JCPSLP Vol 17 No 1 2015_lores

Diversity in practice

Top ten resources for clinicians on the move or in resource-poor settings Lydelle Joseph

F rom going door to door in a village, hours from the nearest road to find children with disabilities, to presenting the latest apps and accessibility features of iOS8, my career has been an exercise in diversity. I’ve worked with adults with complex communication needs, in Early Intervention, private practice, schools for the Deaf and children with hearing impairments, a specialist autism service, and in several volunteer roles in Fiji and Vanuatu. This Top Ten represents a wide range of the resources that I have kept going back to. One thing that they all have in common is that I have used them in many ways to achieve goals that I am sure were never even dreamed of by the original developers. 1 Listening Room resources “Hearing Journey” is a forum for families and professionals to discuss hearing loss and cochlear implants. “The Listening Room” is an online resource full of language and listening activities for people of all ages. Materials range from songs to sing to infants during routines such as dressing, mealtimes and getting ready for bed, to verbal discrimination activities for adults. Though designed for the context of deafness and hearing loss, I have used many of the toddler resources as parent handouts for children with a range of needs. The easy- to-understand language and practical activities can be implemented by parents with even the most limited resources. http://www. hearingjourney.com/Listening_Room/preview.cfm?langid=1 2 Guess Who? The original form of this board game has been around for years. More recently, simplified versions as well as themed spinoffs such as Pixar-animated characters and “Ben 10” have appeared on the market. Hasbro has even produced a range of downloadable sheets for its most recent evolution. I use several different versions for developing deductive reasoning, asking and answering questions, turn taking, picture description, and many other skills. The game has even featured in work on pronouns. Like many of the resources here, applications for Guess Who? are really only limited by your imagination. 3 Lego Juniors Create & Cruise App I use a wide range of apps in my intervention with children. Some of them are very specialised and well designed by experienced speech pathologists. My most frequently

Lydelle Joseph

accessed app, however, is definitely Lego Juniors Create & Cruise. Children choose parts to build vehicles to drive (or fly, run, or jump) along a track to the finish line. During the drive, they collect tokens that unlock more pieces for their vehicles. When the race ends, they build an object consisting of three to six pieces. For a number of the children I see with autism spectrum disorder and for many other children, Lego is highly motivating. For others, accessing the iPad is the reward in itself. I consider this app to be an excellent reward or motivator because it has a clear beginning and end point, has stimulating content and is simple to use. However, the app can also be used for language development activities including requesting, labelling, describing, and sequencing. Available on the iTunes app store and free at the time of writing. 4 Laminator My love of the laminator probably began in my childhood when my dad took the well-worn, slightly torn money and playing cards from some of my favourite board games into his office and gave them a new lease on life by laminating them. Game cards became easier to deal, easier to clean, and much more durable. In my professional life, having some of my assessment and therapy resources laminated has saved them from flood damage, mould, hungry rodents, and even the odd infuriated child. Laminating pouches ranked right alongside Cadbury chocolates as priorities for family and friends to bring over when visiting me in Fiji or Vanuatu, where even photocopy paper and toner for my host organisation typically came out of my volunteer allowance. Here in Australia, I recommend to many families using visuals to support communication that they invest in their own laminator for home as well as a high quality printer and digital camera.

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JCPSLP Volume 17, Number 1 2015

Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology