pictures of the boards we used with Ava when she was still non-verbal.

Recently I came across this blog post by a mother of another young Ava with a speech delay. She had found my article on communication boards. It helped her to understand why her SLP was recommending she make some. It addressed her fears that communication boards would undermine her daughter's progress learning to talk. And she made some absolutely beautiful communication boards for her daughter that put mine to shame. If you'd like to see some great examples of personalized, homemade communication boards follow her link.

When I first started this blog it was simply about articulating some of the intense feelings I was having accepting that Ava had a significant speech delay and about documenting our journey and her progress. Then, I wanted to share some of my expertise with the other mothers that had found their way to my blog. When I started to create my own materials for working with Ava I wanted to share those too. I wanted to help the parents, teachers, and SLPs of children with speech delays. It is special when I read the evidence that lets me know I'm making a difference.

Bunk Buddies

My parents are wonderful. Every weekend they take one of the children for a grandparent sleepover and bonding night. Occasionally, they take both children. They've been doing this since Michael was born, and so they had a crib at their house donated by a neighbor.

Michael outgrew the crib first. He would sleep in a little travel tent we got for trips that we keep at my parents house in between trips. Or, he could also choose to sleep in my old full-size bed in the room they now use as a guest bedroom.

Ava, until last night, was still sleeping in the crib. At 3 1/2 it was time for another solution and my mom and I have been brainstorming options for several weeks. We thought about pulling the crib mattress onto the floor and surrounding it with pillows as a makeshift "daybed", but we weren't really in love with the idea. We thought about buying a toddler bed since that would allow us to continue to use the crib mattress, but that seemed like a temporary solution that would have to be replaced with something new in another couple of years.

My mom found a bunk bed on craigslist that came with two twin size mattresses. My husband picked it up, brought it over to her house, disassembled the crib, and assembled the bunk beds. Meanwhile, my mom picked the kids up from school and took them to Wal-mart to choose their own sheet sets for the new bunk beds. She also mediated the discussion of who would get the top and who would get the bottom bunk.

Last night, my husband and I got this picture from her in an email.

Somehow, watching your children sleep (or seeing it in a picture) always raises the most intense feelings of love in a parent's heart. And watching them both sleep together, in their new beds with their new sheets is incredibly special. It'll be an amazing treat for them to be bunk buddies at their grandparents house. I hope it is something they remember fondly when they grow up. Kudos to my mom and my husband for all the work they put into getting this set up.