Summer Reading List for New SLP Grad Students

I’ve posted statistics, tips, ideas, and resources for applying to Speech-Language Pathology graduate school. For those of you who read them and used the ideas, thank you! For those of you who did not, that’s OK, we can still be friends. I will get us one of those friendship necklaces. BFFs. I digress.

This post is intended for those who were accepted into an SLP graduate program and are anxiously and excitedly awaiting to start. Those were the days. When you wake up without a constant twinge of nervousness, contemplating if you will get in anywhere. TallyHo! Now you can breathe a little easier knowing you have a place to call home for the next 2-3 years. A place that will shape you, mold you, make you into a real-life Speech-Language Pathologist. Yippee!!

Now, you have a few months before you start. Don’t sit like a bump on a log for the next 2-3 months, but at the same time, take time to enjoy graduation, freedom, and summer time. Graduate school isn’t all unicorns, rainbows, and meadow frolicking. In preparation for the  deluge of information that will soon ensnare your mind, consider the following Summer Reading List as you lay on a beach or veg-out on the couch. As you consider and use the list below, keep in mind to review the big areas in SLP:

• Articulation
• Phonology
• Dysphagia
• Voice
• Fluency
• Language Development and Disorders
• AAC

Free Summer Reading List

1. Undergraduate Notes - The jumbled mess that is your undergraduate notes, look them over. Remember what was tough to remember. Recall the topics which you first skimmed, and look more closely this time around.
2. Undergraduate Textbooks – Especially the ever-lovely Anatomy text for a review of the facial, swallowing, and laryngeal musculature necessary for speech and swallowing.
3. SLP Scope of Practice - Now I’m sure at some point a professor pointed you in this documents direction, and you glanced over it with an eye of disillusionment. I said to myself, “How in the world will I ever know all of this?!” Now, break it out, look over the sections, and take note of things you don’t know or have never heard of. Google it. Research it. Don’t let your newness get the best of you.
4. ASHA’s Compendium of EBP Guidelines and Systematic Reviews - Mind. Blown. I was introduced to this resource way too late in my SLP graduate school journey. Bookmark it. Tattoo it to your arm (obvious exaggeration). Look through the topics that interest you. Aphasia, dysphagia, dementia, feeding, and more. The guidelines documents are great for overview when working with the disorder – a starting place – and the evidence for the topics are equally helpful for preparing for future clients.
5. ASHA’s Practice Portal – This is a new venture for ASHA, but promises to be my future go-to spot when a difficult client comes my way (still in Beta trials). Currently, there are only 4 topics available, but there is more coming in 2013…stay tuned!
6. Previous years’ ASHA Convention Handouts - If you have a specific area of interest or can’t find information in a given area, search handouts and see what you can find. People work hard when presenting, so use the resource.

I am planning a Part 2 to this reading list which highlights paid options for those wanting more resources than are available online. For now, this will get you started.

Happy reading fellow SLP graduate students!!

Articulate It – A Review

Articulate It 

by Smarty Ears

Purpose

An app for speech sound disorders to be utilized by Speech-Language pathologists. The app allows for targeting articulation or phonological processes at the word, phrase, and sentence level while collecting data. The app was recently updated to version 3.2.1 in April 2013, so there are new features to the app to check out.

Price: $38.99 

For comparison, there are similar professional apps targeting similar areas, such as ArtikPix $30, Articulation Station $50, Weber Photo Artic Castle $30, Pocket Artic $10

The SLP Post-baccalaureate Plunge

Why Post-Bacc? 

Universities across the U.S. offer a set of courses which prepare students to begin a graduate program in Speech-Language Pathology (SLP). There are a few different reasons a person might choose to complete these prerequisite courses (aka post-baccalaureate courses) in SLP or Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD):

1. You have your Bachelor’s degree in an unrelated field (psychology, exercise science, biology, underwater basket weaving).
2. If you have a degree in a non  SLP/CSD field, you were rejected from or SLP graduate schools so are deciding to take the classes while you reapply.
3. You are considering making a career change and want the inside scoop before applying to SLP graduate schools.

Autism Language Learning [Series 1: Actions] – A Review

Autism Language Learning

Series 1: Actions

By TalkTime

Purpose: 

Autism Language Learning (A.L. L.) includes real-life videos of children and teenagers modeling a variety of common actions (eating, drinking, throwing) with the option to record user productions for each prompt. There is an in-app purchase upgrade ($1.99) which allows users to upload their own videos.

Price: $26.99, check out the A.L.L.: Actions Lite version for $Free

Rainbow Sentences – A Review

Rainbow Sentences

By The Mobile Education Store

Purpose:

The app is designed to help children learn how to create syntactically correct basic and complex sentences using color-coded visual prompts. Users engage and learn that sentences are comprised of essential word groupings which are ordered to help provide information regarding who, what, where, and how information.

Price: $7.99

Apraxia Ville – A Review

Apraxia Ville

by Smarty Ears, LLC

Purpose:

Apraxia Ville is designed for use by Speech-Language Pathologists working with children diagnosed with Apraxia of Speech. The app targets consonants and vowels in isolation, at the word level (CV & CVC), and in word sets (CV + CV or CVC + CVC).

Price: $21.99 (just released March 20, 2013)

Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS)

ASHA’s Position on the diagnosis of Childhood Apraxia of Speech says it “exists as a distinct diagnostic type of childhood speech sound disorders that warrants research and clinical services.” Furthermore, ASHA highlights three distinctive features SLPs should look for in addition to a comprehensive speech and language evaluation: (1) inconsistent errors on consonants and vowels in repeated productions of syllables/words, (2) irregular co-articulatory transitions between productions, and (3) excess, equal, and/or reduced prosody (intonation). These three features are not always present in every case of CAS occurrence, but help distinguish CAS from other speech sound disorders. Apraxia Ville targets the three main features ASHA mentions exceptionally well. Allow me to explain…

Desperation or Determination? – SLP Graduate School Admissions

How many times will you continue to apply to Speech-Language Pathology graduate schools before you stop and consider an alternate route or career path?

I’ve posed this question to myself since many friends and blog readers have commented and emailed me regarding grad school rejection. So when would you stop saying “I’m determined to get into SLP graduate school” and start saying “I’m desperate to get into SLP graduate school.” Where is the line between determination and desperation? After the first year of rejection letters? The second year? The third year? At some point, determination turns into desperation, and the anxiety eats away at the passion and excitement.

Sunny Articulation and PhonologyTest (SAPT) – A Review

Sunny Articulation and Phonology Test (SAPT)

By Barbara Fernandes at Smarty Ears

Why Can’t I Get Into SLP Graduate School?

An applicant is only allowed to put limited, watered-down  information in an application for SLP graduate school. Then, schools may limit the number of pages per document. A one page resume here. A one page, single spaced letter of intent there. Send official transcripts over here and way over there. All this information rests in the hands of secretaries, clinical directors, and graduate school departments; it’s only your future and dreams wrapped into an envelope or “submit” button. No big deal (ha!). Interviews, waiting lists, and nail-biting email subject lines create a haphazard funneling process as hopeful applicants clamor for the few and coveted SLP graduate school slots.

Have you applied before? Have you applied more than once? Twice? Three times? Nothing breaks my heart more than the countless emails I have received over the past year and a half from fellow SLP graduate student hopefuls asking similar questions: “Why can’t I get into SLP graduate school?”…”Is it hopeless?” …”What’s the trick?”

Speech FlipBook – A Review

Speech FlipBook

By: Tactus Therapy

Purpose:

A newly released app that allows users to target individual sounds in various positions (i.e. CV, VC, CVC, CCVC, CVCC, etc). Uses range from articulation therapy to phonological awareness, motor speech disorders, and more. Speech FlipBook relies on the letters and corresponding sounds, rather than images, to target thousands of word combinations.

Price: $4.99