Author Archives: Mary Huston, PhD; MS, CCC-SLP

Adventures in Research

Posted in research by

I am pleased to announce that Speech Adventures will be participating in the blogging about research concept that was developed by Rachel over at Talks Just Fine.

Starting tomorrow (hopefully), once a month (the 2nd Tuesday) I will post a review of a recent journal article. Now, it’s been a while since I’ve written any journal reviews, so I anticipate the posts will … morph a bit as I discover a format that works for me. You will want to follow Rachel’s blog as she will compile all the various posts from the bloggers into one succinct post.

Obviously, since the purpose of the posts are to help keep me accountable for keeping current in research as well as providing information to my readers, I will do my best to keep things informative but readable. There will most likely be things in the review you wish weren’t there and there won’t be things you wish were there… That’s when you’ll have to go read the article yourself. But, at least you’ll have a good understanding of what the article is about.

For those of you that are going to want to critique my critique… please don’t. For those of you that want to read the article and have a discussion over whether I understood the information…please do. I’d love to have someone with whom to discuss research. However, please know…any destructive comments will be deleted.

Are you participating in current research? Are you blogging about it? I’m really looking forward to having some great discussion here.

Until then…Adventure on!

Adventures in humility

Posted in General, Humor, Presentations by

Alternately known as What Do You Mean, You Don’t Know What You’re Doing?

Yes…you read that right.

I was recently blessed to attend a wonderful convention in my state at my old university. I met up with a few of my classmates and professors and had a wonderful time. (I also live tweeted the conferences – two different conferences, two days, two speakers and with a bit of drama involved – but that’s another blog post!). In one of my conversations with a friend of mine (Hi Janna!) I was talking about some experiences I had at the #ASHA12 conference in Atlanta. 20130214-182550.jpg

Part of that conversation was how incredibly overwhelmed I felt at the conference. Not because of the conference itself, it wasn’t my first ASHA conference, I fully expected the seemingly millions (okay thousands) of attendees, long lines, messed up bathrooms, and all of that. I felt overwhelmed for a completely different reason…because I was a fake.  Continue reading →

Adventures in Surfing

Posted in App Review, General by

No, not THAT kind of surfing (remember, I’m in a landlocked state).

Adventures in SUBWAY surfing…

Also known as OMG, she’s talking about a non-speech app? What the heck?

Alternately known as Speech-language therapy is NOT supposed to be about games and having fun.

Wait a minute. That doesn’t sound right. Continue reading →

Adventures in Advocacy…part two

Posted in Advocacy, Articulation/Phonology, SLP Issues by

Creatively known as How many ways can we fail a student?

Alternately known as Let’s describe Educational Impact.

Otherwise known as What do you mean it’s my fault he can’t get a job?

Hmmm. Did that last one get your attention?

One topic of conversation that’s popped up here, on Facebook, on the ASHA forums, etc. has been eligibility requirements for schools based services. Many SLPs have the understanding that children with only one or two speech errors are not eligible for services because they are not “severe” enough. I have been told that some schools do not do ‘articulation’ therapy at all as it’s not educationally impacting. Or the students were dismissed because of “time constraints.” I realize it’s not the SLPs that are doing this, it’s administration…but wow. What a way to fail our students.

Continue reading →

Adventures with Research

Posted in Presentations by

Affectionately known as Adventures with CEUs

Alternately known as What do you mean it’s not EBP? They’re ASHA CEUs!

Every so often a situation arises where a person is slapped alongside the head with a clue by four. We have all had those “duh!” moments where we realize that a basic principle of life is not quite what we expected…if we’re lucky we also find out why.

There have been a couple of those slaps for me recently, and I thought I’d share them with you in the hopes that you can learn from my experiences.  Continue reading →

Adventures in Complaining

Posted in General by

If you’ve read my words here often, you may have seen a few recurring thoughts. I seem to fluctuate between app reviews and calls for action (or complaint depending on your view).

To be honest, I’ve been trying to write a blog post for a while (I have several drafts of different topics) but nothing has really cemented itself and said “say me, say me” so I’ve waited…and as a result, you’ve waited as well. However, I think we’re ready now. As you may have already figured out, this is not a blog review…but discusses something that affects each and every one of us. Continue reading →

TRC Contest Winners

Posted in Applications by

Thank you all for the great comments on various Smarty Ears apps!

There were 24 total comments (but 4 were mine and don’t count). I used a random number generator to choose the two winners.

photo (5)As  you can see, comments 10 and 17 were the winners.

I have emailed the winners Hallie and Annie and given them their codes.

I have heard recently that a new Smarty Ears app will be out soon. The Reading Comprehension app looks like it will be absolutely amazing! I can’t wait to see it and use it in my therapy.

What type of app would you like best to see Smarty Ears develop? Anything in particular? Drop me a line!

Until then…Adventure on!

Mary

 

Adventures with TRC

Posted in App Review, Applications by

Smarty Ears Applications recently released The Therapy Report Center (TRC). I am pleased to do a review on this great little app.

First, let me explain what it isn’t… it isn’t a game, it isn’t a therapy activity, and it isn’t an expensive therapy tool.

What it IS…(besides fabulous)… Continue reading →