Bilinguistics Speech and Language Services

08/14/2024

Day 1 of our 2024 Back to School Conference is wrapped up as Dr. Barry Prizant redefined what it means to be Neurodiverse and to treat autistic children with empathy, humility, and expertise.
Here’s what people are saying about our conferences:
“Thank you so much for all your efforts to line up amazing speakers.”
“Everything about this was strong—this training was awesome!”
“I learned so much in 90 quick minutes!”
Don’t worry! You can still watch the recording.
AND! There is an amazing presentation today on Collaborating with Educational Professionals that starts soon.
AND! An amazing presentation tomorrow with Dr. Linda Rosa-Lugo on Culturally Responsive Practices.
AND! Attending the entire conference includes the Developmental Speech and Language Norms for Spanish and English E-book.

Check it out here:
https://bit.ly/46baXFD

08/13/2024

Today's the Day - 2024 SLP Virtual Back-to School Conference on Autism, Special Populations, & Collaboration
3 Experts - 3 Days - ALL on topics to help us develop professionally.
And it starts today!
This is the year...
That you see neurodiverse students through a new lens.
That your colleagues on campus see you for the powerful team player that you are.
That your students’ and families’ cultures add new and interesting dimensions to your therapy and interactions.
That everyone in your presence feels understood, heard, and welcome.
Join us in making this change a reality.
From August 13th-15th we have invited experts to speak on Autism, Diversity, Literacy, and Professional Collaboration.
Register:
https://bit.ly/46baXFD

08/09/2024

Don’t Miss This! The 2024 Virtual Back-to-School Conference Starts Tuesday!
New Advances in Autism, Special Populations, & Collaboration Begins New Week!

Are You Ready???

How do we pick our conference presenters and topics?
Well, we don’t. You do. Hundreds of SLPs requested these topics in a survey we do each 6 months and now hundreds have registered! We are so excited about what is about to take place.
Don't miss these 3 amazing speakers.
Don't miss the free developmental speech norms e-book.
Don't miss the chance to dramatically improve how you treat any child, who speaks any language, and simultaneously support classroom initiatives.
It all starts Tuesday…

https://bit.ly/46baXFD

08/01/2024

Speech language pathologists are being asked to hone their skills in providing culturally responsive assessments and effective interventions for our students from diverse backgrounds. Here's the thing, though. Have we been giving a clear explanation of what it means to be “culturally responsive” or ideas for how to alter our day-to-day activities to be inclusive of the differences in all the children we serve?
We put these questions to Dr. Linda Rosa-Lugo, a 30+ year SLP, professor, and an ASHA fellow who has been recognized with ASHA’s international achievement and diversity awards. We captured some beautiful explanations in the following three videos.

Read More:
https://bit.ly/3S68QgA

07/31/2024

Such an amazing trip! So many new SLP friends. We could be sad…or…we can start planning to do it again in 2025! We are doing site visits this fall to explore a new location. Enter your email here and we will let you know when registration is open.

https://bit.ly/3JyR1lZ

07/28/2024

We said goodbye to many of our new friends as they headed back home. The rest of us went to the coast and caught a ferry to the island of Caye Caulker for a little downtime, swimming, and relaxation.

Have you heard about next year’s trip?https://bit.ly/3JyR1lZ

07/27/2024

All good things come to an end, but that doesn’t mean it has to be sad. We spent our last day together with song and dance!

The Garifuna culture is beautiful. Their stories, clothing, music, language, and song painted a beautiful picture of the vibrancy that a culture can add to a community. We finished with a dinner and a bit of music of our own.

Next year’s trip:
https://bit.ly/3JyR1lZ

07/26/2024

Time for a day trip to the capital to meet with teachers and educators who work with children with impairments.

This event was so eye opening for me. So interesting to see how our same role manifests itself in a different country. So different and so much the same. I came away from it with a respect for professionals worldwide and a sense of gratitude for what we are continually trying to accomplish in our own country.

Next year’s trip:
https://bit.ly/3JyR1lZ

07/25/2024

Day 3 is about fun! Nothing better than feeding and holding enormous lizards and learning about the most entertaining therapy on the planet - storybook intervention.

Storybooks honor culture, are entertaining, hit every goal… We could go on, and we do for a full half day talking about why we use storybooks in almost every intervention session.

Next year’s trip:
https://bit.ly/3JyR1lZ

07/24/2024

When we think about the languages of a bilingual child, it’s important to understand the influences of the home language on English, yet honoring and supporting its existence.

Today we focused exclusively on bilingual language development and went on a field trip to see the preservation and growth of language and culture first hand.

Half our group visited the Mayan Women’s Collective where we learned about their work to preserve their culture, languages, food, and customs.

Come on next year’s trip:
https://bit.ly/3JyR1lZ

07/23/2024

What better place to learn about how speech sounds develop in a bilingual household than in a country where most children speak more than one language. Belizians go to school in English and typically speak Spanish, Mayan languages, or dialects at home.

What better way to learn about speech sounds and dialects than to walk through the community and hear them echo around you.

Next year’s trip:
https://bit.ly/3JyR1lZ

07/22/2024

Belize is so close! 1-2 flights south and you are in an English speaking country in Central America. We waited for everyone to arrive and took shuttles inland to the town of San Ignacio.

So nice to meet everyone in person, eat dinner and talk about the week. Dinner was capped off with a local lecturer on Belizean dialects and culture.

Next year’s trip:
https://bit.ly/3JyR1lZ

07/21/2024

So happy to have arrived in Belize and we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of all the attendees tomorrow. Ellen and I got to our hotel midday and are going through the slides and events for a week of presentations. This redefines “working remotely.”

Looking collectively at 30 hours of content is pretty cool. We will weave between therapy and evaluations, language and speech, all with a focus on doing it really well with diverse children.

Back to the airport tomorrow to greet everyone as they land.

Have you heard about next year’s trip?:
https://bit.ly/3JyR1lZ

07/19/2024

I can’t believe today has finally arrived! A year of planning and this weekend a solid 100+ SLPs, family members, and students will be in Belize for a week of fun, learning, laughing and 30 CEUs.

These are trips of a lifetime and we can’t wait to tell you about it. Come with us next summer!

Enter your email to be the first to be notified.

https://bit.ly/3JyR1lZ

07/18/2024

The complexity of working with students from diverse backgrounds with diverse language learning needs makes collaboration essential. While we know this, we’ve all experienced challenges when attempting to collaborate with others on a child’s team.
We invited Dr. Barbara Ehren, an expert on collaboration, to talk to us to find out how to effectively collaborate. We captured the highlights from our conversation in these four short videos.

Watch here: https://bit.ly/3xYQ9Vg

07/18/2024

Save the Date! The SLP Back to School Conference is Coming Up and the Line-Up is Incredible

We hope your summer is going incredibly well. Don’t worry, it’s only half over! We are writing to let you know that you will return to a conference with one of the greatest line-ups we have ever put together.

Dr. Barry Prizant will be speaking on Neurodiversity

Dr. Barbara will be speaking on Collaboration

Dr. Linda Rosa-Lugo will be speaking on Cultural Responsiveness

So mark your calendars for August 13th-15th. You can watch short videos and all of the presentations here: https://bit.ly/46baXFD

07/11/2024

When it comes to understanding how Autism has evolved over the past half century, there are few more adept, invested, and knowledgeable than Dr. Barry Prizant.

His work and research began decades ago and he is now recognized as among the world’s leading scholars on autism and neurodiversity. His most recent book: Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism has been published in 26 languages and was ranked by Book Authority as #1 of the “100 best books on autism of all time.”

We sat down to talk with Dr. Prizant about his experience and where the field is heading. Here are the highlights in three short videos.

Read More:https://bit.ly/4f08SQQ

FB TW

07/09/2024

VPI Developmental Pyramid to Organize Your Assessment

Velopharyngeal Insufficiency is difficult to diagnose and treat. Did you know that there are 8 abilities that need to be in place to create intelligible syllables?

If we test these abilities, we not only know in specific ways why a child isn’t intelligible but we also have a great set of goals. Use this pyramid for your informal assessment and for gathering data.

Click here to download:
https://bit.ly/35zHNC4

07/05/2024

Strategies for Culturally and Linguistically Responsive AAC Practices in Schools

Have you ever worked with a student who uses an AAC device and felt like the system they were using just didn't allow them the vocabulary that they needed to communicate across their different environments?

It is certainly a challenge that many of us have faced. That’s why we took some time to speak with a speech language pathologist from a large urban district who spends her days traveling to dozens of campuses to support her SLP colleagues.

Read More:
https://bit.ly/3xclPWM

07/04/2024

What are the Best Speech Therapy Initial /f/ Words?

Food, Family, Fun, Fireworks, Fourth - of course!

We hope you have an amazing day filled with fun, food, and family.

Happy 4th y’all!

https://bilinguistics.com/

06/25/2024

7 Ways to Have Highly Engaged Older Students in Speech Therapy

Keeping our older students focused on their goals, coming to therapy, and participating in groups or individual sessions can be really tough. Maybe they have been in speech therapy for a really long time. Maybe they’re embarrassed. Either way, some older students are tough to connect with.

That’s why we created this infographic with 7 key insights to keep your older students engaged.

Click to Download:
https://bit.ly/38DoTw5

06/21/2024

Summer is finally here!

The last of our community of SLPs that work in the schools are finally wrapping things up in the northeast. For the rest of you that finished up in May, hopefully you are not even seeing this message because you are buried in a book, elbow deep in activities with your kids, or somewhere beautiful.

It takes a special person to match the energy of children for 8 months. We hope you recharge in the most magnificent of ways.

For those of you meeting us in Belize in a couple weeks, we can’t wait to meet you.

https://bit.ly/3pFV70G

06/20/2024

The Overconfidence Effect – Misperceptions About Amount of SLP Work and How Long it Takes

How many of you have completely misjudged the amount of time it will take to finish something such as writing up an eval, testing a child, or completing your progress notes?

In this fifth essay on bias, we embark on a journey to unravel the mysteries of the overconfidence effect.

Read More: https://bit.ly/3JH9Mn8

06/11/2024

How to Promote a Positive Mindset in Young Children

Respect and positivity are a huge focus with our young therapy group members. Often, we are telling them HOW to act: Be kind. Be respectful. But are teaching the WHY or showing the results of poor choices?

Here is a simple chart to walk them through how thoughts, feelings, actions, and results are related. This way they can see the relationship between how their words or actions make others feel and result in positive or negative outcomes.

Free Download:
https://bit.ly/38DoTw5

06/07/2024

Most celebration days are just funny or interesting, and others you just have to try.

Today is the Official June Bug Day.

Turn your porch light on tonight and meet some new friends. I can’t think of a better way to get the attention of the boys in our groups than to show before/after - cause/effect - following directions that ends in something gross!

https://bit.ly/3pFV70G

06/06/2024

Veteran SLP Author and Researcher Offering Advice on Working with Interpreters: 9 Minutes – 4 Videos

Henriette W. Langdon wrote the book on how SLPs can effectively and harmoniously work with interpreters. We sat down to talk with her about how working with interpreters has evolved over her 50 year career and what current best practices are. She is as humble as she is intelligent and she has an incredible story about why she got into this field and how she learned so many languages.

She is a true living legend so we begin with a cameo video so you can get to know her and continue with three tough questions.

Read More:https://bit.ly/4bnjaIP

05/31/2024

https://jobs.gusto.com/postings/bilinguistics-inc-bilingual-speech-language-pathologist-47dec471-a6d8-4c16-83a5-cc2a498402a0

Duties include conducting evaluations, writing evaluation reports, providing treatment, maintaining documentation, and participating in team meetings. There are also opportunities to participate in other projects in the company, including creating and conducting continuing education courses, creatin...

05/30/2024

Deciphering the Conjunction Fallacy - Overlap or Isolation of Disorders?

How often have we sat in meetings with other professionals such as OTs, PTs, reading specialists, and diagnosticians, nodding our heads along with their descriptions of the goals that our shared clients and students are working on.

Yes, we “share” children. To think that this is the norm indicates that we may haven fallen prey to a form of bias called conjunction fallacy. Worse yet, without knowing about it, we could misdiagnose or negatively impact the referral process.

Check out this new essay from our series on bias:
https://bit.ly/3UGFbfO

05/28/2024

Vowel Comparison for Spanish & English

We live in a world with a focus on consonants but what is actually carrying those consonants? What glues them together? What influences their voicing? And in terms of bilingualism, what contributes more greatly to accent?
It’s the vowels.

English has over twice as many vowels which is a good thing to remember when we are appraising intelligibility. While we rarely write goals around vowel production, we have to understand how having a small vowel spectrum can negatively impact how well a child understands us!

Free Download!
https://bit.ly/35zHNC4

05/23/2024

Understanding Availability Bias: Challenging Perceptions During Evaluations

Availability bias is the result of making decisions based on exposure to specific experiences or on what is top-of-mind rather than using logic. Availability bias dictates that the easier it is to recall or imagine something, the more probable or consequential we perceive it to be.

Typically, availability bias is a really good thing because it is a mental shortcut that saves us loads of thinking time and relies on years of experience. But are there situations where it is not helpful or can cause us to make the wrong decision? You bet! In this essay, we look at some research and explore the way availability bias rears its head in our work as speech language pathologists.

Read More: https://bit.ly/3UxsxPY