Perhaps you recently got assigned to a new school or site that consists of a large bilingual and/or multilingual caseload, and perhaps you're not bilingual. Not speaking the student's language can be quite overwhelming and stressful (trust me, I've been there!). I know the feeling of not quite knowing where to start in intervention, or not knowing how to support your students. Well luckily, bilingual SLP, Ingrid Owens-Gonzalez has some important tips to share with all SLPs. Here are 3 things Monolingual SLPs can do to support bilingual populations today.
The trilled R is a very common phoneme in a variety of languages and probably one of the hardest sounds to produce and teach. In Spanish, trilled R is a high occurrence phoneme and a simple misarticulation can easily change the meaning of a word (Example: Carro vs. Caro / Car & Expensive). For that reason, I am here to help you! I am going to break down the steps that I take when teaching my students how to trill the R sound.
I learned several tips and other information as I began to work with an interpreter for the first time. For the very first time, I knew exactly how it felt like to be a monolingual SLP. I took this opportunity as a learning experience and reflected on how I can improve my family communication skills, cultural awareness and humility while working with these families. Continue reading to learn about some of the key points I took away while working with interpreters.
As the new school year starts, I cannot help but think about my bilingual students and how their language proficiency might have shifted over the summer vacation. You may be wondering, what do you mean shifted? Well, before I can explain how my students’ language proficiency might have shifted, we need to talk about the complexity of bilingualism and the bilingual continuum.
As speech therapists, we are often easily influenced by the popular speech therapy books that are often talked on social media or blogs. I am guilty of using popular books like “There was an old lady who swallowed a fly, if you give a mouse a cookie, etc. Don't get me wrong, these are great books that allow SLPs to target a variety of goals. However, you can also target a variety of goals with the following diverse and multi-cultural books as well. Here are my top picks for books to use in therapy as well as language goal areas that you can target with the books.
Word on the street is that Osmo is the latest must-have gadget for every SLP and teacher participating remote/distance learning. So, what’s all the hype about? Is the Osmo Little Genius Kit worth the bucks? Well, here is my honest review about the Osmo as well as a “How-to” setup guide for air playing the Osmo on the Zoom and Google Meet Platform.
Due to the latest brutal and violent events that have occurred in our country towards Latino immigrants, I have decided to write a heart felt post to bring awareness and advocacy to the topic.
I love my job and I love the reward it brings every day knowing that I was able to help someone. I frequently get asked by prospective students why I chose to become an SLP and here is what I often say.
Working with a Bilingual AAC user for the first time could be a little overwhelming, especially if you are not quite sure where to start. Perhaps you have questions about language choice, modeling, or how to incorporate both languages with your student’s system. Do not panic, here are some helpful tips to remember when working with bilingual AAC users.