Places to Get Free ASHA CEUs Online: Part 1

ASHA requires 3.0 Continuing Education Units every three years. That is the equivalent of 30 contact hours. The state of Missouri requires 30 hours of continuing education every two years. (Check your state's SLP continuing education requirements.) If I get 15 hours every year (or one every 3.5 weeks) I should be covered. Of course, last year I only got 10. That means I need 20 more by December 31st. Next year, I'm setting a reminder on my calendar. Every three weeks I'm going to spend an hour working on continuing education. That will put me a little ahead by the end of the year so I can take the holidays off. Or, alternately, being slightly ahead will make up for the occasional time I can't actually keep my self-imposed CEU appointment. However, next year's responsible plan does not save me from this year's last-minute mess. I went searching online for sources of free SLP CEUs. Here's the first place I found and tried.

Places to Earn Free Speech-Pathology CEUs Online: LinguiSystems

LinguiSystems
First, you have to sign up for a free LinguiList account in order to take their free courses (sign up). The plus side is that if you provide them with your ASHA account number, they'll report your continuing credits to the ASHA registry for you as you earn them. Their FAQ states that it can take up to six weeks for the courses to show up in your ASHA CEU registry. If you're not participating in the ASHA CEU Registry and keeping track of your CEUs yourself, you can also print a certificate to keep for your records to send to ASHA or your state if you get randomly audited. (As a complete aside, getting chosen for a random audit one month after the birth of your first, constantly screaming, child and four months after moving into a new home was soooo much fun.)

1. LinguiSystems has three ways to earn credits. You can take one of 19 short courses that range from .15 to .3 CEUs each. You read the contents of the course presented in slideshow format and then take a written exam. You can keep the course up in another window while you take the exam so that you can refer back to the content when choosing your answers. One small tip. Use the search function (ctrl-F) to search for a key phrase in the course quickly when taking the exam. Some exams are simple multiple choice (the two I took were 20 questions) and you get your results (and your CEUs) immediately. You need 80% to pass.
   
   Some exams are a mix of multiple choice and paragraph-style responses to open-ended questions and you have to wait up to 24 hours to find out if you passed and earned your CEU. They say you may re-take a course you fail. Unfortunately, you can't tell which style exam a course will have until you click on that exam to take it. However, you can save a half-finished exam and come back to it later. I have taken three of their short courses and I thought they were all nicely presented with good information.
   
   The courses cover a wide variety of topics including attention disorders, AAC, typical development, counseling skills, dysarthria, evidence-based practice, and more. I took the Developing Communication Skills in Young Children and Communication Milestones courses (multiple choice exam) and the Changing Behavior to Change the Child's Voice course (multiple choice and short-answer exam).
   
   I particularly liked the Communication Milestones course and intend to print it out and keep it handy for easy reference. I also thought the voice course was well-done and well worth reading if you have a voice client. However, the short-answer exam took me a long time and if you're looking to get a lot of CEUs done quickly, save the voice one for later.
   
   I intend to take several more of these courses and will update in the comments if there are any I thought were particularly well done or particularly poor.
2. If you own any of LinguiSystems "Source" books (I have the Source for Apraxia Therapy, for example.) you might be able to take a free online assessment about the contents of the book and earn anywhere from 0.4-0.8 CEUs if you pass. (Not all of the Source books have an online test available.) The test for the Source for Apraxia was a 20 question multiple choice exam. I was already intimately familiar with the contents of the book so it didn't take me long to complete. I earned 0.4 ASHA CEUs for taking the exam. I know this post is about earning free CEUs, but purchasing a source book (some of which can be purchased on CD and therefore would be a searchable PDF), is a pretty price efficient way of getting CEUs and you are left with a well-written reference book on a topic that interests you.
3. The third way to earn free CEU's from Linguisystems requires that you have 5 SLPs in the same place and must be registered 30 days ahead of time. If so, you can request a DVD course. There are currently 14 to choose from although two are being discontinued at the end of the year.

I took three short courses and one test on a LinguiSystems Source book I already owned and earned 1.0 CEUs in one (admittedly long) morning. That is half of the total number of CEUs I needed to earn between now and the end of the year. And that was my experience earning free CEUs with LinguiSystems. In the next installment of this blog series on earning free ASHA CEUs online I'll talk about the next place I found to earn free ASHA CEUs online. If anyone has tried any of the other LinguiSystems short courses and wants to share their favorites or mention which ones had which types of exams, please share with us in the comments. I'll be taking some more shortly and I'd love to know which ones you liked. Also, if anyone has seen one of the LinguiSystems DVD courses, I'd be interested to know what you thought of that method of earning free CEUs.

Speech Card Set Activity: Simple Speech-Math Games

During my RightStart Math lesson with Michael yesterday I was inspired. I love thinking of new activities that combine speech practice with academic skills. It is even better when the activities are simple and quick to prepare and result in "play" that is heavy on productions.

Simple Speech Card Games - Math Versions

Prep

Print out 5-10 free or premium illustrated speech cards. Write the numbers 1 through 10 on the cards. Prep time if you already have some cards printed - 10 seconds. If you have cards you want to use that you do not want to write on, use removable stickers or small pieces of post-its. Write the numbers on those and stick them to your cards.

Ways to Play

Use 4 or 5 cards with younger children and 10 cards with older kids.

1. Up the stairs. (Or down the stairs.) Mix up the cards. The child must put the cards in order practicing the words as he goes. Then, mix them up again and have the child put the cards in descending order.
   
   
2. Find the swap. Once the cards are in order, ask the child to cover his eyes while you switch two cards around. He has to find the swapped cards. Once found, he says the pair of words that were swapped. He can simply practice a phrase (X and Y) or use the words in a sentence (X and Y were swapped).
   
   
3. Who's Hiding? Have the child close his eyes while you turn one card over. When the child opens his eyes ask which number is hiding. When he turns the card back over, he names the picture on that card.
   
   
4. Who's Missing? Have the child close his eyes while you remove a card and shift the others over so there is no gap. When the child opens his eyes, he must identify the missing card. You return the card to him and he practices the word on it.
   
   

Playmobil vs. Lego?

Lego. The word takes on almost mystical significance in our home. My husband and I are huge Lego fans. We played with them when we were children and both have fond memories. A starter set of Duplos were in Michael's hands well before he turned two. Michael has mostly graduated from the larger Lego Duplo line to the smaller Legos. We have an embarrassing number of Legos and Duplos in the house and Michael's imagination for building with them well surpasses mine.

Our brand loyalty to Lego turned us "Lego blind". We always preferred them to all other building toys. I still think they are extremely high quality building toys and I haven't changed my mind on that point. However, I was realizing that the children weren't really engaging in imaginary play with them. They were great building toys, but the creations didn't facilitate true imaginary play. Michael would play with his car/truck/spaceship/rocket/other random creation until it fell apart, but there was no interaction between characters, no setting of scenes, no dialogue, no group play with his sister, etc...

Neither my husband or I ever had any experience with Playmobil and due to the previously mentioned "Lego blindness", had never considered branching out. I had somehow gotten the impression that people were either Lego or Playmobil, but not both, and we were already committed.

Then I started researching great toys for facilitating imaginary play and Playmobil came up again and again. We purchased our first sets a few days ago and I am impressed. The price was very reasonable, the level of detail is extraordinary, the minifigures are more appealing and detailed than the Lego ones, and the sets create an entire scene that can be played with in an imaginary way.

Ava got the Vet Clinic Carrying Case and Michael got the Pirates Carrying Case. They were only $10.99 each and they have played with them for hours waking up again the next morning to run to those toys as their first choice. We created elaborate scenes where the four animals in the vet clinic set needed splinters removed, antibiotics on their scrapes, bandages on cuts, medicine for tummy aches, etc. We borrowed a few gold coins from the pirate set that make great pretend pet food. Michael loves the cannon included in his pirate set. In his imagination the pirate and soldier are friends and can often be found raiding the vet clinic to capture a dog for a pet. The vet, of course, has to use the cannon to hold off the invaders.

I have discovered that both Playmobil and Lego hold an important place in our household. Lego is wonderful for building, following directions, and visual-spatial skills. Playmobil is definitely my new-found love for facilitating independent and cooperative imaginary play. I think we'll be seeing more Playmobil over this birthday and holiday season.

I have, however, been frustrated when trying to research Playmobil sets because I felt like their product pictures didn't provide a lot of detail about the contents of the sets. I couldn't get a true feel for what a Playmobil set was actually like. Here are some pictures of the contents of our new sets.

Playmobil Vet Clinic Carrying Case (5970)

Playmobil Pirates Carrying Case (5894)

I think these small, Playmobil carrying case sets have a lot of potential for the therapy room as well. They are priced well, come with their own (well-made) storage, and are appealing to children ages 3 and up. There are a wide variety of themes available (vet, pirates, pony farm, school, knights, firemen, dragonland, police, princess, holiday). They would be great for facilitating dialogue, turn-taking, attention to detail, and all of the other skills that can be developed through in-depth imaginary play.