Parents often ask us: how can we stimulate the development of speech in our children? We present you with a great program, Land of Sounds, which will appeal to younger children, who are just learning to speak, as well as to already speaking preschool, who are just beginning to know their the world around them. It is also a perfect tool to stimulate speech for children with the delayed speech development. The Land of Sounds program may be also used as the supplement to the speech therapy.

The program is available on-line at www.landofsounds.com Without registration you can play with several games and exercises. After a quick registration the users can use all resources of the program. You can find hundreds of animations and games supporting the development of children’s speech.

And here’s more good news: until the end of October you can use the program completely for free! You just need to register.

After registering on the website and logging in you can use the resources of several major sections: “exercises”, “games”, “exercises with a guide” and “knowledge library”.

You will find a lot of animations with sounds made by animals, vehicles, devices and sounds associated with every day activities and situations. In next scenes there are presented different sources of sounds in the form of images and onomatopoeic words. The child by watching the cinematographic animations, listens to the onomatopoeic sounds of the speech. He can also try to repeat the expressions during the exercise.

Using onomatopoeic words is an important stage in the development of child’s speech. In this way he replaces too difficult words with those that are easier to say. Because of that in a simplified way he names the surrounding world and achieves his first success in communication. As a result, he more likely establishes the language contact with the environment!

For children, who move from the stage of onomatopoeic speech to the stage of words and sentences there are animations, in which they get to know the names of objects and activities.

Games in this section will definitely interest the youngest children learning to speak and developing speech. They will also be great while working with children with the delayed speech development.

The Land of Sounds program has a very large base of animations that is bound to find something to keep their interest. Doing the exercises – tests you can check how the child recognizes and associates the sounds with the sources making them.

Using games and activities in this section, the children perpetuate the sounds of onomatopoeic words learned in the section “Exercises”. To use the games you just need basic skills of using the mouse and keyboard. The level of difficulty of games is adjusted to the age of the children. You can find labyrinths, memory games, tasks involving collecting objects and many others!

Apart from access to hundreds of animations, you can use the aid of the virtual advisor, who will tell you how to preferably begin the work with the Land of Sounds program. You just need to fill in a short survey, and the virtual advisor will direct you towards the best place to start work and will look after your progress. At any time you can cancel the virtual advisor and move to the selected exercises and games.

In the library you can find interesting articles in the field of speech therapy, as well as those from which the parents can learn how to stimulate the proper development of speech of their child.

Exercises in the program are selected with great care, appropriately to the age of children and their cognitive areas. The Land of Sounds program is worth recommending for one more reason: it has a beautiful, calm, uncluttered with excessive number of elements graphics and beautifully recorded sounds. We can fully recommend this program as the tool to stimulate the development of the child’s speech! We recommend it!  

Service landofsounds.com was created from the EU funds grant (Innovative Economy Operational Program, activity 8.1)

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) has introduced legislation, the Protecting Student Athletes from Concussions Act, S. 1546, that would strengthen K-12 schools’ procedures for preventing, detecting, and treating student athletes who suffer concussions while participating in school sports. S. 1546 will direct local education agencies (LEAs) to develop and implement a standard plan for concussion safety and management. Part of the LEA’s plan must include the training of school personnel–including school-based audiologists and speech-language pathologists (SLPs)–about concussions. Where feasible, the bill encourages LEAs that are helping students recover from concussions to create a multidisciplinary concussion management team that may include audiologists and SLPs. This legislation will raise much needed awareness about the risks and dangers associated with concussions among student athletes.

 

Please contact your Senators today and ask that they cosponsor S. 1546 Click below

 http://www.capwiz.com/asha2/issues/alert/?alertid=62949361&type=co

Student athletes who suffer a concussion can often experience symptoms that range from dizziness and balance issues to having cognitive (thinking) and communication problems that significantly impair their ability to live independently. ASHA-certified audiologists and speech-language pathologists work with students to treat symptoms related to concussions. As part of a larger school-based team, audiologists and speech-language pathologists work with the student and his/her family/caregivers, including teachers and coaches. The team works together to evaluate the student and develop an appropriate treatment plan.

For more information, please contact Neil Snyder, ASHA’s director of federal advocacy, at 202-624-7750 or by e-mail at nsndyer@asha.org.

Take Action Here http://capwiz.com/asha2/issues/alert/?alertid=62949361

This month's Advance magazine features an article, already online, written by Rebecca Mayer Knutsen.  The article interviews 3 (three) working SLP's (myself!!! :) included YAY!) and their views on why the therapy world is slower in picking up the EMR part of the profession.  You can find the article here:  http://speech-language-pathology-audiology.advanceweb.com/Features/Articles/Navigating-EMR-Offerings.aspx