New Year, New Speech Therapy Tools!
Written by: Megan Smith / Treatment / December 2019
As a year comes to an end, people in nearly every profession will spend time reflecting on their performance. Did they perform their job duties well? Did they get good results? Were they good communicators?
As a part of my personal reflections over the last few weeks, I have spent some time thinking about the therapy strategies that I use regularly (and those that I want to learn), my efficiency in helping my clients develop their new skills, and the types of tools that have been useful to me in my practice.
In the last few months, I have come to enjoy two of my new therapy tools, and so I have provided some information about them here. I have not been asked to promote these items, and I purchased each of them using my own money. I have recommended them to friends and colleagues in the past, who have found them useful; if you are a speech-language pathologist, or work in a similar profession, there is a chance that they will be useful to you as well!
Tool One: Table Topics
What are they?
TableTopics are a set of conversation starter cards, conveniently packaged to sit on a coffee table (or in my case, office desk). They come in a protective case, good for travel between multiple offices. Each card has a question that can either be answered with a brief sentence or can be the start of a long and interesting conversation, depending on your needs.
Here are some examples of the kind of questions that are included (more of which you can find in the “Sample Questions” section of the official TableTopics website):
“What do you always forget when you are packing for a trip?”
“What tradition would you most want to pass on to your children?”
“What did you get into trouble for when you were young?”
“What lifelong dream or goal would you like to move to the front burner?”
How do I use them?
I use these cards in several ways:
to elicit language samples from new clients as part of language or speech sound assessments.
to help bridge the gap between practice of speech therapy goals in reading and in conversation, especially by asking clients to read the question from the card before answering it aloud.
as a way to find new topics for unstructured conversational practice, or for conversational training therapy. This is particularly useful when clients are reluctant or unable to generate topics that they are interested in discussing together, or when I just cannot think of something interesting to talk about!
Pros and Cons of using TableTopics
Pros:
The topics included are quite interesting – many of my clients enjoy sorting through them to find the questions that inspire them, and they spark engaging conversations by encouraging moments of vulnerability or genuine disclosure.
These cards look and feel more professional than the printed sheets of conversation-starting questions that I used to use with my clients.
The thick card stock is durable, and I haven’t yet had any bent out of shape by clients, even though some people tend to fidget or play with them as we speak.
There are different types of conversation starters available: I am partial to the original set and the dinner party set, but there are sets devoted to themes such as travel, “best things ever,” or topics suitable for children and teens.
Cons:
After using a set of conversation starters for a longer period of time, they can feel somewhat repetitive to the clinician (or to the client if they aren’t shuffled well).
They may be stolen from your office by other clinicians!
The cards cannot be sanitized between clients (unless you laminate them), making them inappropriate for some settings.
Tool Two: The OOVO Straw
What is it?
The OOVO straw is a pendant designed to be used for straw phonation. The pendant is a thin straw in sterling silver (or silver plated with yellow or rose gold) about 4mm in diameter and 7.5cm in length, on a 30-inch matching chain.
Straw phonation is a tool often used in speech or singing therapy or singing instruction, either as a treatment for vocal strain or to warm up for performances. Exercises such as straw phonation narrow the diameter of the vocal tract to increase the air pressure above the vocal folds and help them vibrate more freely. These exercises are called semi-occluded vocal tract exercises (or SOVTEs), and research has shown that after they are performed, there are lasting changes in the posture of the vocal tract. Completing a several-minute SOVTE program can make the voice feel lighter and easier to use.
How do I use it?
Simply wear the pendant and use it to perform your straw phonation exercises as recommended by your voice teacher, singing instructor, or speech-language pathologist!
For those who would like to try out straw phonation, either with materials available at home or with the OOVO straw, here’s a video in which Ingo Titze (a prominent researcher specializing in voice science) demonstrates some things you can do with the straw as a part of your warm-up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xYDvwvmBIM
Pros and Cons of this product
Pros:
Having a straw attached to my person makes me more likely to warm up or refresh my voice throughout the day, as the pendant makes it easy to run through some SOVTEs mindlessly while doing other tasks such as paperwork!
I have received multiple compliments on the necklace, including from people who have no idea that it is also a helpful therapy tool.
Wearing a straw seems to lend credence to my recommendations to clients that they practice throughout the day, as they can see that I value having constant access to straw phonation exercises.
Using the straw has eliminated my need to use the individually packaged disposable plastic straws that our clinic carries for our clients. I feel much better knowing that I am no longer creating so much waste from single-use plastic.
Cons:
This is not the cheapest necklace! There is a ring available as a cheaper option than the pendant, for people who are interested but not ready to commit to the pendant’s price.
To get the most out of the jewelry, you would need to wear it every day, so it is a fashion commitment (luckily, it suits my personal style!).
Like any reusable straw, it needs to be cleaned regularly! While I am glad to no longer use so many wrapped disposable straws in a day, this is a new chore that I have needed to add to my routine.
These are tools that I have found useful in my own practice. Before buying these (or similar items), take a few minutes to reflect on how you would use them, and if they would improve your practice as well!
We hope you enjoyed your Holidays, and may all of us continue to grow as clinicians in the new year.
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Part 1 of this series reviewed what artificial intelligence (AI) is and a broad overview of its role in speech and language therapy. This entry will focus on how specific populations can optimize on AI and how AI can be incorporated throughout the client life-cycle. To note, here at WELL SAID, we do not offer a specific artificial intelligence program such as Jessica. However we do intentionally aim to optimize on the artificial intelligence systems that you may already be interacting with on a daily basis.