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New Product Giveaway: Comprehensive Literacy Checklist For School-Aged Children

I wanted to start the new year right by giving away a few copies of a new checklist I recently created entitled: “Comprehensive Literacy Checklist For School-Aged Children“.

It was created to assist Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) in the decision-making process of how to identify deficit areas and select assessment instruments to prioritize a literacy assessment for school aged children.

The goal is to eliminate administration of unnecessary or irrelevant tests and focus on the administration of instruments directly targeting the specific areas of difficulty that the student presents with.

*For the purpose of this product, the term “literacy checklist” rather than “dyslexia checklist” is used throughout this document to refer to any deficits in the areas of reading, writing, and spelling that the child may present with in order to identify any possible difficulties the child may present with, in the areas of literacy as well as language.

This checklist can be used for multiple purposes.

1. To identify areas of deficits the child presents with for targeted assessment purposes

2. To highlight areas of strengths (rather than deficits only) the child presents with pre or post intervention

3. To highlight residual deficits for intervention purpose in children already receiving therapy services without further reassessment

Checklist Contents:

  • Page 1 Title
  • Page 2 Directions
  • Pages 3-9 Checklist
  • Page 10 Select Tests of Reading, Spelling, and Writing for School-Aged Children
  • Pages 11-12 Helpful Smart Speech Therapy Materials

Checklist Areas:

  1. AT RISK FAMILY HISTORY
  2. AT RISK DEVELOPMENTAL HISTORY
  3. BEHAVIORAL MANIFESTATIONS 
  4. LEARNING DEFICITS   
    1. Memory for Sequences
    2. Vocabulary Knowledge
    3. Narrative Production
    4. Phonological Awareness
    5. Phonics
    6. Morphological Awareness
    7. Reading Fluency
    8. Reading Comprehension
    9. Spelling
    10. Writing Conventions
    11. Writing Composition 
    12. Handwriting

You can find this product in my online store HERE.

Would you like to check it out in action? I’ll be giving away two copies of the checklist in a Rafflecopter Giveaway to two winners.  So enter today to win your own copy!

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Birthday Extravaganza Day Twenty Six: My First Signs Flash Cards Set

My First Signs Flash Cards

It’s DAY 26 of my Birthday Month Giveaways and I am raffling off a giveaway by Hear My Hands, which is  My First Signs Flash Cards Set. These flash cards are designed to reinforce all the American Sign Language signs taught in Signing Time Volume 1: My First Signs, but can also be used alone. ASL signs taught in this Set include:

Eat/Food – Milk – Water – Ball – More – Bird – Cat – Dog – Fish – Car – Airplane – Want – Shoes – Flower – Mom – Dad – Baby – Sleep.  Cards come with a pre-drilled hole and a plastic yellow D-ring for easy carrying. You can clip them to a bag and take them anywhere—in the car, at the grocery store, etc. Cards will also fit in any standard 4×6 photo album for easy reference. Continue reading Birthday Extravaganza Day Twenty Six: My First Signs Flash Cards Set

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Birthday Giveaway Day Four: Seasons UNO

seasons unoToday’s Birthday Month Giveaway “Seasons UNO” is brought to you courtesy of Lynda SLP 123

This game is played just like UNO. Each card contains a question about 1 of the 4 seasons. When a card is played, the student will answer the question printed on the card.

Lynda’s packet contains 100 cards:

  • 16 blue winter cards
  • 16 pink spring cards
  • 16 yellow summer cards
  • 16 orange fall cards
  • 2 skip cards in each color
  • 2 reverse cards in each color
  • 2 Draw-2 cards in each color
  • 8 WILD cards

Its terrific for reviewing the seasons in a fun creative way. You can find this product in her TPT store by clicking HERE or you can enter my one day giveaway for a chance to win.

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Parent Consultation Services

Today I’d like to officially introduce a new parent consultation service which I had originally initiated  with a few out-of-state clients through my practice a few years ago.

The idea for this service came after numerous parents contacted me and initiated dialogue via email and phone calls regarding the services/assessments needed for their monolingual/bilingual internationally/domestically adopted or biological children with complex communication needs. Here are some details about it.

Parent consultations is a service provided to clients who live outside Smart Speech Therapy LLC geographical area (e.g., non-new Jersey residents) who are interested in comprehensive specialized in-depth consultations and recommendations regarding what type of follow up speech language services they should be seeking/obtaining in their own geographical area for their children as well as what type of carryover activities they should be doing with their children at home.

Consultations are provided with the focus on the following specialization areas with a focus on comprehensive assessment and intervention recommendations:

  • Language and Literacy 
  • Children with Social Communication (Pragmatic) Disorders
  • Bilingual and Multicultural Children
  • Post-institutionalized Internationally Adopted Children
  • Children with Psychiatric and Emotional Disturbances
  • Children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders

The initial consultation length of this service is  1 hour. Clients are asked to forward their child’s records prior to the consultation for review, fill out several relevant intakes and questionnaires, as well as record a short video (3-5 minutes). The instructions regarding video content will be provided to them following session payment.

Upon purchasing a consultation the client will be immediately emailed the necessary paperwork to fill out as well as potential dates and times for the consultation to take place.   Afternoon, Evening and Weekend hours are available for the client’s convenience. In cases of emergencies consultations may be rescheduled at the client’s/Smart Speech Therapy’s mutual convenience.

Refunds are available during a 3 day grace period if a mutually convenient time could not be selected for the consultation. Please note that fees will not be refundable from the time the scheduled consultation begins.

Following the consultation the client has the option of requesting a written detailed consultation report at an additional cost, which is determined based on the therapist’s hourly rate. For further information click HERE. You can also call 917-916-7487 or email tatyana.elleseff@smartspeechtherapy.com if you wanted to find out whether this service is right for you.

Below is a past parent consultation testimonial.

International Adoption Consultation Parent Testimonial (11/11/13)

I found Tatyana and Smart Speech Therapy online while searching for information about internationally adopted kids and speech evaluations. We’d already taken our three year old son to a local SLP but were very unsatisfied with her opinion, and we just didn’t know where to turn. Upon finding the articles and blogs written by Tatyana, I felt like I’d finally found someone who understood the language learning process unique to adopted kids, and whose writings could also help me in my meetings with the local school system as I sought special education services for my son.

I could have never predicted then just how much Tatyana and Smart Speech Therapy would help us. I used the online contact form on her website to see if Tatyana could offer us any services or recommendations, even though we are in Virginia and far outside her typical service area. She offered us an in-depth phone consultation that was probably one of the most informative, supportive and helpful phone calls I’ve had in the eight months since adopting my son. Through a series of videos, questionnaires, and emails, she was better able to understand my son’s speech difficulties and background than any of the other sources I’d sought help from. She was able to explain to me, a lay person, exactly what was going on with our son’s speech, comprehension, and learning difficulties in a way that a) added urgency to our situation without causing us to panic, b) provided me with a ton of research-orientated information for our local school system to review, and c) validated all my concerns and gut instincts that had previously been brushed aside by other physicians and professionals who kept telling us to “wait and see”.

After our phone call, we contracted Tatyana to provide us with an in-depth consultation report that we are now using with our local school and child rehab center to get our son the help he needs. Without that report, I don’t think we would have had the access to these services or the backing we needed to get people to seriously listen to us. It’s a terrible place to be in when you think something might be wrong, but you’re not sure and no one around you is listening. Tatyana listened to us, but more importantly, she looked at our son as a specific kid with a specific past and specific needs. We were more than just a number or file to her – and we’ve never even actually met in person! The best move we’ve could’ve made was sending her that email that day. We are so appreciative.

Kristen, P. Charlottesville, VA

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Birthday Giveaway Day Five: Where do we belong?

Day Five of the Birthday Month Giveaway is “Where do We Belong?  A Problem Solving and Inference Activity Packet“ is brought to you courtesy of Speechy Musings

This is a very unique and interesting packet with a focus on deductive reasoning, problem solving, inferencing and perspective taking. It focuses on placing the appropriate family to the right house. Included are 6 families, 6 houses, 6 cars, and 6 pets. Students will have fun trying to infer which family belongs in with which house, car, and pet based on the provided information in the “application form”!  She also included blank versions of the activity so your students can participate as well and describe their families. Answer key is also provided.

This is an awesome executive function activity set for older elementary aged children because it requires a lot of focus on the details as well as an emphasis on going back to the “application form” to check if the requirements match specific family’s needs.  It’s great because it also exposes students to the practical details of daily life such as searching for the right house and car to suit your family’s needs based on the household budget, daily activities, and number of children.

You can find this product in her TPT store by clicking HERE or you can enter my one day giveaway for a chance to win.

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Birthday Giveaway Day Ten: Guess What…It’s my BIRTHDAY!

Guess what? Today is my actual birthday! So what better way to celebrate it than to give away a HUGE 112 page log Birthday Themed Packet from Twin Sisters Speech and Language Therapy BlogThis fun themed unit could be used all year long.

Select Packet Contents:

  •  Birthday present themed reinforcer page.
  • Pin the Tail On The Donkey “WH” Question Game.
  • Birthday Party Memory Match Game & Vocabulary Cards.
  • Birthday Party Game Board, Die & Markers.
  • Birthday Party BINGO.
  • Birthday 8 to 12 piece puzzles.
  • Birthday Party Maze.
  • Birthday Lacing Page.
  • Blank birthday cards.
  • Balloon pencil toppers.
  • Birthday badges.
  • Birthday boy and girl certificates.
  • Birthday crowns
  • Birthday coloring pages.
  • Birthday party item color sort
  • Birthday balloon color page.
  • Birthday Party Matching
  • Number and count the cupcakes.
  • Birthday party item size sort.
  • Birthday object and color naming cards.
  • Body part identification activity.
  • Direction Following Activity.
  • Preposition pages.
  • Pronoun pages.
  • Seasons sorting activity.
  • Months sorting activity
  • Problem Solving Therapy Cards
  • Upper and lowercase letter match.
  • Trace and copy the letter and word pages.
  • Alphabetize the birthday party related words.
  • Birthday word find.
    • AND MUCH MUCH MORE

You can find this product in  Twin Sisters  TPT store by clicking HERE or you can enter my one day giveaway for a chance to win this awesome packet. a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Birthday Giveaway Day Thirteen: Corduroy Book Companion

corduroyIt’s DAY 13 of my Birthday Month Giveaways and I am raffling off a giveaway by Gold Country SLP , which is a  Corduroy Book Companion

This delightful 49 page packet is based on the book Corduroy by Don Freeman and designed to accompany it by targeting receptive and expressive language skills based on the content of the book.
Product Contents:

  • Vocabulary cards
  • Definition cards
  • Story Sequencing cards
  • Sequencing words cards (first, next, then, etc.)
  • Comprehension Question cards
  • Social Skill/Pragmatic Questions & Scenarios
  • Story Props for retelling
  • Game board
  • Yes/no questions with icons designed to enable a point-to response
  • Story maps for different levels of function
  • Grammar activities targeting pronouns: has/have

You can find this product in Gold Country SLP TPT store by clicking HERE or you can enter my giveaway for a chance to win.
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