26: An Example AVT Session with Lynn Wood
Lynn talks us through an examples auditory verbal therapy session for a school aged child. So many great ideas and resources in this episode!
Resources Mentioned:
Fall Auditory Skills and Listening Practice
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transcript episode 26: An Example AVT Session with Lynn Wood
D: Hello and welcome to the TOD POD, a podcast to support Itinerant Teachers of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, SLPs, and other Deaf Education Professionals. I'm Deanna Barlow from Listening Fun and today we're talking about auditory verbal therapy with school age kids with Lynn Wood of Listen with Lynne. Thanks so much for being here Lynn.
L: Yeah, thanks for having me Deanna. I appreciate being able to talk to your audience and share a little bit.
D: And yeah, could you tell everyone a little bit about your background who you are and what you do?
L: Yeah sure, so I am an audiologist by degree but work as a listening and spoken language specialist and I'm in private practice at the Auditory Verbal Center of Wheaton which is in the Chicago suburbs. And sort of one cool thing is my practice was one of the very first devoted to or exclusively working with auditory rehabilitation. So I've been doing this a long time. I began auditory verbal training experience when I was a college student.
D: Ah.
L: And I studied early on with some of the pioneers of auditory verbal practice and then later was certified in the group of professionals who sat for the very first auditory certification exam.
D: Wow.
L: And that was way back in 1994.
Both: [LAUGH]
L: Exactly, exactly. But today in my practice I specialize in pediatric auditory verbal therapy or listening and spoken language. I do post cochlear implant auditory rehab for teens and adults and also therapy for individuals auditory processing needs. But my heart of my practice is really auditory verbal therapy where I guide and coach and inspire hopefully parents or their caregivers so that their children who are deaf and hard of hearing can reach their full potential through listening and spoken language.
D: Yeah, thank you so much for being here to share all that experience with us because I was telling Lynn a little bit before that I really think it's valuable for TODs to like hear more about auditory verbal therapy being actually applied. Like not so much just about the strategies which I think we've all read and thought about but actually hearing like how it's applied in practice because that's always that's what I want to know. That's what I think is really helpful.
L: Mhmm, sure. D: So Lynn I'm really interested from hearing from you about what a typical therapy session with a school age child, not a baby, looks like. So could you talk through a typical session?
L: Right, sure I'd be happy to, I'd be happy to. While I love supporting anybody across the listening spoken language journey, um either if they're babies or kids that are school age. And I'd say, and I was mentioning to you, I see a lot of school age kids. Kids that still need services and that school age population is really diverse. In fact, I'm working with a college age student now. Um and I have in the past. So it's really your student, you know across all those ages and like that. So I would say my auditory verbal sessions are highly individualized. However, all the skills are taught with the emphasis on listening or maximizing audition. I do follow the 10 principles of auditory verbal practice. And as you probably know six of those principles are based on guiding and coaching parents
D: Yes.
L: And yes the college student that I'm seeing is now mom joins us in our teletherapy sessions every week. So I think that family um and carry over you know is really really important.
D: Mhmm.
L: In my practice I was going to say also that there's so many different kinds of kids and kinds of needs and things like that. So when I look think back at my school age population I have kids with progressive hearing loss or kids that start at LSL late. Some kids that are transitioning or a couple of kids from hearing aids to cochlear implants. I have a big group of kids that were in private school for children who are deaf and hard of hearing but need more support in the mainstream setting. In fact, we mentioned it too, that kids with multiple needs that regardless if they have ah um, other co-occurring, I guess you'd say special needs, or sometimes we call deaf plus but regardless, there's many ways that we can provide high quality listing and spoken language services across a big difference of population and things like that. But to go back to your question if you were going to come into my office and you were here with a school age child, you would first learn that my sessions pretty much are very planned out and sort of followed the same kind of manner which I find is really helpful for parents and things like that. But um, I'd say therapy begins the moment the child, their parent, or whoever, significant other sometimes siblings come, enter my office they come into the waiting era they might hang up their coat if it's that time of year. But kids learn really early on that that's our time to catch up to share what's new. Lots of kids might bring something they want to show me or tell me about. We chat, I encourage small talk. But beyond the greetings, my goal during that time is to glean information on how does the child seem to be hearing that day, are they listening, are they understanding, even their mood for that that day. It really keeps me on my toes because once I get into the therapy sessions I really, therapy's always diagnostic in nature. Oh The child's not having a good day or they're not listening as well. But I need to be always able to adapt um to the child's needs that day and continuously. So that's the first thing I do is just we just chit chat a little bit. And you know kids don't even, even when adults walk in um, with the cochlear implant rehab I usually follow them in and ask them a couple questions are they hearing or not.
D: Yeah, the um for like the itinerant version of that I do that when I'm walking on the hallway with the kid. Like I grab them from the the the classroom or whatever and we're walking down the hallway I treat that little like two minute walk as our little conversation little catch up. But just like you're saying like I am listening to how they're speaking and how they're listening to me. Just like ok like are we are our listening hats on today?
Both: [LAUGH]
D: You know? It is helpful to like sometimes that, that waste quote unquote waste time like trying to get to your room but it it can be valuable to do some diagnostic like listening of what that's going on with them.
L: Yeah yeah I find it really helpful I get a lot of information. Even what they're talking about or sharing. Well I think you might be surprised I do not complete a um like a hearing device check or like troubleshooting right away. And you're like hey how can you, how can you not make sure that children have you know ample access to sound?
D: Can I guess, can I guess why you don't do it?
L: Yeah, yeah, yes, yes.
D: Have you trained the have you trained the parents to do it ahead of time?
L: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, so all I mean there's not anybody that's going to not maybe that's exaggerated but people come here I have a wide diverse population. But it's very different than in the schools or a center base service. The parents drive a huge distance lots of times to get here. Deal with their insurance type of thing. They'll do what it takes because they want their child to listen and talk. They're also families that they know their kids' objectives. They bring a wealth of knowledge to each session and I know that what, and we'll hear a little bit about what I do in the sessions but they've played with their kids. They read to their kids. You know they worked with them at home and things like that. So I know that's a little bit different. Of course if there's a problem with they're hearing is either everything we or their implants we check, but we don't waste time on that type of thing. Really kids come in and they know the drill I have a place in my therapy room that they go right away and we do a listening check so not hearing aid. So sometimes this may include um, LMH ten sounds or other speech perception measures and depending on the child's level, um, sometimes we're presenting sounds up close or greater distances. Some kids we are adding background noise white noise maybe a reciprocal babble just sort of to um, replicate what it's like in the real world. But as soon as we do that the quick speech perception I tell the kids that we're going to do an auditory workout that they're going to build their, or exercise our listening muscles. So they're sort of used to that and it's really just a warm up exercise and it's different every time. A lot of time it's related to a theme that we're working on or just something to sort of expand their brains and make them listen. So I thought I'd tell you what I did with some of the kids. A lot of things I do similar all week with a lot of my kids and then fine tune them according to their needs.
D: Mhmm, me too.
L: If that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, okay, it's just you can't do individual for everything. So now it's fall and like the first thing I I did is auditory discrimination and I might say hey listen are these the same or different? And for initial sounds I might say um squirrel squeal. They repeat same different repeat the words or leaf versus leaves those kinds of and I get a lot of information too. Oh they didn't hear that final sound or whatever. I'm huge on auditory memory for lots of different reasons but I can tell you about that later. But what one the things that I did this week was okay I want you to listen and repeat these words in the same order that I say them. Apple, apple seeds, apple cider, Johnny Appleseed... what did you hear? So we want them to do you know that and then I usually do auditory direction a lot of times these are sort of little active things. So and it really varies on the complexity and you know child to child. These are a little bit trickier that I'm going to tell you but these are ones that I can get ah good information about the child. So one I use this week is it's Friday so I can tell you what I did all week [LAUGH]
D: Yeah, perfect.
L: Yeah, yeah, exactly. If you like apple pie say give me another slice, if not name your favorite dessert. So you know that gives me their listening, they're answering, they're comprehending, and then doing if not then what type of thing.
D: Yeah I like that if I like that idea of doing more of the like if then questions because they feel a little more conversational. So like they can answer and then I can make a comment like it's so it's a little more like um, that's interesting. and also I like using the fall topics I do a lot of theme stuff too.
L: Okay I yeah me too.
D: Just just to keep it interesting for me too because I'm doing this all day too.
Both: [LAUGH]
D: One of my co-workers always says like if the if you feel bored the kid is probably bored so like which I think is totally true. So sometimes I do things just because they're fun for me. But I think that does transfer over into being fun for them then too.
L: I work with yeah parents a lot and lots of siblings are here. So yeah, yeah, we have to have fun and I would say a lot of times I'll get done I had a great day that was really fun. So but yeah, another example like I said sometimes are active ones other ones I did this week is pretend to catch a football, run down the field, and then fumble the ball. So I'm seeing can they do that, how many critical elements, can they do all those steps. So that's usually how I, how I start the kids always like coming in and doing, building up their muscles they think and you know they think that's pretty funny.
D: I'm going to like take notes I'm going to like do this later! [LAUGH] Those are fun I like those ideas.
L: I have a resource in my TPT store Listen with Lynn that's I think it's called Listen Practice Activities I have about 10 of those or whatever but they're ones that I actually do all the time.
D: Perfect I have a bunch of your resources already. So I'll add one more [LAUGH].
L: Same here. We're on the same kind of mind and things like that. So you can tell a lot of my session already occurs before we're even sitting down and and we do usually sit at a table and things like that. And what happens is when the family before they're coming in I usually place a toy or an item or something of interest related to what we're be talking about on the table. So this catches the child's attention while I check in with the parents and that is really really important the beginning I have to check in with the parents. This week I have a little stuffed squirrel and a pile of acorns. All the kids went over that. But what happens is the parents share an update from their week. You know what I really like Deanna is when a child is at the table sort of looking at that squirrel and then they add oh but mom you didn't say this or you know whatever then I know that they I always want them to attend to the conversations around them pay attention and things like that. So I know yeah, you're doing really good when you're sort of adding into it type of thing.
D: Yeah.
L: So yeah, so um, next and as long as I've been working with a family for a while this is pretty quick but I share the overall goals and objectives of that current session, what we're going to do, I usually share teaching and um, like LSL teaching or parent coaching strategies I plan to use. Like I said if I said oh we're going to use sabotage or we're going to do this parents pretty much know you know if they've been there for a while type of thing. But then one other thing before I actually do start the activities, I briefly restate the objectives again. Again, especially for school age kids. I want the kids to know and understand what we're doing and why we're why we're doing it. So we're going to be working on your comprehension, we're gonna be working on you know I really want your speech to try the best use clear speech or or whatever type of thing. So...
D: Yes, I do that too I think that's so helpful I think especially for TODs who are working on self-advocacy like just allowing the child to be like a more active participant in their own learning so that they know what, they have to know what they're working on if they're going to advocate for their own learning. So like it all like just ties together like nicely when even though I like I'm sure we're going to talk about this to in a second like I'm probably working on more than one thing at a time but I want them to be focusing on a something specific that they can improve on because that's like they're more actively engaged that way.
L: I agree. So just like you said not only the kids are actively engaged and the smarty pants say oh I know why we're doing this. You know I say you're right, but the parents in my sessions are very active participants. They take turns, they get to one, they with me practice new skills, they ask questions. And then my goal for the parents is being able to take the lead during an activity and some families are a lot more natural that of that than other families some need practice to feel more comfortable or confident of that, really that's my goal There's ah, honestly, a couple parents that are that's really hard for them. You know, I guess I would say sometimes it's males that's a little bit harder for or families the english is the second language but we work on that and that does you know, get better though. The one thing I remind parents is that there are one hundred and sixty eight hours in a week and I'm only with them one hour a week. So during that time I can guide and coach them but anything that happens important is during their time at home and things like that. So yeah, so I guess I'd also say during that time I believe that children the best potential for listening and language goes when their parents have learned how to integrate the auditory verbal techniques into everyday activities and experience. So I really encourage them to follow the child's interests and leads and um, you know teach that test I think that's something that a lot of times happens a lot of question asking a lot of drilling. We don't want to do that. We want to have a conversation. We want to model. We want to um, if if you didn't know better, you'd think that you know we're just playing and having tons of fun, which we are but um and that's something over the years I've had lots of students and they are always surprised how conversational it is or how we could be doing activity and totally change it based on what the child says. And I think a lot of people are oh we're working on this check down with that move to the next topic and it's not like that at all type of thing.
D: Yeah I really I mean I have a whole episode on like teaching not testing I feel like that was like the biggest... truly like the biggest thing I learned from like my training for auditory verbal therapy was teaching I was like the thing that made the biggest difference for me in therapy like I feel like like once I like once it clicked in my brain I like everything else made more sense and I could I feel like I could do it [LAUGH] because really just like it takes down so many barriers like a lot of kids don't like they don't, they don't like being tested. They don't like failing. They don't like, you're not going to build a good rapport with them where they're going to like engage with you for a long period of time if you're constantly testing them and that's why I kind of like that little auditory workout idea at the beginning because it's like it's framed as like a fun little auditory workout little practice and then like the bulk of the session. It sounds like is is more teaching and modeling and playing and a lot more natural and then since like you're saying it is very like diagnostic like you can adjust it very naturally without like having to like I don't know do a different activity. And I feel like I know a lot of your activities that you make are like this and a lot of the ones that I make are like this I they're they're kind of broad like they're not like I do write like little directions sometimes because some people find them helpful but I very rarely read from them like I'm almost always going off what's going on in the session and adjusting up or down a little bit like as needed. Um, and I think that that's something that one I guess you just when you practice it, it gets better but also like people you have to have confidence in your ability to do it. You don't have to read the questions off of paper you can you can listen to the kid and adjust when you are thinking about what you're working on.
L: Exactly... when you said that was a big thing that you learned or you remembered that I had really thought about this for years but my real good dear friend Warren Estabrooks you probably read some of his things...
Both: [LAUGH]
L: but I remember so he's a little bit older than me but watching him do therapy and that really oh my gosh they were whispering, they were joking, they were you know, just his whole mannerisms working with kids I think that that's that conversation, that's oh we're friends and we're working on this together and I think that's when I really learned that I mean there, I can I can go over definitely next I If you want choose like skills that I address for school age children. So it's I don't want you to think that we're just sort of chit chatting and that I mean I'm I'm pretty specific at what I'm working on but it's the way that it's done I guess something that's more later preschool from kindergarten first grade when kids find out that they come here and this is my job that's really cool. It seems like when we've had we talk about um occupations or something and I'll say do you know what my job is do you know what I know, I don't know what you do I'm like this is it!
Both: [LAUGH]
L: and so that's that's always pretty fun and things like that. But it just shows. Yeah yeah, kids are cute all the way around. But yeah the activities or goals vary from child to child. But I still target like the main domains of audition, speech language, communication, cognition, and that's across auditory verbal you know or listening and spoken language. So just I'll give you a real quick what each of those look like that I can get into more details. So audition it might be for a child working through Erber's Hierarchy of Auditory Skill Development, might be auditory memory, auditory association, comprehension and so on. I would say auditory memory if a child does not have good auditory memory. They're going to get no place with comprehension or you know any of the other things and I really work on where they're at moving on increasing and complex complexity. So a lot of people add backgrounds I do that sometimes. But I really like to use multitasking. So so many times you're not I'll tell I had a little boy today that I started talking when he was still doing what the task he was doing I saw for teletherapy and he was like looked at me like what are you doing I'm not done and I say, the teachers not going to look at you and wait until you're done listening that you know they're going to keep going and things like that. So I do a lot of multitasking a lot of that's I guess a little bit of sabotage. But um, kids in my office I might have a ah a pretty complex puzzle, something of those brainbuster puzzles or um, even a jigsaw puzzle or I have some blockhead like a balancing game. So while I'm asking the questions or talking about whatever our topic is they're having to build that at the same time. So multis they're having to listen and do something else such as life. So that's really important skill for attending.
D: I also do that a lot. I really like that.
L: Yeah exactly or...
D: I feel like that applies a lot better to life than background noise I know background noise obviously exists a lot but like I feel like I like harp on what the teacher is like no background noise reduce background noise and a lot times do a good job reducing background noise. A lot of the time but the kids are still busy and they're still distracted and I feel like it's much more like real life when they're actually doing something while you're talking about whatever you're talking about and also that's another thing I thought that has helped with behavior is like they're not just sitting there like talking to me like they don't, not everyone wants to do that. But if we're playing a game, [LAUGH] it believe it or not not everyone wants to sit there and talk to me. But um I thought it helps with engagement and it's more challenging. So it's kind of like a win-win for me.
L: Yeah, yeah. Note taking for older kids they need to do that all the time. Yeah games we play games with almost everything I'm a big personally in my personal life and therapy you know board games and things like that. So that's the audition. Speech, I'm not a speech pathologist but I really work on kids school age I tell them we're working on your clear speech, you know, doing the best that they can and they're using their auditory feedback loop so they hear it think it say it. I use um sort of an old strategy I think or old speech tracking I know that's a whole lot but speech tracking is when a child repeats what you're saying word for word or verbatim, phrase by phrase, material that's read to them so that really helps that helps with their prosody and their memory and things like that. So that's something I I work on a lot. Or, and this is a newer resource in my TPT store I do a lot of tongue twisters.
D: Me too I love tongue twisters!
L: Okay okay! And I have a little game with that. But the tongue twisters is really sharpens their speech. They love doing it. You know unless they too hard, but it's giggles. It's fun. It's humor and things like that. So see Deanna we are the same!
D: Yeah I like sabotaging them I like sabotaging the tongue twisters where I say it wrong on purpose and they love when I mess up a tongue twister!
L: Yeah, exactly.
D: Because one they like you know they think it's funny that I messed up but also like if I substitute like an s for an f but that's like a real good test for me of if they're um, perceiving that on like a connected speech level. So it's really, um helpful information and it's fun and usually I just Google them so I'm glad you've collected some because I'll go I'll go download that.
Both: [LAUGH]
L: I actually have a little game that goes with it that makes sort of that. Not only they roll the dice and they have to maybe say it so many times and there's a um, I'm trying to think and an activity that if they roll this one then they have to twist like your tornado. There's activities that they do with that and I forget what number six is. But yeah, so so to work on that. Um, and I found it's more than anything making them accountable. Making them you know you can slow down. You can make sure you put your ending sounds on things like that of course if a child has a problem with articulation that I've refer out we work together. But I found this speech tracking, tongue twisters, clear speech. I talk talk about really helps kind of thing. So of course the next thing we always work on language I'm going and talk a little bit more about that. So working on vocabulary as well as linguistics structures like syntax. We want the child to understand the receptive language and expressive language. Another domain communication. So that's like pragmatic or social language you know are they good at asking questions. Do they understand slang or sarcasm. Self-advocacy comes underneath that and then cognition I always tell parents we want them to think with the language they know you know think with language. And then my job there is to be really aware of the development of the whole child I'm working with and making sure that my expectations for their academics or cognitive based on who they are are developmentally appropriate.
D: Yeah, that was something that I also found really helpful to think about is to it's important for us to be aware of the child's cognitive level. So that way we can shoot to get their language and their audition to match that but we can't necessarily exceed that. So...
L: Exactly exactly.
D: We can certainly work to push forward the child's ah, global development. But um, you can't go past like the cognition needs to be to be aware of what the cognition is so you know what you're working towards and I feel like if you're working with kids with multiple disabilities or kids who are older like it's really helpful to talk to the special ed teacher or talk to whoever is working on their cognition like all day um to get a sense of what they're doing so that way you're picking materials that are appropriate and that you're picking goals that can actually like work towards getting them to like a more even development right? Like everything more on the same page.
L: Sure right. A lot of people, some people don't realize how important it is to know about normal child development in all areas. But that's foundation for everything we do. So yeah...
D: Mhmm, yeah in college I was I was always a nanny. So like I spent a lot of time around typically developing toddlers and little kids and it was nice because like I would hear the way they speak and then I could use that as like ideas for what I would like to target with my toddlers that I when I got a little when I started working because I knew like I went like like combining 2 words like I know what words they tend to combine because I heard typical developing toddlers put together these funny little phrases and things. So I think that's I mean a lot of TODs do push in for a certain amount of time into the classroom. So I feel like we're lucky that we do have a good amount of exposure to um, like typically developing peers a lot of the times and even like you were going back to like slang and like just like being aware of like what type of language is helpful for them to know. I think is important to keep in the back of your head that although I'll be I'm getting to the point where I'm not even catching all the slang anymore.
Both: [LAUGH]
D: So I feel like I try my best but like I have a brother who's a lot younger than me I ask him sometimes I'm like what does this mean like [LAUGH]
L: Right? Yeah, exactly exactly. Sarcasm's another huge thing though too I have found because it's not just it's not the words. It's how it's said and so that really is something that lots of kids with hearing loss need work on or find difficult to listen to the intonation patterns or whatever like that. But when you're saying you nanny? Well I'm a grandma now. So it's sort of reverse you know I listen to her What my grandkids are saying and what they're doing and and things like that. So which is sort of fun which is fun. Yeah I did hear you say about that use like thematic units for holiday things that um I I find school age kids that still need my service really struggle with vocabulary and I mentioned before the vocabulary is probably because of weak auditory memory or they have difficult auditory comprehension because of not being able to remember what's happened or or just lack of exposure. So I do use thematic units with my caseload while I'm targeting you know the auditory skills memory, association, sequencing, or whatever. But I really find and even a lot of my resources are seasonally based so it could be seasonal. It could be a holidays. It could be just separate. Um. Sports you know, whatever like that. But I really find the background knowledge of reoccurring, we'll say seasons is fundamental for like academic and language success. We know that the more the child hears and the more that's repeated about the topic, it's easier to comprehend, and retain information, vocabulary growth. In my opinion when maybe a therapist just introduces something different every time or not the repetition I don't think I wouldn't find that as helpful and I find the repetition really encourages or you know like that. It also is really engaging for families that um, parents can easily target and carry over themes that were you know I've introduced in therapy. So right now Autumn is such a fun time.
D: Yeah, autumn's one of the best seasons for them. Yeah autumn and spring for me are the two good ones.
L: Yeah, right? And who likes winter? None of us.
Both: [LAUGH]
L: But yeah, raking leaves, apple picking you know through through stories experience they can carry over but another thing um related to that I don't know if if you do this, it sounds like we do some of things together, I do you are not together I mean similar. I use a language processing hierarchy and I don't know.
D: I'm very sure I do yeah.
L: So that okay, okay, so and I do it almost like I work with um the season. So um, in the summers I do something different because of people taking off and different things. But each September most of my kids we work on categorization. It doesn't really matter what level they're at but I target categories and families know that they're doing categories. When October rolls around we target auditory associations and then move on to comparisons. So you know how do things go together comparison same and different type of thing but each month because I'm doing this hierarchy builds on the previous month learning or information and things like that. I go on to um December, I guess is antonym, synonyms, move on to multiple meetings. March is absurdities's right with the little leprechaun doing absurd things and moves on to like April fool's day. So I you know put all these language and thematic units together or whatever type of thing.
D: I love that idea! I don't actually do it so structured like that. But I think I will because that's such a good idea because like in your head then you know you're building like it's a lot clearer on your end to make sure that you're building like every month you're making you're hitting new stuff.
L: Right. Exactly, exactly.
D: But I have a lot of teachers like ask about like what's like a good vocabulary curriculum or like how do I help kids with vocabulary and it's like this is actually how you help kids with vocabulary because it's not really about. It's not really about like learning new words per se it's about like expanding on the word nuances that you already know.
L: Exactly.
D: So like I don't need you to know more animals I need you to know like, describing the animals, and categorizing the animals, and things associated with the animals, and that's how you'll get into like the actual like nitty-gritty of vocabulary. And I really like the idea of um building in that way. I'm going to start that I'm going to do that. Um [LAUGH]
L: Yeah, sure!
D: I feel like just so you for organizing it on yourself. It's even that's so applicable to a TOD because we we work on language and vocabulary all the time with like every not every kid but a lot of them like that's a super common task for us to work on and I feel like keeping that in the back of your head that like this month I'm mostly talking about categorizing and then this month I'm mostly talking about associations, I feel like you can really hit a breadth of vocabulary that way.
L: And for me guiding and coaching families that really makes it I think when the kids are younger there's so much to work on. You're doing so many different things parents sometimes get lost. But I find this is really effective in working with parents. So in September they know we're both, you know our big thing is categories and we're doing fall and you know every week it's specific fall that I do type of thing. But um so it's really effective like that. So we and even like so say if I if it's a kindergarten, we start this hierarchy next year I repeat it but then it's just more difficult higher level and things like that. I I don't know how I actually came up with this I've been doing it for quite a few years and it seems I don't see a whole lot of people doing that. But it's worked well with me I remember when my um son in law was in grad school to get into grad school he had to, maybe you did I don't know, take a test called the Miller Analogy test and the whole test was all analogies and I didn't really think that much about analogies before that time and then I realized well of course analogies. The only way you're going to answer it is if you have a good vocabulary. So you know you can't guess what what it's going to be but the other thing is it's all about word relationships. So my last month in may I use analogies. Well analogies are usually big is to huge as little is to blank. You know they're either synonyms they're opposite, sorry antonyms. They're parts of wholes. They're all the things we've worked on are at the last month then you realize, oh my gosh look how much they've learned how and parents are just like wow you know everything has come together. Not everything but it really works out great. So you have to try to ah let me know type of thing.
D: Yeah I do I love working on analogies that's feel like I feel like that's kind of my like go to for some of the kids that I work with that have like seemingly have a lot of vocabulary and I'm trying to find the pockets of things that I can expand on I feel like analogies are a great way to find those pockets because they might know a lot of words but not know 100% how they all connect to each other so...
L: Exactly.
D: That is what for for those kids that it's not obvious what like and like I've talked to this before I don't like just like pulling out like a list of vocabulary words like I really want it to be like connected to something else like in context with something else and a lot of times I'll pull from the classroom but then from there it's nice to put those classroom things into analogies. I just take it one step further and you I just make them up on the spot like I just with a whiteboard and then once they can do it with a whiteboard then I just do it auditory only. Once they have like a strong enough auditory memory to handle all that. Um it's a really good auditory memory task too. So I really like analogies.
L: Right, yeah I love that too. Exactly exactly. Yeah I guess the last thing of course is self advocacy and personal responsibility. And self advocacy and sort of all those related skills are built into every lesson. Every single thing I do I have the kids be responsible I have know ask questions. However, we do, it's a huge topic and it starts off from you know, very little kids. What what they're doing to you know, even my college age student things that I'm working with her with that type of thing. I wasn't gonna bring this up, like with my preschoolers one I do a lot of experential language activities. So things they get to do one of the things that I do with them early on is making lemonade and so you can talk about all, what all is involved in that but sort of what I I start introducing being the boss of your hearing loss. And when you make lemonade the lemon's sour, but how you go and you take a bad situation and turning lemons into lemonade and I sort of start off with that kind of thing and then I have lots and lots of resources that I do. Okay this is a situation is that, something to do with your hearing is an environment is it, you know all those different things and then, you know work on on self avocacy or across the board with lots of different ways and honestly a lot of my resources that I make on self advocacy are situations of real kids in my caseload. So in fact, it's sort of funny I just went um a couple weeks ago to a boy that I saw for therapy, he's a high schooler now but he just became an Eagle Scout and I was invited to his Eagle Scout ceremony. And I told him that I just that week had done a whole scenario or something therapy that was based on something that he had done at the Dairy Queen back in the day type of thing.
D: Oh my gosh.
Both: [LAUGH]
L: So he was like wow you remember that that happened, but I won't get into that now. But um.
D: I'm sure that's really like salient though because it's like it's it's real with real stuff that's actually happened. I have I have that lemons to lemonade resource you're talking about I use it all the time and because it's nice because like they're so so like the situations are like specific.
L: Uh huh.
D: So and it's like um helpful for the kids to see that like other children have had these struggles before them and it's there's solutions out there that we can figure out together, I do think that's helpful. And obviously I love working on self-advocacy I do it all the time.
L: Right, me too. Yeah, one of my favorites of mine is never have I ever and it's like it ask the kid have you you know never have I ever done this. And they're like for it's all about bluffing. So you know everything things they don't bluff and they realize it's spend their life bluffing and things like that. So yeah yeah exactly. So yeah I I can sort of tell you a little bit how my sessions end which is a little bit different...
D: Yeah, please do!
L: So um, when it's sort of getting close to time to go I rather than just sort of ending it I asked the kids to tell me what was the most fun thing we did today? What did you like the most? Or um, you know what was really hard for you? But they're having to recall and share that information. And the reason I do that? Yes, it's good for auditory memory and recall skills. But it also keeps them accountable that they have to know why we're doing what we were doing and things like that. So um I was I mentioned before auditory memory I just think that is the most important aspect once you get kids listening and paying attention that you're not going to get very far in syntactic complexity if they don't have the memory. You're not going to you know continue with the comprehension. But so anyhow I just start the kids tell me what they like best I thought maybe we'll do that next time or whatever. But then the parents are given time to reflect and ask questions and summarize. You know what we did and then we spend a few minutes, um reviewing and then brainstorming ways to implement the goals at home for that week and I usually as long as the parents have been with me a long time I'm you know, I asked I mean so what do you think you could do to carry that over or this was really easy, um, or this was difficult. You know what, what do you think you could do? And parents are the best therapists you know like I said once you once they get it and interactive, man I just I have a really good video of a mom that pretty much took over the entire session one time with a little boy and I had a um, observer with me and it was really they were just like my goodness or whatever. But so that's sort of how I wind up the session. Well almost. There's 1 more thing that I do so, my after school kids are pretty much back to back in the day I have about 15 minutes in between so they're back to back just because of there's so many hours in the after school for them to get here and get home and things like that.
D: Right.
L: So my kids often meet each other as one is leaving and the next one arrives. So I intentionally walk out with them and never let them just walk past each other I can't tell you in the past I've even had parents just totally walk past each other and I realize no no, no this is not happening. So now I walk out with them I usually you know, get them going the kids get to know each other but I encourage and it's a great time for me to model. You know, polite greetings or small talk, small talk between the kids and adults. That's something that's not a salient small talk just the chit chat or whatever but it allows me in real life to um work on nonverbal and verbal pragmatic skills and that's something that's often needed with this age type of thing. Not only ah, do they sometimes feel a little awkward. They just don't know how to do that or whatever. So over time you know I want them to use appropriate greetings. Maybe even face each other or smile, asks appropriate, oh you're in gymnastics, how did your meet go? Or you know initiate type of thing but just those small conversational turns is also um, a good time to work on clarification. Some kids sort of maybe are a little shy and looked down and another kid has to learn to ask you know can you tell me that again or whatever. And then I always want them to leave without see you next week or got to go or whatever like that. And then I guess there's one more thing. It's sort of cool a lot of my um kids may be the only child with hearing loss in their school or in their class but they get to know another child at least somewhat who has hearing aids or a baha or whatever and see that child is listening and talking and thriving too. So that's sort of how I end the sessions and they're always fun.
D: Yeah.
L: Usually always fun but you know it's sort of a whole routine that I go through and like even that last thing they they know that someone's going to be on other side of that door when they are ready to walk out and it's something that we can practice together and things like that. So exactly.
D: Yeah, that sounds great I feel like it that the whole thing is like jam packed from start to finish like every activity has goals behind it and like a purpose even things like at the beginning at the end that we can think about when we're doing our sessions in the schools. Maybe it looks a little different but keeping in mind that like oh I can use this time in the hallway or when I'm returning them I can model some proper farewells or greetings or whatever um to the other teachers or the other kids when you're pushing in like I do that a lot too. And I feel like it's just been really helpful to hear like in detail about an auditory verbal therapy session because being able to like pick and choose some of these things to apply to teaching is is really really helpful. So thank you so much for taking the time to share all of that with us.
L: I was just gonna say yeah I was just gonna say real quick I don't know I mean I have worked for myself for so many years I was a clinical audiologist and I've done this. So even though I'm in contact with a lot of people some of the things I do have work for me doesn't mean that it's what most people do or whatever like that. That just sort of but I think I'm referring to you said about planning your sessions. So I might know that I'm working on this theme but there's not. Ah, kid or adult that comes through I've not planned their their lesson and I follow a lot of different different from social media and I just saw somebody think I don't know who was today put oh I don't usually plan my lessons because what I plan doesn't really work out anyhow. And I was like oh my gosh like. I couldn't believe it. Yes, you can be adaptable. But I also I feel really accountable to these families I mean they're trusting us to work with their child. We need to get them to a certain point. So yes I I am organized I do know what I want to do next even does it come to fruition. But I think that's that's what we're called to do if we're in this field to do our best that we can for you know the kids and their families. So anyhow, get off my soapbox but... I would people don't plan I just don't understand that. So yeah.
D: Ah, no problem it. Yeah I do think in the school sometimes there are things that throw you that like the teacher will hand you a packet and be like they have to finish this and I'm like they have to finish it right now in my session? That's that's what needs to happen and sometimes truly is what needs to happen and that's when I put on my little hat of like trying to figure out how can I take this passage and incorporate all of my listening goals and language goals and self-advocacy goals into this activity and I can, I we all can we all do it. Um, so I think you know sometimes you, you have to make it work but that doesn't mean I didn't have a plan [LAUGH] like it, it just means I can't always execute the plan. But I do think having an idea though of what you're going to work on even if it's mostly like objectives. Um, it's easier to think on the fly and adapt when you already know what you're trying to work on.
L: I agree.
D: So like even if the actual toys or games are not what you planned, I at least know what I was going to work on.
L: Sure, sure.
D: And I'll do other episodes about how I plan for itinerant because I do think it's like a different beast then, because I also go into the home for early intervention and even that planning is different. Because I believe it or not, I think I actually have more control over that because there's not so many other adults and like so many other things that can go on in the school. Some of they don't even get a room so I'm like okay I got to figure out where I'm going to sit with this child first, um... [LAUGH]
D: So that's like a whole another thing but that's what I mean though, it's like I love hearing how other people do things like I love to hear from someone who plans meticulously because I can take bits and pieces of how you plan and then apply it to how I plan. And I just think I just love I love hearing people talk about how they do things.
L: Right? Yeah, yeah, that's what your podcast, why people is to see it more and more popular because you're talking about and having people share their expertise and we we're in a small field you know that.
D: Yeah, yep.
L: And with I guess also with all our most of our conference going remotely I mean it used to be we'd go to conferences and we'd stay up all night chit chatting about what you're doing in therapy or what's your best toy or what? What happened here was this, You know that's how we learn back in the day and now podcasts are great for, for that type of thing.
D: Yeah, if people have like more questions or if they want to see some of your resources could you share where everyone can find you online?
L: Sure my website is hearsay, so hear say and then LW, my initials https://www.hearsaylw.com/. I guess it's hearsaylw.com and like Deanna I do create resources. Um, they're on a couple different platforms. But my main platform is Teachers Pay Teachers and it's Listen with Lynn. So thank you for listening to me today and inviting me Deanna to share with with all the people that you know are follow you on your platform was great. I always I'm a good talker [LAUGH] I should say a good talk I like to talk so...
D: Of course yeah I also like to talk.
Both: [LAUGH]
D: But I'll link all of Lynn's things in the show notes so that you can find them everything we mentioned today I'll go through and link in the show notes along with the transcript down below and at listentotodpod.com. If you'd like to be a guest on the podcast in the future to share about your area of expertise or interest, please feel free to reach out to me on Instagram at Listening Fun and I hope you have a great week and I'll see you next time! Bye!