MindWing Concepts Blog

You (as a character) Are A Social Detective!

Fri, 04 May 2012 19:33:00 GMT

On the heels of Autism Awareness Month, I wanted to highlight a product that provides a terrific complement to use of the Story Grammar Marker® for treatment of social learning and narrative deficits for students with autism spectrum and related disorders. You Are a Social Detective is a CD-ROM product (compatible with Mac and Windows systems) created by Michelle Garcia Winner of Social Thinking® in conjunction with the folks at Social Skill Builders. The program is based on the popular comic of the same name, which provides a visual primer on basic social thinking concepts such as expected and unexpected behaviors and their effects on others, “thinking with the eyes,” and making “smart vs. wacky” guesses. Many children on the autism spectrum require explicit and consistent teaching of these concepts and coaching in their application across the school day. Using this video modeling program allows for instruction across many leveled lessons, as students view video situations and apply the key skills to identify expected and unexpected behaviors, zoom in on clues about others’ thoughts and feelings, predict the outcome of social scenarios, and utilize social behavior mapping strategies.

I have been using this program with groups of students over the course of this year, and I have been impressed by both the amount of content provided (allowing students to build skills over many exposures) and students’ positive response to the material across a range of age levels. The engaging interface has really grabbed students’ attention, and I continually hear as my groups begin, “Are we going to do Social Detective today?” The pace of the program is arranged perfectly so that 3 or 4 video clips and accompanying discussion questions can be tackled in one session, followed by a brief interactive arcade-style game, and still allow for another activity in the course of your 30-minute session (the program saves student groups’ progress within the levels so that you need not repeat video clips). The structure of the program also allows plenty of room for clinical scaffolding; this is not an activity that students are meant to complete independently. Rather, they will need your assistance as a clinician to focus on key details within each scene and verbalize what has occurred (and what might occur next) thought their “Social Detective” lens.

One key tool that can be applied to analyze each video scene is, of course, Story Grammar Marker! Each scene presents kid characters (though they vary in age and, notably, so do the expected behaviors for different age levels) who are in different settings and experience a kickoff! As the program progresses, you move from deciding if the portrayed reaction was expected or unexpected for the situation, to making smart guesses about reactions, plans, and the feelings of the characters. I find each video clip to be an excellent place to employ the Universal Magnet Set to teach and reinforce use of the narrative icons toward the analysis of each scene, like so:

This serves as a great complement to the material provided, and does not end up being repetitive of the questions asked within the program. Rather, use of the narrative icons provides an additional visual and language-based support to help students understand what they saw, while building narrative skills and use of the cohesive ties that link the narrative icons: when, but, so, because, etc. The lessons in You are a Social Detective also, naturally, align well with the activities in the Mindwing Autism Collection that apply narrative elements toward understanding social interactions.

A demo of the program can be viewed here (Flash-based, so not iPad-friendly). I hope you will check out this great program!

Sean J. Sweeney, M.S., M.Ed., CCC-SLP, an SLP, instructional technology specialist and consultant, works in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He is the author of the blog SpeechTechie, a contributor to the ASHA Leader, and recently took on a role as Product Development Manager for Smarty Ears Apps.

Using SGM and Thememaker for Project-Based Learning

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 21:04:00 GMT

Project-Based Learning (PBL) is a recent trend in educational design, and involves presenting students with real-world contextual tasks that relate to curriculum areas. PBL is a great approach for Speech-Language Pathologists and Special Educators to employ as our students benefit from having their learning relate to personally relevant and functional content. To learn more about PBL, watch this great video from Common Craft. One tool that has been integrated as a kind of PBL is the “Webquest,” a set of web pages that outline a task and provide web-based resources for its completion. Webquests are not new, and teachers have been developing them for some time. There is a particular Webquest that I wanted to share with you in this post, particularly because it is one you could use in classroom, small group, or even individual language therapy while integrating Story Grammar Marker® and Thememaker® tools in the process.

The webquest I speak of is called the Tantalizing Adjectives Webquest, originally designed by Ann Ryan. The task presented is as follows:

You and your partner are very excited about having the opportunity to create a menu for your themed restaurant. Since this is a new experience for both of you, there are certain tasks that you will need to accomplish.

They include:

Review the definition and types of adjectives
Analyze and evaluate online menus
Decide on the theme for your restaurant
Choose the types of food you would like to serve
Write descriptions using adjectives
Use an online dictionary and/or thesaurus to improve word clarity
Create a menu

Kids love food and going out to restaurants, and will be instantly excited when you present this task to them! The Webquest provides necessary links and resources on its “Process” page, but you can always feel free to supplement these as you’d like (a few suggestions to follow).

So, where does the SGM® come in? First of all, I use it to outline the scope of the project, and each session we recap our progress and what is left to do using the SGM®. This provides the students with multiple exposures to the icons and the “story” of our project.

Additionally, when you arrive at the stage of the project that provides models of themed restaurants, you can use the SGM®/Thememaker® Descriptive setting map in multiple activities. First of all, it provides a framework for breaking down the idea of “theme” so that students have a strong descriptive model of a realized theme. After reviewing the examples provided, students can complete a Descriptive Setting map for one of the restaurants.

In this part of the activity, I supplemented the Webquest by displaying two resources. First of all, there is a wonderful video describing T-Rex, a restaurant in Downtown Disney in Orlando, Florida. This provides an example of a fully realized theme, and can be used with a Descriptive Setting map to model the process. Another fun extension activity is to look at the website for S’MAC in NYC. This macaroni-and-cheese themed restaurant provides yet more examples of strong menu descriptions, and you can introduce the concept of “teaser” and “clincher” statements within the descriptions here, e.g. “Be swept away by the Mediterranean Sea...” for Mediterranean Mac and Cheese. However, for decor, S’MAC is not really a realized theme, so you can have kids brainstorm what would improve it, yet again using a Descriptive Setting map. Mine came up with: cheese-shaped furniture and lighting, macaroni-shaped table legs, waitstaff dressed in yellow and orange, and a macaroni fountain!

After exploring themes with your students, you can have them work with their group to brainstorm themes and select a theme. The Thememaker List Map comes in handy here:

Later, students work to describe what their restaurant will look like, and begin to think about menu items, using a Setting Description Map:

I have done this project a number of times in the past, and making a traditional poster for the menu works quite well. However, this year I am thinking of using Glogster with the students to make the final project. I will plan to update you in a later post, hope this project was interesting to you. You can find a resource of other Webquests here.

Sean J. Sweeney, MS, MEd, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public school and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens and one of the editors of TherapyApp411.

This Vacation Week, Take the Kids to a New Setting: Disneyland!

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 23:14:00 GMT

In the Northeast at least, February means school vacation week, and who doesn’t like Disney? Disney’s parks are based on its countless characters and, of course, narratives, and the company recently released a FREE iPad app that allows children to explore Disneyland. Disneyland Explorer (iPad only) provides a touch-navigable visual environment allowing kids to visit a huge variety of themed settings (Adventureland, Critter Country, Fantasyland, Frontierland, Tomorrowland, and so on, and that’s only in Disneyland proper) as they tap to reveal additional photos, videos and music. The app is naturally designed to lure tourists to Disney’s parks, but in the process it provides a primer in the element of Setting, providing a context for clinicians to develop students ability to describe locations, themes, and even genres!

Exploring Tomorrowland provides a great opportunity to target setting description and graphic organizer use with use of Mindwing’s Story Grammar Marker and Story Maps!

Link to Story Map: Click Here

Mindwing’s Setting Maps are flexible and adaptable depending on which categories you choose to target with your students. Use of these maps with Disneyland Explorer would also lend itself to using a more inferential approach and describing with the 5 Senses!

After visiting Disneyland’s more traditional worlds, the app can also take you to “a bug’s land” (lowercase as the movie title was) and “Cars Land.” Any of the locations you visit would be accompanied well by books or movie clips that you can use to build students’ narrative skills.

For another take on Disneyland Explorer, check out this post at Smart Apps for Kids, with a quote: “My oldest son loves this app. LOVES. He has told me numerous times that this is his favorite app. Not his favorite free app. His favorite app...period.”

We hope you like it too, and enjoy your vacation...whenever it is!

Sean J. Sweeney, MS, MEd, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public school and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens and one of the editors of TherapyApp411.

Simple Comics for More Advanced Language

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:16:00 GMT

At the elementary school level, we all can attest to seeing students who, narratively, get stuck at what we might call the “andthenandthenandthen” stage. The official name for this stage is the Action Sequence, and it is comprised of Characters, Settings, and a series of Actions with little variation in conjunction use. These students benefit from structures and contexts to move them into using to more complex story elements and cohesive ties such as when, because, and so. Mindwing’s narrative maps, particularly the Reactive Sequence and Abbreviated Episode Maps can provide that structure: (*Maps can be found in the Story Grammar Marker® Teachers’ Manual and the Talk to Write, Write to Learn™ Teachers’ Manual )

To construct a story where a character is in a particular setting when a kickoff occurs, so he/she reacts in a certain way.

To construct a story in which a character is in a particular setting when a kickoff occurs, so he/she has a feeling about it and makes a particular plan, resulting in a conclusion.

While these maps provide a structure, instructionally we also need a context. Comics are one way to provide that! Kids love comics, and narratively they tend to be shorter and work according to these structures. You can of course easily draw 4-panel comics, but there are a couple of great technology resources that you can employ to scaffold students to the next narrative level.

First up, MakeBeliefsComix (yes, I spelled that right) is a great simple web app you can use to make comics. This Flash-based (therefore, non-functional on iPad) website allows you to drag and drop characters, backgrounds, props and word/thought balloons into a scene. I recently used this site in a classroom to develop narrative as well as the social thinking™ skill of “defeating GlassMan ® moments.” From Think Social Publishing, this concept relates to using self-talk and other strategies to regulate our responses to small problems across the day. Kids in the class received instruction on narrative structure and thinking strategies, and were asked to make a comic showing a character experiencing (or defeating) a GlassMan moment, basically a Reactive Sequence or Abbreviated Episode:

Mindwing’s Universal Magnets used to show what can happen in each panel, along with strategies the students could show the character using in a Plan to “defeat” a problem.

The super-simple MakeBeliefsComix site allows you to “Select emotions, objects, scenes, balloons and panel prompts to tell the story.” The resulting cartoon can be saved by emailing it to an established email account:

One students’ creation depicts Abraham Lincoln dealing with the kickoff of losing his bird companion by using self-talk!

This lesson could also be accomplished using the new iPad app Big Nate: Comix by U! HD ($4.99, separate version for iPod is priced at $3.99), based on the popular book series. Like many iPad apps, this one opens with a great tutorial and works similarly to MakeBeliefComix, allowing you to tap and drag all the necessary elements of a fun story!

Story Mapping and Seasonal Cheer

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:55:00 GMT

The holiday season creates a lot of excitement for our students, no matter what holiday they celebrate! This mood can lead to a lot of language and, of course, the opportunity to develop narrative using Story Grammar Marker®. In this post, I’ll be mentioning a couple of resources you can use to acknowledge the season (in varying degrees of sectarianism) while reinforcing use of narrative elements and SGM® icons.

The first is a brief Pixar-like animated short I stumbled across in my blog-surfing routines; I am so glad I found it! As I described in a previous post, wordless videos can be an engaging way to have students “fill in” the language that is not used in the video, while also identifying emotions signaled by nonverbal cues. Check out Impossible Present, a great complete episode narrative to map, especially with elementary aged students who can handle the “unexpected behaviors” (Social Thinking®) and the brief flash of kid-buttocks! It’s all good when a laser is involved, right?

Impossible Present from Royale on Vimeo.

This story can be mapped as follows or using an earlier developmental level of narrative (e.g. a simple action sequence or reaction sequence):

Open publication - Free publishing - More language

The video also presents a great opportunity to talk about expected reactions (modeling the icons used in a narrative reaction sequence) to receiving or, in this case, finding a gift, and perhaps place them on an Incredible 5-Point scale:

5- Extremely Negative Reaction (saying something rude about the gift)
4- Mildly Negative Reaction (e.g. “I already have one of these,” making “a face”)
3- Neutral Reaction (saying nothing)
2- Positive Reaction (smiling, saying “Thanks! I can use this to...)
1- Enthusiastic Reaction (“WOW!”)

For other holiday fun, check out the iPad/iPhone/iPod app ClickySticky Christmas Sticker Book ($1.99), which allows you to create all sorts of picture scenes with students, including the following:

a decorated living room (think SGM® or Braidy® Setting map...)
outdoor winter activity scenes with simple animations (SGM® or Braidy® Action Sequence map, anyone?)
a customized snowman, Santa, or elves (what Characters to describe using SGM® or Braidy® Character Maps!)

Tap and Drag to assemble characters, then tap the Play button for subtle animations that will prompt action words...

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Sean J. Sweeney, MS, MEd, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public school and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens and one of the editors of TherapyApp411.

Maryellen Rooney Moreau Honored by Boise Peace Quilt Project

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:01:00 GMT

Making the world a better place for children. That’s what an Easthampton woman has done through her work in helping children solve problems.

Maryellen Rooney Moreau is a speech and language pathologist. She was a professor at American International College and twenty years ago founded Mindwing Concepts, a business that creates tools to help children communicate better to solve problems and resolve conflict. Maryellen says, “The tools that I’ve created over the past many years, 20 years, that I’ve been a speech and language pathologist for over 35 years, and the focus has always been to help children who maybe have ideas in their head, but can’t get the ideas out. So to foster that in areas of reading and writing, but especially in the area of social communication.”

Maryellen has created a tool called the Story Grammar Marker. Her daughter, Sheila Moreau Pratt, is vice president of marketing and sales for Mindwing Concepts. She says, “It helps children to be able to tell stories, solve problems, think critically, communicate.”

It’s for her work that Maryellen is the recipient of the Boise Peace Quilt Lifetime Achievement Award. The project was started in 1982 by two mothers in Boise, Idaho. They made the first friendship peace quilt and sent it to people in what was then, the Soviet Union. There are 45 quilts now, given to people from all walks of life like Fred Rogers and Senator Frank Church. Gwynne McElhinney, a member of the Boise Peace Quilt Project says, “All of them share this idea that the world can be made a better place if each of us, in our own little patch of garden, our own backyard, think globally and act locally and look for conflict resolution.”

Maryellen received her quilt in Idaho back in October. A reception was held in Springfield Wednesday night to celebrate her milestone. McElhinney says the quilt has squares on it that were images that children drew, strategies to resolve conflict and they’ve been turned into fabric art

Maryellen now travels across North America training parents and teachers in methods to help children improve themselves in school and in life. Her passion to help children is making a difference. Maryellen says, “The reason I think I’ve made a difference is that I’ve given them a way to think through situations and be able to express those thoughts and plans and perspectives, just do everything that the piece quilt is a symbol of.”

MindWing Concepts is located at 1 Federal Street in Springfield at the STCC Technology Park. To learn more, call 866-851-2415 or check out their website, mindwingconcepts.com.

Watch Maryellen's Interview with WGGB

A Wonderful Wordless Video Series for Narrative Development

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:59:00 GMT

SLPs and teachers working in language intervention often turn to wordless picture books as a fun context to develop storytelling skills. Series such as Mercer Mayer’s “A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog...” tell stories through pictures and ask readers to tease out the story, inferring the important details and relying on characters’ facial expressions to glean important clues. Similarly popular are David Wiesner’s Tuesday and Sector 7, which depict narrative through fantastical illustrations, and Alexandra Day’s Carl series, in which a dog goes to great, un-dog-like lengths to care for his charge, a little girl named Madeleine.

I have long been a fan of using such visual narrative materials with students, not only to develop storytelling skills, but also to work on Social Thinking™ concepts and perspective taking. Wordless (or word-minimal) videos also can be a terrific resource, as the characters are animated and require students to interpret body language in more real-life timeframes. The trouble is, videos can sometimes be hard to find and curate for use in therapy, as they tend to exist in helpful 5-minute clips within DVDs, or on YouTube here and there.

For this reason, I was thrilled to recently discover (via a friend’s Facebook post) Simon’s Cat, the YouTube series of short wordless (but meow-ful) videos in which a cat gets into various adventures, usually much to the chagrin of his owner. The naturally food-obsessed and self-centered Cat, across 17 (!) different videos available on the Simon’s Cat Channel, can be followed as he chases insects, interacts with hedgehogs, and often endeavors to be the center of his owner’s attention.

Take, for example, the hysterical “Let Me In,” in which the Cat, um, shatters the problem of a closed patio door. Like many of the videos in the series, the narrative can be analyzed as a complete episode using Mindwing’s Story Grammar Marker icons:

Open publication - Free publishing - More language

Clinicians will have a choice of a wide range of videos in the Simon’s Cat series in order to construct a character study for students, and the videos can be explored at various narrative levels, from Action Sequence to Complete Episode. Kids are sure to love them; I have received enthusiastic responses (and requests for more) Simon’s Cat after using the videos with both primary and upper elementary students, and I am sure older students would respond positively as well!

If YouTube is blocked in your district, be sure to check out my post about how to download videos at home and use them at school.

Using QR Codes for Spooky Narrative Development

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 18:25:00 GMT

Over on my blog SpeechTechie this month, I am discussing in a series of posts the incredibly useful technique of using QR codes in language interventions. QR codes, which look like this....

...were born in the world of marketing (you may have seen them on ads about town) but are making their way into educational settings as an attention-grabbing tool. QR codes can be created very easily and printed, then scanned with free apps available for your smartphone or iPad. When scanned, the app will show text that you entered or a link to a website, depending on how you created the code. The result is an engaging process of discovery in which the student, instead of being presented a simple block of text, or shown a picture or website, participates in a little “peekaboo” moment in which the stimulus item is presented after scanning the code. Very cool.

QR codes lend themselves to be used in scavenger hunts in which a child locates the codes you have hidden around the classroom, therapy center, or wherever. They also lend themselves to story mapping, as a story can be broken down into text elements and printed as QR codes, one for character/setting, one for kickoff, and so on.

Given the season, I thought it would be fun to provide you with a Halloween lesson you can use right away that incorporates QR codes. You will first want to install a free app (click here for links to apps and a demo) on your smartphone or iPad that you can use to scan codes and display results. Presented below is a favorite ghost story of mine, “The Bus Stop,” modified from Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones (a great resource for more short scares). Click on each of the links below and you will navigate to a webpage with a QR code image. Print it from your web browser (File>Print) and be sure to make a notation on the back of the print-out so you don’t lose track of what is what. Save them in an envelope for use next year too! When scanned, each of the codes will display the text linked below. This would be a great lesson to accompany the Story Grammar Marker complete episode map, and perhaps inspire students to create their own ghost stories using SGM to help them organize their narratives. Here goes!

	One night, a man named Ed was driving home from work in a rainstorm.
	When he passed by the bus stop, there was a woman waiting for the bus. She was soaking wet and had no umbrella so Ed offered her a ride home. She told him her name was Joanna and they talked while he drove her home.
	Ed thought Joanna was very nice and he enjoyed talking with her.
	He wanted to get to know her better so he asked if she’d like to have dinner sometime, and she said yes.
	Ed and Joanna went out to dinner and had a great time.
	They went out many times over the next several weeks, having fun at the movies and walks in the park. Each time he picked her up at the bus stop and dropped her at her house at the end of the night.
	One night, Joanna was not at the bus stop when Ed went to pick her up.
	Ed went to her house and rang the bell. A woman answered, and Ed told her he was looking for Joanna.
	The woman said she was Joanna’s mother, and invited him inside. On the hallway table, Ed saw a picture of Joanna, and asked when it was taken.
	Joanna’s mom said, “Right before she died, 18 years ago. She was hit by a car and killed while waiting for a bus at the bus stop.”
	Oooooh, so all that time he had been dating a ghost! Probably, that’s not so bad, given what I hear about dating these days. This story is always great for seeing that light of realization on kids’ faces at the conclusion (or helping them to make the connection)!

If you’d like to think about how to break down other stories and make your own QR codes, check out my post and video demo on SpeechTechie. It is MUCH easier than you think!

Sean J. Sweeney, MS, MEd, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public school and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He presents and consults on the topic of technology integration in speech and language and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens and one of the editors of TherapyApp411.

Fantastic Narrative Intervention with Toontastic

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 21:40:00 GMT

Recently in the Mindwing Blog I featured the Story Patch iPad app, which allows students to create stories according to provided structures or from scratch, resulting in a text and picture-based booklet.

I wanted to follow up that post with a different digital storytelling app that provides an easy means to create and publish dynamic animated stories with spoken audio and music! The app I speak of is Toontastic (an absolute BARGAIN at $1.99), whose creators at Launchpad toys have sought to bridge the gap created when students who primarily express themseves through play are suddenly expected to write stories (i.e. that gap we call “First Grade”). Toontastic uses the iPad’s multitouch interface and a play-like context beautifully as students are guided to create as many scenes as are needed to tell their story. The app would be a great tool to use in order to teach narrative elements and organization using Braidy the StoryBraid™, Story Grammar Marker™, or the Mindwing Autism Collection and their associated manipulatives and story maps.

Here’s a visual tour of Toontastic for you:

Toontastic comes with an audio explanation of story structure that can be easily aligned with Story Grammar Marker®, as can be seen above. You can choose to create five different scenes in your animated movie, or just stick with one!

Choose a setting, then Character “Toys” to put into action! You can also draw your own settings and characters.

Character Toys themselves can be custom colored, then tapped and dragged around the screen. Tap Start Animation and the app will record as you move the characters and speak to provide an audio narration and/or dialogue. The app will then play back your animated scene!

For each scene, you can pick a music soundtrack that corresponds with the mood of the situation, connecting actions with internal responses of the characters.

When you are done with as many scenes as you’d like to create, tap Done and you can give your movie a title and genre, and share on ToonTube, Toontastic’s online community, if you’d like. The story is automatically also saved within the app.

Students will be excited to publish to ToonTube, where others can interact with their film by “liking” it. ToonTube also features model animations that would be a great context for story mapping of others’ creations using the SGM and other tools!

I recently had the opportunity to chat via Skype with Andy Russell, one of the creators of Toontastic. If you have a few minutes, it’s an interesting conversation about the background of the app, its creators’ sound belief in social interactionist (Vygotskian) language learning, and future plans for the app and Launchpad Toys.

I hope you’ll check out Toontastic- it’s a great app to add to your narrative toolbox!

Sean J. Sweeney, MS, MEd, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public school and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blogSpeechTechie : Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens and one of the editors of TherapyApp 411.

FREE WEBINAR IS AVAILABLE TO VIEW AT YOUR LEISURE

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 15:01:00 GMT

Our first editorial webinar, “Narrative Development: Beyond Story Grammar,” with Advance was a success. There were 877 SLPs registered!! We are thrilled to be able to share Maryellen’s expertise with so many colleagues.

We have gotten many requests for Maryellen to present throughout the country. If you are interested in Professional Development information, please click here http://www.mindwingconcepts.com/request-proposal.htm and fill out this form.

Here is the link to the FREE WEBINAR “Narrative Development: Beyond Story Grammar” http://speech-language-pathology-audiology.advanceweb.com/Webinar/Editorial-Webinars/Narrative-Development-Beyond-Story-Grammar.aspx. You will have to “sign in” or “register” to view it. When you click on the link and sign in, it will re-direct you to the archived webinar. Please email smmoreau@mindwingconcepts.com if you have trouble.

Share it with Friends, Colleagues and Parents!

Free Webinar! Narrative Development Beyond Story Grammar September 13, 2011

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 17:51:00 GMT

Join us for this live event on Tuesday, September 13, at 4:00 PM (EST)!

Register now for our FREE webinar, "Narrative Development: Beyond Story Grammar," presented by Maryellen Rooney Moreau, MEd, CCC-SLP, of MindWing Concepts, Inc.

Abstract: When we think about "narratives," we often only think about naming the parts of the story, sequencing actions and whether that story has a beginning, middle and end. Narrative development goes beyond the basic story. Instruction and intervention in narrative development can improve your students' skills in oral and written communication. Narrative development can help students with perspective-taking, problem solving, answering "why" questions, and comprehending and communicating the emotions, motivations and plans of characters in stories and in life's social interactions. It provides a way to teach the often elusive concepts of main idea, plot, cohesion, temporal and causal connections, and summarization. This type of instruction and intervention can help speech-language pathologists give every child - regardless of age, ability or culture - the skills to think, communicate and learn effectively in order to achieve academic and social success.

The following quote was in an article in the most recent publication of The ASHA Leader. It truly exemplifies and supports the methodology that Maryellen will be speaking about in Tuesday’s Webinar: “Oral narratives are a natural bridge between oral and literate language. Narrative skills and the language skills needed to produce quality narratives are interspersed throughout the Common Core Standards. One effective RTI approach for SLPs is to provide intervention focusing on narratives. The SLP provides Tier 1 supports in the classroom through modeled lessons with the whole class. In Tier 2/3, the SLP provides small group intensive intervention that simultaneously targets the story grammar and deficient language skills. Using oral narratives in an intervention model builds a foundation for the development of listening, speaking reading and writing.” – How to Fit Response to Intervention into a Heavy Workload, The ASHA LEADER, August 30, 2011 Vol. 16, No. 10.

About the Presenter: Maryellen Rooney Moreau, MEd, CCC-SLP, founder and president of MindWing Concepts, Inc., in Springfield, MA, is a speech-language pathologist and a nationally recognized presenter in the area of oral language development - specifically story grammar, narrative development and expository text. She received her bachelor's degree in Communication Disorders from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and her master's of education degree in Communication Disorders from Pennsylvania State University. Maryellen's 40-year professional career includes time spent as a school-based speech-language pathologist in the Hartford Public Schools; assistant professor at American International College; diagnostician at the Curtis Blake Child Development Center; and coordinator of Intervention Curriculum and Professional Development at the Curtis Blake Day School for children with language learning disabilities, all in Springfield, MA. She created the Story Grammar Marker® and Braidy the StoryBraid® after years of research and practice, and was awarded two United States Patents. Her methodology, which encompasses narrative development and expository text, helps children across the globe to think, communicate and learn!

To register, please click here.

Sharing our own Stories & Social Problem Solving using Story Grammar Marker®

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 20:39:00 GMT

Over the summer I had the kind of “Kickoff” that we all hope to avoid in the course of our ho-hum days. It was a 95-degree school day and I was leaving one setting to go to my private practice and run a social skill group. As I opened my passenger side door to put my bag in the car, an oppressive blast of heat enveloped me. I decided stupidly that it would be a good idea to lean over and start the car so the A/C could have, you know, a millisecond to cool down the car as I walked around toward the driver side. Of course when I got there the door had locked automatically, as it had on the other side. Ugh.

As I stewed in the heat waiting for the auto club to help me out, I thought about the group I had to run shortly (with a dwindling amount of time to actually get there), and how using Story Grammar Marker® and sharing this story could possibly help them when I arrived. I find that when we open up to kids a bit and share real-life stories, their engagement level often increases as they realize that we are actually real people who make silly mistakes and have Kickoffs just like they do. Having received a preview of Mindwing’s upcoming new book, Facilitating Relationships, I also realized that my story could use what is called a Social Problem Solving Prompt, a key intervention outlined in the new book (and supported by the National Autism Center in its recommendation for story-based interventions). In this new book there are 18 different Social Problem Solving Prompts for social situations to help your students to recognize, think about and talk about a social situation including, characters, settings, kick-offs, feelings, conflicts, plans, perspectives and consequences.

When I got to our therapy center 10 minutes late, my graduate student had skillfully and promptly started group (see below for how this occurred), and they were sharing their own weekly news over snack. It seemed a good time to share my news, and I had grabbed a Student Story Grammar Marker as I passed a treatment room. “So, I have a story for you...” I started, and relayed the setting and Kickoff. A good teaching point immediately ensued when one of the boys shouted out “HA HA!” I cued him that while my positive body language while relaying the story could give him a clue that it was OK to smile and laugh a bit WITH me, what he had just done was more in the realm of teasing and made me think an annoyed thought! From there, my story really became a Problem Solving Prompt and an interactive discussion as I asked the boys a lot of questions while using the SGM for visual support:

How do you think I felt? Hot, annoyed, worried, angry were some suggestions.

Which Unthinkable can you guess almost got in my brain? Glass Man, who makes us overreact to problems and SHATTER! (See Michelle Garcia Winner and Stephanie Madrigal’s Superflex™ Curriculum)
Can you guess what my plan was? (This one took some scaffolding to elicit that my plan was to get into my car and get to group on time, or get the message to the center that someone needed to start group for me).

We then talked through what my problem solving steps were. Here’s a preview of what that could look like using one of the Prompts from Facilitating Relationships:

In effect, something as simple as my silly keys story could provide a quick teachable moment that touched on a lot of goals for this particular group: narrative organization, social inference, self-regulation, self-talk, problem solving and interpersonal skills, among others.

Additionally, we all got to talk about what my “Note To Self” should be (see Sara Ward’s excellent work on this concept) after this experience: Don’t start the car unless you are seated in the driver’s seat!

Sean J. Sweeney, MS, MEd, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public school and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens and one of the editors of TherapyApp411.

The Importance Of Expository Text Comprehension In “Real Life” Situations

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:29:00 GMT

After a TORNADO, an EARTHQUAKE and now a looming HURRICANE, we at MindWing have become preoccupied by the weather. Usually snowstorms are our biggest threat! The past couple of months of weather have been surreal. We have had workshops cancelled and have spoken to colleagues and friends throughout the east coast who have had school called off due to the hurricane warning.

The paragraph below about Hurricane Irene was found yesterday on http://thesiweather.com/ and exemplifies the IMPORTANCE OF COMPREHENDING EXPOSITORY TEXT IN A “REAL LIFE” SITUATION. Below the paragraph are ThemeMaker® maps organizing the complex, extensive information from this weather report. We thought this could be used for a “content area” lesson.

HURRICANE IRENE

Despite the threat for severe thunderstorms later today and early tonight, the main story is the approach of dangerous Hurricane Irene. Irene continues to be a major threat to the Mid-Atlantic region for this weekend with numerous power outages and flooding problems likely. Irene appears to be headed on a collision course for the New York City metropolitan region and will likely create hurricane conditions Saturday night and Sunday to include torrential rains and destructive winds. Irene is headed for the Outer Banks region of North Carolina by late Saturday as a major hurricane (ie category 3 or higher). It should then move along the east coast to a position near New York City by Sunday night – likely as a category 1 hurricane. By early Monday, Irene will likely be moving towards western Massachusetts as a tropical storm. This storm has several ominous features that make it a very dangerous storm for the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast; especially, along the coast from North Carolina to Maine. First, it is a powerful hurricane - possibly reaching category 4 before making landfall on Saturday. Second, it is a larger-than-normal hurricane which means it will contain heavy rain and strong winds over a very large area. Third, and perhaps most important for New York and New England, it appears that this system will only slowly weaken as it rides up the east coast thanks in part to warm sea surface temperatures up the coast. All of this suggests an extreme weather event is in the offing near and along the coast from North Carolina to Maine and torrential rain and devastating winds will occur inland as well back to near the I-95 corridor. All of the major cities from DC to Boston will be impacted severely by Irene this weekend with the brunt of the storm here Saturday night and Sunday including possible wind gusts to 90 mph. Stay tuned for updates on this serious weather event for the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

See ThemeMaker® Maps below….

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Free Webinar! Narrative Development: Beyond Story Grammar

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 21:12:00 GMT

Join us for this live event on Tuesday, September 13, at 4:00 PM (EST)!

Register now for our FREE webinar, "Narrative Development: Beyond Story Grammar," presented by Maryellen Rooney Moreau, MEd, CCC-SLP, of MindWing Concepts, Inc.

To register, please click here.

Register for Both Summer Workshops in New England & Take a Vacation!

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 16:19:00 GMT

Are you looking for a fun summer get-away with a purpose? How about a trip to scenic New England?

A few out of state colleagues asked, “What could my family do if they came with me and I attended both of your workshops this summer?”

So, we put together a sample itinerary we thought we’d share:

You could fly into Bradley International Airport in Hartford, CT on the weekend of July 16/17. (Make sure to rent a car that has GPS so that you will have no problems finding your way around New England!)
Over the weekend into Monday, you could drive to New York City, it is about 90 minutes from there. Here is a link (http://www.iloveny.com/) to help you navigate the many attractions including: Rockefeller Center, Ground Zero, Time Square, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, and maybe even catch a Broadway Musical!
Monday night, July 18th, you can stay in the Cromwell Crowne Plaza hotel (where our workshop The Social-Academic Connection: Story-Based Intervention for Social Communication & Social Learning Challenges) is being held on Tuesday.
Tuesday, July 19th, if you have kids, they would probably enjoy the day at the pool while you are in the workshop and there is also an on-site restaurant for lunch. For other options, you could call the hotel and speak with the concierge… here is the link to that hotel: http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/cp/1/en/hotel/CMLCT/welcome?start=1.
Wednesday July 20th, on your way to drive up to Natick via Rt. 95, you could spend some time at the beautiful CT beaches such as Old Lyme, Old Saybrook or Mystic OR Mystic Seaport (Museum of America and the Sea) http://www.mysticseaport.org/ or Mystic Aquarium http://www.mysticaquarium.org/ . Here is another link for ideas in Massachusetts and Connecticut: http://www.visitnewengland.com/ .
Thursday, July 21st is the workshop in Natick, MA Narrative and Expository Writing with the Story Grammar Marker®. Here is the link for the Hampton Inn Natick hotel (where the workshop is being held): http://www.hamptoninn.com/en/hp/hotels/maps_directions.jhtml?ctyhocn=BOSNTHX . If you have kids, during the workshop they could hang out at the pool and Natick Mall is very close; they could take the hotel shuttle. Natick Mall- http://www.natickcollection.com/
Friday July 22nd, you could head to Boston. There are so many things to do there: The New England Aquarium, multiple museums, Boston Common, the State House, Fanueil Hall, the Freedom Trail, Boston Harbor, Fenway Park (where the Red Sox play), etc. You can even take ferries to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket Islands. Look on the Massachusetts tab at http://www.visitnewengland.com/ for more attractions. Cape Cod, Hampton Beach and coastal Maine are fantastic places to visit if you have the chance!
At the end of the weekend you can head back to Hartford for your flight home.

We hope to see you in July!

REGISTER FOR WORKSHOPS

Story Patch: A Great Context to Teach Narrative with Story Grammar Marker

Thu, 26 May 2011 16:24:00 GMT

There have been a number of apps for iOS (iPad/iPod/iPhone operating system) that have been released in recent months that seem like they were created for use with Story Grammar Marker! Digital Storytelling apps such as Story Patch allow children to create stories while having an emphasis on narrative structure, with choices about character, setting and actions. Students with language disorders will need assistance with organizing, expanding, and adding complexity to their narrative and sentence structure, and that is where you and the SGM come in!

In this video, I give a quick walkthrough of Story Patch (iPad only, currently only $.99- yes, that’s 99 CENTS) and its choices for story creation. You’ll see how its “Create a Story with Help” mode is a great opportunity to link the choices students can make with narrative icons they can begin to internalize. The open-ended story creation mode is a blank slate offering countless choices to work at varying narrative levels, levels of detail and story length. The text tool allows you to take the language in unlimited directions supported by the pictures you choose. Story Patch could even be adapted to support expository language, especially since the allows you to insert pictures saved from the Internet or with your camera.

Mindwing is currently working on developing an app specific to the methodology of its tools. In the meantime, there are quite a number of apps that can be easily adapted to teach narrative and expository language. Enjoy the video!

Link to video: http://youtu.be/8fwQlp3dcp0

Sean J. Sweeney, MS, MEd, CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public school and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens and one of the editors of TherapyApp411.

Story Grammar and the Classroom Curriculum: The Five Senses

Mon, 16 May 2011 14:23:00 GMT

Story Grammar and the Classroom Curriculum: The Five Senses

Over the years I have developed a special interest in collecting and using picture books that are tangential to the classroom curriculum. It’s wonderful to find books that contain touches of our content areas but aren’t “in your face” about it! These books can engage students in a story (and thus help them develop narrative language) while also providing a context to access abstract curriculum areas.

Although many schools cover this topic at different times of year, Spring is a great time for a science unit on the five senses. For younger students, this is a basic overview on how we experience the world though hearing, sight, smell, taste and touch. For older students, these simpler concepts can serve as an entry point to the more difficult intricacies of how the sensory system works. Additionally, May is Better Hearing and Speech Month in the USA and May Month in Canada, so what better time to talk about the sense of hearing, and maybe sync with some lessons about hearing and speech?

One of my tricks has always been to use Amazon.com’s book search tool to locate stories related to a topic. Although the search tool will of course return straightforward titles describing the topic, once in a while you also find those books that loosely theme to the topic. Here are three of my favorite books that tell stories involving the Five Senses, all of which would be great opportunities to use Braidy, the Story Braid or Story Grammar Marker to guide students through and retell the stories. In fact, within MindWing’s Autism Kit, the book It’s All About the Story contains a map or chart for thinking, talking and writing about “settings” in terms of the Five Senses. There is even a Five Senses Song, sung to the Tune of “This Land is Your Land,” a familiar song by Woody Guthrie! I have included these two pages from the manual for your download. You can get the whole manual (or Autism Kit) at MindWing’s Online Store:


Click images to Enlarge

The simplest of these is Rain by Manya Stojic, featuring animals on an African Savannah as they experience the coming rain through their senses. The book has wonderful pictures and simple text forming an action sequence. Because the theme involves cycling though the rainy and dry seasons, Braidy and SGM can help you form a visual for the students; just hold the Tie-Up to the Kick-Off to form a circle! In addition to the animals’ experience, the book touches on the cycle of plant growth, another key science curriculum topic and a nice opportunity for a picture sequencing task.

Another thematic action sequence can be found in the book Night Train by Caroline Stutson and Katherine Tillotson, the tale of a young child’s experience on a train ride to the city. Narratively, it lacks a real plan and attempts (but as such, is great for using Braidy and SGM to move kids from isolated details to a real sequence of events), and focuses on the sensations inherent in the train ride: hearing the engineer call “all aboard,” seeing cows in the field, etc. The book can also be used to target other items in the transportation category and brainstorm the different sensations one would experience while riding a car, boat, plane...(thus getting into the expository element of Listing).

Finally, a real crowd-pleaser can be found in Judith Hyde Guilliland’s Not in the House, Newton!, about a boy who finds a magic crayon that brings all his drawings to sense-pleasing (but mom-annoying) life! This one can be framed a bit more within the Critical Thinking Triangle, with Newton finding the magic red crayon (Kick-Off) and feeling excited, so planning to draw things he’d like to see come to life. Again, by extension the book can be used to List things that are red (or other colors) and imagine what would happen if they came to life from our drawings! Both Night Train and Newton are great for creating sense charts with students.

Hope you enjoy these great Five Senses-themed and Braidy-friendly books and activities!

Sean J. Sweeney, M.S., M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public schools and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog Speech Techie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens, which won the 2010 Best New Edublog Award. He can be contacted at sean@speechtechie.com.

The Incredible 5-Point Scale and Narrative Elements

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 21:49:00 GMT

April is Autism Awareness Month, and I wanted to highlight one of my favorite tools that I employ with students with autism spectrum and related disorders: The Incredible 5-Point Scale by Kari Dunn Baron and Mitzi Curtis. The 5-Point Scale is a tool designed to help students understand the confusing, emotional and language-heavy range of human behaviors by boiling it all down to a scale of 1-5. The approach is very versatile and can be applied to many situations and target behaviors, such as emotional state, voice volume or scales to help students grade their responses to everyday occurrences such as a “Participation Scale” within the classroom.

The original 5-Point Scale book models how to use the tool as an affective scale, with 1 being “fine” and 5 reflecting an “out of control” feeling.

Where you want the student to “be” on the scale can depend on the scale- in general, a 5 is always bad, but your target level may not always be a 1. In the example of the Participation Scale, when setting up the range with the student, you might describe a 1 as disengaged and “tuned out” in class. A 5, then would be “dominating” and thus the target level would be a 3- “listening and making comments appropriately.” It all depends how you want to apply it!

What the Incredible 5-Point Scale allows you to do is reduce the language load on your students while teaching them a strategy that can be carried over into many situations. It provides a way to give simple and quick feedback (without power struggles): “You’re at a 4 right now. Let’s move that down to a 3.” Additionally, you can continue to scaffold and build language by associating the simple numbers and labels with more complex descriptions of emotions and social behaviors. The 5-Point Scale is wonderfully “sharable”; once you create one with a student or group, it can easily be applied in their classroom or home setting by a teacher or parent, somewhat like an advanced social story.

The 5-Point Scale also is wonderfully complementary if you are using Story Grammar Marker with your students, because many scales can be constructed around (and teach variations according to) narrative elements such as Setting, Kick-Off and Reaction. Take, for example, a scale designed to help students gauge and react to problems (Based on Michelle Garcia Winner’s “Big Problem, Little Problem” strategy in her Think Social curriculum):

Open publication - Free publishing - More autism

Link: http://issuu.com/speechtechie/docs/5pointproblemssgm

On the first page of my document above, you can see how the Problem Scale has been aligned with Story Grammar Marker by using the icons (perhaps a great use of the Universal Magnet Set) for Kick-Off- meaning the kind of Kick-Off or problem one is encountering- and Reaction. The scale thus shows 5 kinds of problems and an expected reaction. In the second scale, you can see that the scale has been applied to a particular setting- Halloween night in the neighborhood. The kids I worked with all generated the Kick-Offs at each level of problem- a very engaging activity for them and a good preview of the holiday. The Kick-Off and Reaction icons provided an additional connection recently when I developed a “Negativity Scale” and we discussed 5 different Reactions to the same Kick-Off (e.g. a friend spilling your drink), ranging from overly positive (1) to extremely negative (5).

I definitely recommend that you visit Kari Dunn Baron’s site and check out her products. In particular, I have found the original book and video a great place to start, and her excellent Social Times series of magazines for students shows how the approach can be expanded, with a different 5-point scale in each issue.

Sean J. Sweeney, M.S., M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public schools and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens, which won the 2010 Best New Edublog Award. He can be contacted at sean@speechtechie.com.

UMASS Amherst Alumna Maryellen Rooney Moreau Turns Honors Thesis Into Lifelong Pursuit

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 14:41:00 GMT

Maryellen Rooney Moreau '68 is one alumna who has turned her undergraduate thesis into a lifelong career.

Over 40 years ago, Moreau completed an honors thesis on language development in the department of communication arts and sciences, which is now known as communication disorders.

Her thesis prompted a continued interest in researching the link between oral language development and literacy, turning Moreau into an entrepreneur whose business has changed the way educators teach. In 1994 she began MindWing Concepts, Inc., a company that develops and patents teacher manuals and educational tools for language and literacy, including the patented Story Grammar Marker ©.

MindWing develops research-based products that aid students in building the oral language skills necessary to be competent in retelling stories, reading comprehension, writing, and critical thinking. Located in Springfield, MA, only 25 miles from UMass Amherst, the local business has grown into a worldwide corporation. In classrooms across the globe, over a million children are using MindWing's visual, kinesthetic and tactile tools to assisting them with oral and written expression.

Even decades after graduating with honors, Moreau continues to conduct research, building on her undergraduate thesis. "I have just completed a new manual and game called the Autism Collection to show teachers and parents of children with autism how my tools and methodology relate to that disability," she said.

Typically completed in their senior year, the comprehensive, research-intensive Capstone thesis or project of original scholarship gives Honors students a chance to delve more deeply into an academic subject of their interest. Students build on the knowledge and skills they’ve acquired by pursuing research, creating art, engaging the wider community in action efforts, or by working diligently on one of a variety of other academic projects. The Capstone is designed to provide all Commonwealth Honors College students with the opportunity to integrate their undergraduate experiences and prepare for their careers—professional or academic.

For Honors students like Moreau, the Capstone Experience can not only culminate an academic career but also commence a professional path.

Two of My Favorite -ERs: ThemeMakER and GlogstER!

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:28:00 GMT

ThemeMaker, Mindwing’s expository companion to Story Grammar Marker, helps children break down and produce the more challenging expository text that becomes central to learning as they advance through the grades! I have found that children are more open to working with expository text once they learn that the familiar SGM icons can help them along the way! While each ThemeMaker Expository Text Map (e.g. List, Sequence, Description, Compare-Contrast) is helpful on its own, kids need to be moved toward understanding that ALL of these structures are contained in curriculum discourse and text!

That can seem like an overwhelming task, but it becomes manageable and fun using a recently developed and FREE online tool, GlogsterEDU, a site that tells all students to “poster yourself!” What is a poster, really, but a display of information that utilizes these key expository structures? Using GlogsterEDU, you can choose and research any topic with your students using ThemeMaker maps and icons, then create a “Glog” with pictures, images and graphics, text (structures!) links, and even recorded audio and video if you wish! How to do all this? Well shoot on over to SpeechTechie, where we are wrapping up Glogster Week, a week of posts featuring examples of how to use Glogs in Speech-Language and other interventions, as well as how-to screencasts showing each step of how to use this (again, FREE) resource. If you’re catching up later, you can just click over to see all the posts regarding Glogster.

How do the ThemeMaker icons work with text structures? Well as I mentioned, they can be used to explore any topic, so I thought I’d present you an array of structures that explore GlogsterEDU itself!

Open publication - Free publishing - More language

And for a specific example, please check out this Glog I created with a student. D. was studying continents, so we used ThemeMaker Maps to research and break down information about Earth’s land masses, then had a blast creating this Glog (be sure to roll over the Glog to find our links)!

I hope you will consider GlogsterEDU a fun and helpful context to use Mindwing’s tools!

Sean J. Sweeney, M.S., M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public schools and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens, which won the 2010 Best New Edublog Award. He can be contacted at sean@speechtechie.com.

Click Here to View Expository Text Structures and Glogster

Click Here to View Glogster

The Zimmer Twins and Stepping Up Narrative Complexity!

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 16:12:00 GMT

I am going to open this post with a language sample obtained from a fifth grade student in 2006, an attempt to retell an episode of the series Full House.

And um something that happened was when this girl named Michelle and this guy Jesse, it was Michelle’s birthday. And Jesse and Michelle got stuck in a gas station and she missed her party.
And um they were there all day, but then finally it opened the next- no it opened a lot later. So um they went back to the house and they had their party and she got an elephant and she got to ride it and all her friends and she got, she felt better. And that’s it.

I collected and analyzed many samples like this over my years in the school setting, narratives that clearly attended to character, setting and “Kick-Off,” but lack cohesion, complexity and maturity due to their reliance on a simple action sequence structure. Do you have a lot of students like this?

I really began to understand how to help students with this type of narrative (who comprised a good chunk of my caseload, and still) when I first worked through Mindwing’s A Day in the Park Student Activity Booklet (and its accompanying lesson plans in the Talk to Write, Write to Learn manual). Many students sort of get stuck at the action sequence level, and don’t generalize the structures needed for a reaction sequence (character, setting, Kick-Off and reaction to the kickoff) or more advanced episodes that detail character responses, feelings and plans, along with complex sentences that link these story elements. A Day in the Park helped me see how I could break down these levels of formulation for students, and as a result I was able to identify other activities that could provide additional practice and skill-building.

One of my favorite recent discoveries is the Zimmer Twins website (based on the Qubo animated series), which allows you to make animated stories from pre-created starters or from scratch! The starters are naturally complex in structure and work really well with Mindwing’s Story Maps as you help students complete the story on a higher level of narrative organization. I found the site to be a great context to focus on moving students from an action to a reaction sequence; here’s one reaction sequence movie I created with a group. Before you get nervous, I can tell you that the Zimmer Twins site is really simple to use!

First, you can view the story starters and pick one that will work for your students.

After clicking “Make Movie From [your chosen title],” you can simply click, drag and modify the rest of your story.

By clicking on the elements in the sentence, you can change character, setting, and other features of the clip. Word and thought balloons can be modified- just click and type. The tabs allow you to add different elements such as actions, reactions and feelings!

Click here to see another way I finished the starter “Surprise!” I hope you enjoy Zimmer Twins, I know the kids I work with really did. Here’s a great tutorial on using the site if you’d like more information before diving in. Be sure to create a free account when you start using the site.

Sean J. Sweeney, M.S., M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public schools and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens, which won the 2010 Best New Edublog Award. He can be contacted at sean@speechtechie.com.

Dinosaurs, Narrative, and Flexible Thinking

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 14:41:00 GMT

I always love finding resources that serve as a context for addressing many speech and language-related skills. The wonderful book Edwina- The Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She was Extinct by Mo Willems is one of those resources; it can be used to target narrative and expository formulation, as well as social thinking skills in several areas.

To begin with, Edwina is a story that will engage and delight children from early to late elementary ages, beginning with its title and the name of the main character, Reginald Von Hoobie-Doobie. Reginald has a problem: everyone around him is enthralled by Edwina, the friendly town dinosaur, and no one heeds his increasingly emphatic pleas to accept that Dinosaurs! Are! Extinct! The structure of the story is perfect for mapping as a complete episode using Braidy or Story Grammar Marker, as can be seen below:

Open publication - Free publishing - More language

Though this story has the twist of having the main character be both strangely right and wrong at the same time, it also provides a great context for building skills essential for children with autism spectrum disorders and other social pragmatic issues. The key problem in the story is mainly one of perspective, and could be visualized for students using the SGM Universal Magnets, Perspective Taking Maps (with icons down the middle and competing perspectives on either side), or Critical Thinking Triangle as discussed in the Making Connections volume of Mindwing’s Autism Collection to develop perspective taking skills.

Edwina also is a nice teaching tool if you are using Michelle Garcia Winner and Stephanie Madrigal’s terrific Superflex program, which reviews Social Thinking skills in the context of a comic book world. We can all relate to the ongoing battle between Superflex, who helps us use flexible thinking and problem solving skills, and the Team of Unthinkables, characters who try to force the citizens of Social Town to act in certain “Unexpected” ways. One of the leaders of the Unthinkables is Rock Brain, who gets us “stuck” in patterns of rigid thinking and on our own wants and ideas. Although Reginald does exhibit some flexible thinking in the varied ways he approaches his problem, the fact that he views Edwina’s existence as a problem at all is an example of a “Rock Brain Moment,” one you can analyze with students using that program’s “Find the Unthinkable Rock Brain” activity. One illustration in Edwina provides a perfect stopping point and discussion of Rock Brain thinking, as Reginald protests Edwina’s distribution of cookies in the park by carrying a sign that reads “This is NOT happening!!!”

Finally, Edwina can be used to target expository language in several ways. Try researching extinct animals and make a list (BrainPop’s clip on Extinction is a great place to start if you have a subscription or free trial) using Thememaker’s List Map, or perhaps a sequence of how a particular animal died out. As we only see a bit of Reginald’s presentation on “Things that are Extinct,” perhaps your students could continue his project in PowerPoint form! The story also has several embedded lists, such as the ways Edwina helped the townspeople, and cookies play a key role, so why not work on writing and completing the sequence of making actual cookies!

Sean J. Sweeney, M.S., M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public schools and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens, which won the 2010 Best New Edublog Award. He can be contacted at sean@speechtechie.com.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 14:28:00 GMT

Valentine’s Day approaches! It’s a great time to target students’ understanding of feelings as described in It’s All About The Story, Book I of Mindwing’s Autism Collection! The Feelings icon is, of course, a heart, a common symbol of this holiday. You can use this book’s introduction to the Six Universal Feelings (happy, sad, mad, scared, surprised and disgusted), or Feelings in general as emphasized in the Story Grammar Marker program, along with the two resources presented in the screencast below, to develop students’ narrative language and perspective taking abilities. The screencast describes how to use a resource that almost everyone has access to- Microsoft PowerPoint- and also provides an overview of an interactive poetry generator. Having students make a Valentine for a special person in their lives can be an important way to show they are “thinking about” others and use some great language skills.

Again, one way to expand vocabulary beyond the Six Universal Feelings is to refer your students to MindWing’s Feelings Poster™. It is available here - CLICK HERE.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Interactive, Visual Resources to Complement Feelings Instruction (Internal Responses)

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 18:22:00 GMT

As stated so well in It’s All About The Story, Book I of Mindwing’s Autism Collection, “Tuning into one’s own Feelings as well as the Feelings of Others is extremely problematic to children with autism. The book provides visual flip charts, discussion prompts and an introduction to the Six Universal Feelings (happy, sad, mad, scared, surprised and disgusted), as well as ways to move beyond those Universal categories to more advanced feelings vocabulary--all of these resources give SLPs a great place to start. Finding that starting point- like all vocabulary instruction- can be difficult, especially with a topic as abstract as emotions. To complement the charts and picture book suggestions in It’s All About The Story, here are some resources to make feelings instruction more interactive, visual and accessible.

One fun way to explore the Six Universal Feelings and how feelings can change as a result of Kick-Offs is through comic strips. You can locate all sorts of comics with simple narrative structure and clear character feelings at Comics.com (try Peanuts for a perennial favorite):

You can also make your own comics with simple strip creators like Make Beliefs Comix (as a project with kids or pre-made to analyze with your students). Here’s a silly one I made to illustrate the emotion mad (make sure to print, email or screenshot your work, so you can use it later):

One way to expand vocabulary from the typical “ HAPPY/SAD/MAD” is to refer your students to MindWing’s Feelings Poster™.
It is available here - CLICK HERE.

Another great way to make connections to the Universal Feelings and develop vocabulary in context (with reference to nonverbal cues) is with the interactive Emotions Color Wheel.

This resource organizes feelings by color and degree of intensity- with less intense emotions located on the outside of the wheel- and provides an image and quote to go with each feeling!

It is therefore a great way to talk about the nonverbal cues that help us “read” each emotion, as well as a “Kick-Off” that could cause us to feel that way.

Children like looking at snapshots and images, and one way to engage them in feelings discussion is to view some arrays of photos related to feelings. Internet-based stock photo sites offer a great variety of emotion-based professional images that you can browse for free with students. You can of course purchase some images for your own use and keeping, but you can also just search and explore with students (as long as you don’t mind seeing a watermark on the photos as you do so- it really doesn’t get in the way of analyzing the photo). Sites such as iStockphoto have the added advantage of providing an interesting activity to explore social inferencing and perspective taking: What (i.e. what context- character, setting, or kick-off) is making each of these people so cheerful?

This array is from a search of iStockPhoto (on the site, you can mouse over images to enlarge); some other resources you can try include Shutterstock and Veer.

Hope these resources make you feel happy!

Kick-Off the Kick-Off

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 20:31:00 GMT

In some recent posts I have described some visual and interactive activities to complement the instruction in It’s All About the Story establishing the concepts of character and setting. In keeping with the sequence of lessons in Mindwing’s Autism Collection, I’d like to move on to a few ways technology can help you introduce the Initiating Event or “Kick-Off “ of a narrative. As the lessons describe, you can discuss how in a particular setting, something happens to characters to “change the ‘Ho-Hum’ day” and start the story! An additional language strategy is to teach the words and phrases that signal a Kick-Off: suddenly, just then, etc. Taking a step beyond the visuals in the lessons, you can teach your students to apply the concept of the Kick-off using a few fun interactive technology resources.

First of all, I’d like to mention Kerpoof again, as it is one of my favorite teacher-friendly resources. Kerpoof is absolutely perfect for introducing the Kick-Off in a multisensory manner that will let kids use their creativity. Check out my handout and grab your teacher account on Kerpoof, then use the Make a Picture activity to choose a setting:

Kids can then use the sidebar and captions features to click, drag, and illustrate characters and a Kick-Off that might occur in that setting:

For a different take on Kick-Offs (geared toward a younger audience), try Sesame Workshop’s adorable Pinky Dinky Doo site, which integrates audio podcasts (you can listen to right on the site), visual activity sheets, and an interactive story creator to present fun, engaging, yet simple stories you can discuss in your sessions. You can use Pinky Dinky Doo’s podcasts to ask kids to identify Kick-Offs (and focus on auditory comprehension) as suggested in It’s All About the Story, and you can also create your own:

This site would also be wonderful to share with parents to continue your work at home!

An additional resource for instruction regarding Initiating Events is one that would be more appropriate for upper elementary or older students: Five Card Flickr. This “game” site pulls from approved photos on the photo sharing website Flickr in order to create an interactive digital storytelling experience. You can modify it by only selecting with students a setting, character(s) and Kick-Off to emphasize the interaction between the three elements and the Kick-off signal words:

In this case, perhaps, a dog was running on a tropical seashore when??? Draw 3 of 5 will tell!!!

Enjoy exploring Kick-Offs with your students!

Sean J. Sweeney, M.S., M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public schools and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens, which won the 2010 Best New Edublog Award. He can be contacted at sean@speechtechie.com.

Is Maryellen Actually “Maryellen Who?”

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 16:14:00 GMT

Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to the world as Dr. Seuss, was born in 1904 on Howard Street in Springfield, Massachusetts – which is right around the corner from MindWing’s office. The Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden is located at the Springfield Museums near our office as well. The influence of Ted’s (Dr. Seuss’) memories of Springfield can be seen throughout his work.

Photo courtesy of http://www.holyokeinphotos.com/

In keeping with the spirit of the holiday season, we wanted to share a lesson idea from MindWing’s book: East Meets West for the Holidays by Maryellen Rooney Moreau and Judy K. Montgomery. This lesson is based on one of Dr. Suess’ most beloved holiday stories: How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Below is the view of the neighboring town of Easthampton, MA from the top of Mt. Tom. Perhaps this is the view that inspired Dr. Seuss to write this entertaining, heart-warming tale that has become a holiday tradition and been made into a cartoon, a musical and a movie. It has been thought that “Who-ville” is actually Easthampton and that the Mt. Crumpit, the mountain upon which The Grinch resides, is actually Mt.Tom! Maryellen Rooney Moreau lives in Easthampton and travels over Mt. Tom every day to work.

So, IS Maryellen actually “Maryellen Who?"

Click Here to access this rich lesson on How the Grinch Stole Christmas that filled with narrative development, story sparkle, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, expository text, rare words, cultural aspects. Also, when you watch the movie, you can use the Perspective-Taking Maps from the Story Grammar Marker® Manual to Map and talk about the different perspectives of the Grinch and the Whos.

In the middle of the Grinch’s attempts to carry out his plan to “steal Christmas,” Cindy-Lou Who catches him stealing her Christmas tree. The Grinch has to “trick” Cindy-Lou in order to continue to carry out his plan. The motivations and intentions of the Grinch in this situation may be difficult for children with Social Learning Challenges to comprehend and express. Our new Autism Collection contains a new Critical Thinking Triangle™ Map that can help to elaborate and discuss the Grinch’s plan for trickery as well as Cindy-Lou’s perspective of the situation.


Click thumbnails to Enlarge Images

We also found this website http://www.seussville.com/grinch/activities.html that has some fun activities with The Grinch theme.

We wish you the happiest of holidays and all the best in the new year!

Gingerbread Characters and Settings

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 21:09:00 GMT

Using the holidays as a context for language interventions can be tough, as it’s important to be inclusive of all cultures and celebrations. From a technology perspective, there just aren’t many great interactive resources about the Festival of Lights (anyone want to make some)? Gingerbread, however, while associated loosely with Christmas, is probably fair game in the public school setting!

Now, while websites with excessive, distracting ads are often something I rule out as a potential therapy resource, sometimes sites that are actually a giant, yet somehow unobtrusive ad can be great. This can be said for Sprint’s The Gingerbread Man with Everything site, a simple interactive you can use to decorate a fabulous cookie. Its relation to story grammar will become apparent when you click to browse the gallery of characters from fireman to cheerleader to vampire (it may be hard to explain to your students what the emo gingerbread man is all about, but we have faith in you).

You can download Google Sketchup here, and the Gingerbread House Template is here!

Give it a try- Google Sketchup is pretty easy once you get your feet wet. However, if, understandably, you find it a bit daunting, check out Karen Ogen’s list of interactive web-based gingerbread house creators, another nice context to work on description. Have fun and Happy Holidays!

Sean J. Sweeney, M.S., M.Ed., CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and instructional technology specialist working in the public schools and in private practice at The Ely Center in Newton, Massachusetts. He has presented on the topic of technology integration in speech and language at the ASHA convention and is the author of the blog SpeechTechie: Looking at Technology Through a Language Lens.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 14:00:00 GMT

Happy Thanksgiving from your Friends at MindWing Concepts!

For a yummy Thanksgiving appetizer, we have posted a fantastic recipe from our friend Stacy called: Baked Apple Cheese Dip. This recipe is posted as a ThemeMaker™ List Map and a Sequence Map. See below!

Three Ways to Visit and Reconnect at the ASHA Convention 2010 Next Week in Philly!

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 00:49:00 GMT

Picture of our Team last year at ASHA in New Orleans!

It’s that time of year, again – time to reconnect with our friends and colleagues at the American Speech and Hearing Association Conference, this year in Philadelphia.

We will be at Booth #215 with product demos, videos, special give-aways and prizes! If you mention reading this BLOG or getting our E-Newsletter, you will be entered in a special drawing with a chance to win The Autism Collection Kit!
In addition to our Booth #215, Maryellen Rooney Moreau will be presenting on the topic of Autism Spectrum Disorders in session #0303, Thursday, November 18, 9:30AM-10:30AM in Room CC/106B. This session is entitled: “It’s All About the Story: The Language-Thinking-Social Connection” and will highlight our new Autism Collection: It’s All About the Story and Making Connections.
Learn about RESEARCH ON THE STORY GRAMMAR MARKER® by visiting Poster Session “Effects of Story Grammar Marker: Listening Comprehension & Oral Expression” #2148, Poster Board 201 SA, Saturday, November 20 from 3:00PM-4:30PM, Poster, CC/Hall C. This session is being presented by Linda Lafontaine, Curtis Blake Day School of American International College and Maryellen Rooney Moreau, MindWing Concepts, Springfield, MA.

For those of you interested in the research from the poster session, we will post it on www.mindwingconcepts.com after it is presented at ASHA.

We look forward to seeing you at ASHA Booth #215!

Inference: Students Don’t Know What They Don’t Know!

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 20:30:00 GMT

Help them ask Who, What, When, Where & Why Using the Story Grammar Marker®

Children often “don’t know” what they “don’t know!” Using the Story Grammar Marker® manipulative, parents, teachers and specialists can give children the ability to ASK AND ANSWER “Wh” questions such as: Who, What, When, Where and Why. Development of these abilities improves children’s oral language, writing, critical thinking and comprehension. It also especially can help children in social situations and conversations.

In this video Maryellen demonstrates how the Story Grammar Marker® can be used to scaffold “Wh” questions. The Character is the “Who.” The setting is the “Where/When.” The Planned Attempts are the “What.” The Critical Thinking Triangle™ elements of the SGM® (kick-off, feeling, plan) are the “Why.”

In literature, television, movies, plays and in real life often we are left to infer the “Why:” motivations, feelings and plans of characters and people. Using the SGM® provides an organizational structure for children (and even adults) to “hang on to” while telling or listening to a story and observing or participating in a social situation. The SGM® is a tool for “inference,” thus helping children comprehend and express what they “don’t know.”

Adult Child Interaction

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 22:47:00 GMT

Adult/Child Interaction with Lauren (age 2) & Nana
(Maryellen Rooney Moreau, M.Ed. CCC-SLP, President and Founder of MindWing Concepts, Inc.)

Here is Maryellen having a conversation with her granddaughter Lauren at the age of two. Notice how Maryellen used a cuddly toy cow to encourage Lauren to remember a visit to a farm. The two had experienced the event is real time. This interaction centers on the memory of the visit and is expressed as a personal narrative.

Maryellen begins by talking about the Descriptive Sequence: characters (cow, herself and Lauren) and the setting (a dairy farm where Lauren frequently visited with her grandparents and her great-grandmother on Sunday afternoon rides). Scaffolding the actions of cows in general followed this general description (Action Sequence). Finally the verbalization of a kick-off (Reactive Sequence) and talk about feelings (Abbreviated Episode) rounded out this delightful conversation.

Notice Lauren’s facial expressions related to emotion words! (Happy actress, sad actress, overwhelmed actress, etc.)

There is much in the research concerning the personal narrative as a tool to foster the development and understanding of mental states: thoughts, memories, beliefs, desires, plans - and the emotions behind them.

The actual “talking about events remembered and emotions related to those events” promotes mental state understanding and development of Theory of Mind, the ability to take perspective of others. Over time children participating in such interactions, particularly with their mothers, become able to talk about their feelings, compare their thoughts, memories and beliefs as well as their plans and intentions. Mind-Mindness (Nelson 2005) is the term given to such parent/child interactions which focus on mental states including emotions.

Our early childhood tools such as Braidy, the StoryBraid® provides the overall structure to talk about actions, memories and emotions for academic and social growth.

Reference: Nelson, K. (2005). In J. Astington & J. Baird (Eds.) Why Language Matters for Theory of Mind. London: Oxford Press.

Make it Better through Storytelling

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:40:00 GMT

It’s really exciting when a speech-language material is published that provides clinicians with a ready-to-go resource that jibes well with strategies we already have been teaching. Such is definitely the case with the excellent We Can Make it Better program recently released by Think Social Publishing and written by Speech-Language Pathologist Elizabeth Delsandro. We Can Make it Better is a set of 20+ stories in which social interactions go quite wrong due to “unexpected behaviors” by one of the characters. The materials and activities unfold in a very logical therapeutic structure that challenges students to “make it better” by deciding alternative actions for the characters, “rewrite” the story as a more positive “Second Edition” and act it out, thus providing a great context for teaching social problem solving.

To be quite honest, social problem solving has been an area that, when providing a rating each semester in my private practice’s progress notes, I have wondered if I adequately assessed or addressed. Of course we have “teachable moments” in sessions where problems arise between students, and discussions of problems in the real world, but I have been wanting for a fun material that could foster some take-home skills in this area!

It is wonderful how We Can Make It Better perfectly compliments some of the programs I am using already with students, namely, of course, Story Grammar Marker and Social Thinking. In using the program over the past several weeks, I have found the narrative context in which stories are presented is motivating and amusing to my students, and it is very easy to weave in use of the SGM as we recap the presented stories, analyze the actions of characters, and develop an alternative story script and outcome. Many Social Thinking concepts, such as “Expected/Unexpected” behaviors, “guessing plans” and “smart guesses” are also natural targets within discussions of the stories.

The picture below illustrates a simple modification to the program- using the Mindwing Universal Magnet Set as a way to plan “Act it Out” activities that follow story presentation and discussion. The character, setting, action and wrap-up icons (though you could use more complex structures also) also fit well with activities in the program such as completing the “Not So Good Board,” in which kids brainstorm what went wrong in the story.

The program’s generous number of stories (and tips on how to write your own) make it ideally suited for classroom and group programming, and the accompanying CD-ROM with stories and forms in electronic format opens many possibilities. For example, I have been able to use an LCD projector to show the stories “writ large” on the wall, an attention-grabber for our students, and PDF files on the CD can be easily inserted into programs such as PowerPoint so I can annotate our group discussions (i.e. inserting text boxes to display alternative actions that kids suggest, then making the best choice, after discussion, appear in green font). Additionally, using a Flip Video camera to record the role-plays has been a great motivator for kids in the “Act it Out” portion, and provides great feedback on scripting, body language and other nonverbals.

Even if you are only in the early phases of using the SGM, I highly recommend We Can Make It Better as a great context for developing early learners’ storytelling and problem solving skills.

Comprehension Involves More Than Just the Beginning-Middle-End of a Story

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 21:30:00 GMT

MindWing’s Episode Organizer Poster – Explicit & Systematic

This is a MindWing Concepts Map of the components of a story taking into consideration “story grammar”. It is called “The SGM® Episode Organizer". The story grammar components, making up the beginning/middle/end of a story are shown as icons. The Character, Setting, Kick-off (problem or excitement), Feeling and Plan are in the beginning. The actions (attempts) to carry out the plan make up the middle and the Consequence and resolution make up the end.

Click image to enlarge

Make the contrast between the traditional Beginning/Middle/End map and this one evident to the participants.

You may want to tell the participants that such an iconic map (and the three dimensional tool) are called “non-linguistic representations” of language.

Marzano in his classic text entitled Classroom Instruction that Works, notes that non-linguistic representations (along with compare/contrast, setting of objectives and provision of feedback), raise achievement when intentionally taught and used consistently.

Let the Setting Speak for Itself

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 13:27:00 GMT

Blabberize, a web app that allows you to add a talking “mouth” and recording for any picture, is a great tool for developing all kinds of organization and oral language skills. I recently used it with students in conjunction with a Setting Map from It’s All About the Story to develop descriptive skills and the concept of setting. After having students pick a favorite setting, we located a visually supportive image of the place using Google Images. Students completed a Setting Map and described key elements such as Location, Function/Use, Areas/Parts, etc. We then downloaded the image, logged in to Blabberize, added a mouth and integrated the notes on the Setting Map into an oral description. The example you can view here is one created with an individual student; you can always keep it shorter if you have a group!

Consider also using Blabberize to develop scripts for a setting, focusing not on the description but on the sequential schema of the place. What does the “ho-hum” day look like in the place, “one where there are no obstacles to the expected script?” (It’s All About the Story, Ch. 7). For example, if you choose a public pool, the script recorded with the picture might be:

Hi, I’m the Gath Pool! When you come visit me, first make sure you take you swimming bag out of the car. Go into the locker room and take a shower, then come out to the pool deck. Look around to see what areas of the pool are being used by kids, and which by adults swimming laps. Swim and have fun with your friends. Be sure to walk on the deck and keep safe in the pool. When you are told it is time to go, take your bag and go through the locker room to get dressed...etc!

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to use Blabberize to do a small project about Setting. If you are worried about completing this project with students, making your own Blabberize examples and having students use Setting Maps to dissect them could be another route!

https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=d8wmks7_281nthjt6gz&interval=30

Enjoy using Blabberize- kids find it to be great fun!

Setting Can be the Key to a Story

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 13:52:00 GMT

My previous post discussed the narrative element of setting and the tendency of students on the autism spectrum (or with other language disorders) to leave out details about setting, causing listener confusion. One way to explore the importance of setting is to plan interventions using books with an integral setting- where the setting is key to the motivations of the characters and understanding of the plot.

One of my favorites in this vein is Donald Crews’ Shortcut, the story of a group of cousins who find themselves in unexpected danger after taking a shortcut home. Not only does the book serve as an excellent example of building suspense around a small moment in a personal narrative (great for students working on memoir), it also lends itself to being mapped both on a Setting Map and a literal, visual map to develop storytelling skills.

Working on such a map has always been one of my favorite projects I repeated every year with 4th graders studying memoir. Besides touching on an oft-repeated writing unit, the activity also hits on many other skills: map reading and making, organization, the pragmatics of a shared task, spatial concepts, complex conjunctions and of course, story grammar. Loosely, the lesson plan would look like this:

Read the book interactively, with predictions etc, and focus on interesting teachable points such as freight vs. passenger trains, etc.
Use the SGM Setting icon magnet as a visual cue with a dry erase board to brainstorm all the important aspects of the setting of the story (tracks/shortcut, road, cutoff, path, home, etc).
Scaffold students to create an actual map that includes all these elements.
Use the map for retelling practice, using the SGM throughout the process and focusing on complex sentences using conjunctions such as because, so, and when.

You can see an example of a project I created with students below, using PowerPoint.

This project could be just as easily completed with chart paper and markers, but if you are interested in going the tech route, check out my screencast on how to execute this project with PowerPoint. Enjoy!

What other books do you like to use to explore the concept of setting?

NARRATIVE PRACTICE HYPOTHESIS

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 17:54:00 GMT

The following description (bolded) was a component of a presentation by Carol Westby, Ph.D. at the American Speech/Language and Hearing Association Convention ASHA 2008, Chicago. Italics are our notations.

Narrative Competency plays a large role in the understanding of why people do what they do

Stories are natural extensions of children’s earlier experiences of sharing of event structures

Engaging in story-telling practices with the support of others enables children to develop understanding of what it is to act for a reason (Real-life Situations, Folk Tales, Trickster Tales, Realistic Picture Book Stories, Fictional Picture Book Stories)

Question asking and answering such as:

Why did the character do what he did? What happened that Caused the character to do what he did? What were the feelings, thoughts and plans of the character…in response to what happened?

Narratives allow for the use of sentence structures enabling the child to provide complex sentences, incorporating mental states, feelings and narrative conjunctions as clausal connectors.

“I think that the Princess was upset because the dragon captured the Prince so she made a plan to get the Prince back.”

Narratives allow for combining several thoughts and events through Sentence Combining:

The Princess Elizabeth remembered that dragons like to fly around to look for things to eat.
The Princess knew that the dragon was a show-off.
The Princess got him to fly for a long time and get tired.
The Princess got in the cave to get the Prince.
“Elizabeth remembered that dragons like to fly around to look for things to eat and she knew that the dragon was a show-off so she got him to fly for a long time and get tired so she could get in the cave to save the Prince.”
(The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch)

Competency with different kinds of narratives enables us to understand others in a variety of ways

Narratives delineating the simple actions or events of a situation, are not as powerful narratives including feelings, thoughts, plans and consequences. There is a research based Narrative Developmental Sequence, presented in this book, to inform our instruction.

Narrative training causally influences what are basic theory of mind skills - Thinking about Why people do what they do…Motivation

The Kick-off, or Initiating Event: Description and meaning of the event that disrupted an otherwise “ho-hum” day: the unexpected!
Feelings: The emotional response of the main character, Other characters, particularly the “opposition”
Multiple Perspectives: The points of view of multiple characters.
Thoughts (mental state verbs): A character’s memories, background knowledge, factual knowledge, beliefs relative to others’ in the “situation” or story.
Speech, Tone of voice (“speech verbs”/Linguistic verbs): Not only what one says, but the tone of voice used to convey it.
Body language: What our body says we are thinking. Facial expression and gesture
Planning: What characters intend to do, given their feelings, mental states regarding the kickoff.

Carol Westby Presentation, ASHA 2008, Chicago.
Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Boston: Harvard University Press
Gallagher, S., & Hutto, D.D. (2008). Understanding others through primary interaction and narrative practice (pp. 17-38). In J. Zlatev, T.P. Racine, C. Sinha, & E. Itkonen (Eds.), The shared mind: Perspectives on intersubjectivity. John Benjamins: Amsterdam.

Exploring Settings with Google Earth

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:32:00 GMT

In this post, I will be continuing to describe resources to supplement the lessons in It’s All About the Story, and moving on to the element of Setting. Setting is a key area of instruction for students on the autism spectrum not only because they tend not to observe the “expected behaviors” or script for a given setting, but also because they often leave out details about setting when telling stories to others, thus resulting in loss of a point of reference and confusion on the part of their listener. Students in social thinking/skills groups or individual treatment would therefore benefit from building descriptive skills through the use of the Setting Map contained in It’s All About the Story and other SGM resources. Once again, as visual and kinesethetic learners, working with resources they can see and manipulate assists in building these skills.

A good example of a Setting Map is the description of Fenway Park contained in It’s All About the Story. Although such a description could be elicited from memory, using a visual resource such as a storybook is likely to be a great scaffolding technique. Yet another option is to explore settings using Google Earth, a free, interactive virtual globe that allows you to explore locations close-up and in 3D! Here are a few views of Fenway I was able to bring up with just a few steps in Google Earth:

Check out this screencast on some simple navigation functions to get you going and manipulating views with Google Earth.

Google Earth can be downloaded for free, and the Google Earth Plugin allows you to use it in your web browser without opening another program. This is useful if you would like an even simpler, no-frills lesson using Google Maps. While an exciting location such as Fenway Park will be an attention grabber, it would also be helpful to contrast with more everyday locations such as a neighborhood park, school, mall, or hospital, as visualized in Google Earth or Maps. Enjoy, and don’t miss the great free Google Earth apps available for iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad.

Engaging Activities for Character Traits and Social Inference

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 16:44:00 GMT

Engaging Activities for Character Traits and Social Inference

In social group interventions, we would like our students to develop a sense of each other by building “friend files” (Michelle Garcia Winner). Some of the activities I have mentioned in previous posts can be of assistance in engaging students to share straightforward information about themselves. However, we also want to build students’ abilities to make inferences about each other- for example, wearing an Apple t-shirt might indicate that the person likes computers, and could be a good conversation starter.

We can engineer opportunities to develop social inferencing skills by using some other interactive activities available for free on the Internet. In these creative activities, students have fun constructing and designing, and we later can ask, “So what can you guess about Billy after looking at what he made?”

One of my favorites is the Discovery Kids Room Maker, which allows you to design your own kids room with a simple drag-and-drop from categories such as walls, details, beds, etc. When complete, the site gives you a summary statement about your “design persona” that would be fun to share with the group, along with all the accessories that can add traits to our “friend files.”

Create a Ride is also a big hit with kids; click to select car details such as headlights, wheels, details and a fun background! I used this one with a teen group and asked the boys to design a car that they thought another boy in the group would like. This resulted in the memorable social inferencing quote: “I think he is unpredictable so I designed a car that fits his personality...”

Finally, though this makes me think uncomfortably of back-to-school, I love Lands’ End Packland Fantasy Backpack Creator. This fun, animated site lets you select a theme (such as spy or ocean) and add “pack art” to enhance the design and function of your backpack. In no time, your kids will be chatting about personal details (aka “character traits”) and getting to know each other better!

For these activities, remember that screenshotting can be a helpful step so you can refer to creations later or share with parents:
On Mac- Command-Shift-4 turns your cursor into a photo-target. Click and drag across the area of the screen you want to capture and a picture will be saved on your desktop.
On PC- Alt-Print Screen captures the screen on the clipboard. Open Paint (Programs>Accessories>Paint) and Paste the image, then you can crop as you like and save.

Any of your group members’ creations would provide a great context to continue talking about character traits. Keep adding to the Character Map in It’s All About the Story (or the SGM and other manuals) as a visual cue to help the kids think about each other!

Enjoy your designs! For more ideas on therapy materials and technology, please visit me at SpeechTechie or follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks!

Character, Social Thinking, and the Avatar

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 09:25:00 GMT

Many of us think of the word “avatar” and have trouble separating the idea from that blockbuster movie about tall blue people-ish beings on an alien planet. In Avatar, the main character is disabled and uses an avatar to assume the form of an alien being and interact with their civilization. So we’re not that far off; an avatar is a visual representation of someone within an environment, usually a computerized one. Because there are many simple websites that create avatars, they actually have a place in our interventions as well! Using avatar makers with kids motivates them to visually represent and describe themselves to peers- it can be a bridge across some of the awkward verbal interactions that characterize introductory (and ongoing) group sessions. On the flip side, using avatars also helps to engage peers in attending to the character traits of their group members and building “friend files” about them.

There are plenty of simple, free web-based avatar makers, and if you don’t have multiple computers at your disposal (you can also set up a computer as a “station” in your group), the task of making an avatar to print and share with the group could also be a homework task. Check out the list below- note that I prefer ones that have some kind of accessories you can add, so you can get into traits beyond that of appearance.

*Please be aware that occasionally an ad might pop up on some of these sites that you might not want your kids to focus on. It’s a good idea to load your window before using the site with kids, then you can resize the window and scroll down if necessary.

Many of these web tools allow you to save your creations as an image, but I find it just as easy to make a screenshot and save the picture that way. How do you do that?

On Mac- Command-Shift-4 turns your cursor into a photo-target. Click and drag across the area of the screen you want to capture and a picture will be saved on your desktop.

On PC- Alt-Print Screen captures the screen on the clipboard. Open Paint (Programs>Accessories>Paint) and Paste the image, then you can crop as you like and save.

Any of the avatars your group members create would provide a great context for talking about character traits. Try using the Character Map in It’s All About the Story (or the SGM and other manuals) and ask each group member to use the activity to add to their “friend files” on the map!

Enjoy making some avatars! For more ideas on therapy materials and technology, please visit me at SpeechTechie or follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks!

The Importance of Narrative Development in School and in Life

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:47:00 GMT

The Importance of Narrative Development in School and in Life ... by Maryellen Rooney Moreau

Having worked within the dual fields of speech/language pathology and reading/writing disabilities for the past 35 years, I see the ability to comprehend and/or express a story as vital to both academic and social success. Our conversations with family and friends are made up of stories, about ourselves, and others. We take perspectives of others through stories, we are asked to analyze the actions of characters and even notice their facial expressions and feelings in stories (books and TV) and in life as we strive to understand human nature: why people do what they do.

In short, the ability to comprehend and express stories is as vital to life as it is to academic success!

When working with children surrounding this topic, we frequently use questions to determine their understanding of the story. Who, Where, When, What happened, Why and How are the most common question words we use. However, I have often noticed that the very students who can answer these “Wh” questions still have great difficulty expressing what they have seemingly comprehended to others orally and more so, in writing. These students seem to get the action but not “make connections.” Some can answer Who, Where, When and What happened, but “Why and How” seem too complex. I have found that I must continue to probe with questions in order to motivate my students. In conversations with peers who do not usually persist in asking these questions, my students have often become silent onlookers within the conversational group. They also can never “think of anything to write!”

Do you recognize your students in these scenarios? If so, you may want to try using a linguistic structure known as story grammar to facilitate retelling, telling and writing stories. Story grammar is the organization of a story. Children are exposed to story organization through graphic organizers. One type of graphic organizer calls for the beginning, middle or end. The other common graphic organizer calls for a character, setting, problem, events and solution. Neither of these provides the in-depth organization that story grammar structure does. Many children need an explicit scaffold to assist them along the often “scary” road to writing. There is a large body of research on story grammar and its broader category, narrative discourse.

When looking at story grammar, we encourage children to think about the following components:

Character (Who)
Setting (Where, When, What usually happens there?)
Initiating Event: A happening or situation that caused a change in feeling on the part of the character? Or, a happening that was not expected in the Setting?
Feeling: How did the character feel about the Initiating Event? It is important to explain to the children that all Initiating Events are not problems. Many times, these happenings are events that cause feelings that are positive. For instance, a surprise party causes joy; a flat tire causes concern, maybe anger!
Plan: What does the character want to accomplish? Desires and intents are words to use.
Attempts: Attempts are planned actions that are done to carry out the intent of the character.
There may be many.
Direct Consequence: The outcome or result.
Resolution: A simple resolution is a statement of the feeling that the character now has. In most instances the resolution will be different from the original feeling that motivated the character to make a plan. A more complex resolution is a “lesson learned” or a “moral.”

These components comprise an entity known as an “Episode.” According to the National Reading Panel Report (2000), an episode is the basic unit of a plot. A plot is a series of episodes.
Try the following lesson to get started:

Choose a picture book, such as Rosie’s Walk. Read the book to the child. Ask the child to retell the story to you using the pictures (a book walk). Notice what the child includes in the retelling. For instance, does the child mention:

Rosie, (the main character)
The farm, (the setting)
Where Rosie went (actions in a sequence at the setting)
The fact that there is a fox (character) awaiting Rosie, (an “initiating event”/problem)
The Fox’s plan (what the Fox wants; needed to be inferred)
What the Fox did (his planned actions/attempts)
The outcome or result for Rosie (consequence/result of actions)
The outcome or result for the Fox. (consequence/result of planned attempts)

Rosie got home after having a pleasant walk. She had no intent other than to walk (a series of actions). The fox did not have a positive outcome. He did not achieve what we inferred that he had planned: to eat Rosie! Prior knowledge about the relationship between foxes and hens needed to be understood. Actually, there are two episodes here, Rosie’s and the Fox’s.

Maryellen Rooney Moreau M.Ed. CCC-SLP, is the founder and president of MindWing Concepts, Inc.

Letter from a Parent of A Child with Autism

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 22:22:00 GMT

Dearest Maryellen,

I have a 6.5 year old son who has high functioning Autism. His Test of Narrative Language is at 3% for both receptive and expressive components. I introduced the Story Grammar Marker® to him this week and we went over the book Big Al by Andrew Clements together a couple of times, as described in your new book It’s All About the Story. I am thrilled to tell you that at dinner time a couple of days later, we were talking about our "ho-hum" day, and I mentioned to my husband that I got a headache in the morning. My son took over and said: "That was a kick-off!" I was shocked to see how quickly he grasped the tool that he calls "Grandma's Story Marker" :-). I then proceeded to ask him how I felt, he said "bad," and that my plan was "to feel good." I prompted him with a question: "What did I try to do to feel better?" He was able to list that I "took an Advil, drank some coffee," and that "as a result," my headache went away. I then asked him how I felt after that, and he said: "Better...and that's the little heart after the tie!" I cannot believe how powerful the Story Grammar Marker® is! My son was not able to retell an experience logically, partially due to my inability to prompt him properly. The tool helped us both. Thank you so very much!

Today, my son retold the story "Big Al" for the first time using his student SGM®, with prompting such as "who", "one day", etc. He had a smile on his face after he was done! I think for the very first time he truly got the "big picture" of a whole story.

I have watched your DVD and read both Autism books, It’s All About the Story & Making Connections, that I purchased in the kit at the Social Thinking Providers’ Conference. I feel that the Story Grammar Marker® can really help many kids like my son. I am motivated to keep on learning and spread the word!

Thank you again and best regards,

Sunny T., San Francisco, CA

Synergy Between MindWing and Social Thinking

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 21:20:00 GMT

Last weekend in San Francisco at the Social Thinking Providers’ Conference, we felt lucky to have met so many like-minded people who all share our goal: making children successful in school and in life. Social Thinking and MindWing Concepts have amazing synergy. We both take abstract concepts that are challenging to teach & learn and make those abstract concepts concrete, teachable and child-friendly. What an effective combination of methodologies and materials! In light of this synergy, Sean Sweeney has written this Blog.

Group Activities to Complement a Focus on the Character Icon

Recently I wrote about students with social-cognitive deficits and their tendency to lack strategies related to character description and traits. Another manifestation of this weakness is the fact that a group of kids could be in a group with me for weeks and still not know each other’s names. Or mine! I have learned to engineer lots of activities in which kids practice using each other’s names and character traits, and the Braidy and SGM Character Icons provide a key visual and common thread through these activities.

I first like to emphasize the concept of Friend Files, described in Michelle Garcia Winner’s Think Social. As Winner says, it is expected that we remember certain things about people we know by keeping an imaginary file in our brain (and first of all it is helpful to label our friend file with the person’s name)! Drawing from that file allows us to a) use the oft-positively-received behavior of showing interest and b) have a wealth of conversation starters. Maryellen writes in It’s All About the Story about a kiddo we probably all know: “To make conversation, it would be essential for John to know that the classmate liked baseball, but more specifically liked the Red Sox, and disliked the Yankees.”

The SGM Character Map is a great resource for developing actual, physical Friend Files. Try getting some colored manila folders to add motivation (pick your color) and attaching the Character Map inside. Over the course of some weeks, kids in your groups can “interview” each other in a rotating fashion, with the Map serving as a visual to prompt great questions. The Map can later serve as a context for the kids to make “Smart Guesses” (see Winner’s You Are a Social Detective) to practice social inferencing. After the maps have some accurate and more robust content, try making some quizzes (or having the kids do so) with a site such as StudyStack or ClassTools. I can guarantee it’ll be a lesson that reinforces your students’ ability to recall facts about each other and thus foster some great connections.

There are also some great games that develop a sense of character in a fun context! Try prominently displaying the SGM Character icon while playing any of the following:
Cranium Whoonu
Cranium Conga
Loaded Questions Junior
Things (edit the cards carefully)

Using any of these games would provide a great opportunity to add to the Friend File Character Maps as a post-game wrap-up. What did you learn about John during the game?

For more ideas on therapy materials and technology, please visit me at SpeechTechie or follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks!

Character Social Thinking

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 21:43:00 GMT

While running groups for students with social-cognitive deficits over the past years, I have frequently observed their difficulties with the story grammar element of character. Often, these students start telling a story in the vein of “Mike and I went to…” as the rest of the group looks at them blankly, thinking, “Who is Mike??” Or at least the facilitators are wondering who Mike is, since the other students may not even be thinking of the “expected behavior” that they should listen, let alone tease out character details!

Mindwing’s new Autism Collection Book 1, It’s All About the Story, provides a great series of lessons introducing the importance of character description and details. The Flip Chart Pages in Chapter 6, “Introducing the Character,” present the importance of character traits not only in stories, but also in social situations. However, with social groups, it is likely to be easier to start with dynamic materials and sets of characters the kids might be familiar with, rather than have them be instantly examining each other. The lessons suggest using magazines to collect pictures (an excellent idea) and in this post I am going to describe a few supplemental resources that can be used for group discussion and with the SGM Character Map.

I am a big fan of the interactive character spread, a visual array that presents a variety of characters that are clickable or roll-over activated, in that further information is presented through a pop-up or sub-page when you roll or click on the character. A great example, though the site suffers a bit from advertisement infestation, is the Cars interactive poster (scroll down on the linked page to see poster). The activity allows you to move a magnifying glass across an array of Cars, and read descriptions and even hear quotes from the characters.

For more extensive Disney content, try their All Characters Page. This page would be very motivating to a group of kids with diverse interests!

Another page worth exploring is a complex image of Disney Characters through the years. Your web browsers’ magnifying glass tool (or Window>Zoom) will allow kids to “find” particular characters they would like to discuss. I’d particularly recommend The Muppets section for some great videos and visuals that would elicit character descriptions.

Last but not Lost-well, yes, it is Lost- is one for you or maybe some teen clients that were into the late, great television epic (I had some fans in my groups)!

What could you do with these sites? Each would be great to explore with a laptop or LCD projector (Interactive Whiteboard would be even better), with a follow-up use of the Character Map. Perhaps a game of “I Spy” would allow kids to practice skills in a game format…

For more ideas on therapy materials and technology, please visit me at SpeechTechie or follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Thanks!

Use Google Search Stories tool to develop narrative and expository language

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 23:42:00 GMT

Every year during the Superbowl, a few commercials stick out from the sea of repetitive beer, snack food, and summer blockbuster ads. This past year, one of the best was Google’s Parisian Love ad, which told the story of an American’s romance with a French woman in a simple and brilliant way, as an unseen character “Googled” various search terms that reflected events in his life. A follow-up ad about a girl switching schools, which I never saw aired, would be even more relatable for kids and is definitely a great model of a complete episode.

Open publication - Free publishing - More language

These commercials were so popular that Google created a wonderful tool that allows users to make their own Search Stories. Simply pick your search terms and the type of search you want shown in your movie (e.g. web, image, product, map, etc), select the music and upload to a YouTube account (if you have Gmail, you already have a YouTube account). Among countless applications, this tool would be a great way for students to:

make up their own stories
describe a character or tell an existing character’s story through searches (here’s one I made while playing around with the tool- it reflects what happens in the first couple of episodes of one of my favorite shows ever, Alias. Yes, I know I am a geek.
display an expository structure such as a list

I made my own “List Story” about the seasons using the search terms below.

Though it is often a good idea to use different types of searches, “Image Search” worked better for this one- you can use the preview window to help you decide.

Try using the Search Stories tool after pre-planning with a ThemeMaker List Map to develop categories or break down a more complex expository text. Perhaps leave off the Topic name and end with “What do these things have in common?” Students can share their Search Story with peers in order to develop understanding and use of the Topic icon.

Simple Machines offer Language Learning Opportunities

Fri, 21 May 2010 16:28:00 GMT

This week I am blogging to tell you about a tech resource that is really simple to use - Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry's Simple Machine's Game. This site is a perfect example of how resources that were not designed for SLPs actually provide wonderful language-learning opportunities. It is also one of the best-designed- and totally one of the cutest- sites I have seen of late. Additionally, it presents the perfect blend of narrative and expository structures as a context for intervention, and concerns a key and oft-tested (on state assessments) curriculum topic- simple machines such as lever, wheel-and-axle, etc.

So let's start with the narrative piece. The "plot" of the game involves some adorable aliens (I think?) whose need to assemble a robot at the museum is complicated by some missing pieces (the Kick Off!).

Blue boss sends Twich off to find the missing items, and our fun with simple machines begins! Along the way, Twitch deals with out-of-reach parts by using various simple machines (kids will need to make choices in order to work them) to do his job with a minimal amount of force. Choose incorrectly and he will run out of energy or miss his mark!

The machines are ultimately pretty "simple" to construct (with your help), so don't worry-- this is not an impossible game that will take hours. The plot actually comprises a complete episode that you can map with students during or after the activity (note that the tasks can be accomplished in any sequence). See below for a sample SGM map!

Link to handout on issuu: http://issuu.com/speechtechie/docs/simplemachines?viewMode=presentation

As this site is primarily designed to inform kids, it would also be a good opportunity to use Thememaker™ information maps, particularly the “List map.” Lists abound on this site, such as examples of simple machines given after each level is complete:

inclined plane-staircase
lever-shovel
wheel and axle-steering wheel
pulley-elevator

Other List topics include missing robot parts, items lying about the museum (great word retrieval activity, too) or items used to create simple machines. The site would also lend itself to exploring Cause-Effect and Descriptive structures as well.

Hope you enjoy using this site! For more ideas on how to integrate technology in your speech and language interventions, please check out my blog, SpeechTechie.

Open publication - Free publishing - More science

Using Kerpoof for Digital Storytelling and Narrative Development Part 2

Thu, 06 May 2010 13:48:00 GMT

Using Kerpoof for Digital Storytelling and Narrative Development Part 2

Over the years I have come to believe that Story Grammar Marker has taught me as much about narrative development as it has taught my students about telling stories! Initially, I used to use the full SGM and teach Complete Episodes, regardless of my students' level of development. Although they gained a good sense of the icons and could identify story elements, the ties between elements were missing--what to do about my third graders who still peppered their stories with "and then" after "and then?" Using the Day in the Park booklet with students really helped me understand my students' narrative levels and the cohesive ties that mark each stage. From there, my use of the SGM became much more thoughtful, differentiated and holistic-- addressing sentence structure as well as overall story structure.

Back to those 3rd graders- although we had done "Day in the Park" in Grade 2, they definitely needed a review, specifically one that would boost them from an Action Sequence to a more complex story that included more mature cohesive ties: a Reaction Sequence. Their teacher welcomed me into the classroom for a group project in which kids were asked to create exactly this kind of story. After a review of the SGM icons (character, setting, kickoff, and reaction), the cohesive ties (I called these "glue words" in the classroom), and plenty of modeling, the kids set to work in groups with Reaction Sequence story maps and Kerpoof as a visual inspiration. The story maps provided structure and a kind of checklist to make sure that kids had met the requirements, and in the meantime they had great fun being creative! I found my students left the project with a greater understanding of how complex sentences made their stories better, and could generalize the skills into other tasks. The booklet embedded below provides you with a review of the Kerpoof interface as well as 4 examples of student work, complete with my notations of the story elements and cohesive ties each group used. You can click through to the Issuu site if you would like to download and/or print the booklet.

MindWing Concepts and Instructional Technology

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:21:00 GMT

Hi there! Sean Sweeney here- I am a Speech-Language Pathologist and Instructional Technology Specialist. I am really thrilled to be blogging for Mindwing, and look forward to sharing and discussing lesson ideas with you! When I transitioned from a hospital setting into my first school-based position in 2000, I really had no idea what I was doing. My focus was limited to drill-and-practice card games and worksheets that had very limited connection to what my students were struggling with in the classroom. Realizing this, I thought back to my public school clinical placement in graduate school, where my wonderful supervisor, Fran Eldridge, had introduced me to Story Grammar Marker. The AHA! realization that I should apply the SGM (and later, Thememaker) toward my students' struggles with classroom content was a revelation, though in retrospect it was a great big DUH!

Fast forward to today...I have long had an interest in how technology can provide context within our interventions, much the same way a storybook can provide context. In this approach to intervention, Mindwing's tools have served as essential structure to help my students break down language, (as used with a website that provides information, for example) or organize and produce language (when used in conjunction with a creative "Web 2.0" resource that allows students to save and publish work). To focus on this latter "bottom-up" strategy, I suggest you check out Kerpoof, one of my favorite resources for its versatility and ease of use.

Kerpoof* is a free, interactive website recently acquired by Disney and is basically an online version of Kidpix Studio. Kerpoof's interface allows you to choose a background, characters and other setting elements, and add word/thought balloons and caption boxes (sounding promising?). You can create, share, export or print the resulting pictures or multi-picture story sequences.

I am a big fan of how the Mindwing "Day in the Park" Student Activity Booklets allow you to review the SGM icons as students construct progressively more complex narrative. Books that correspond to narrative stages are a great way to provide our students the necessary further practice with learning and connecting the icons, but Kerpoof could be another excellent option. Students could be prompted to simply make a scene (Descriptive Sequence), focus on what characters are doing by adding action-oriented pictures or captions (Action Sequence) and so on, and practice using the corresponding SGM maps to help them construct and orally formulate the stories they have created.

You can use Kerpoof casually or create a teacher login (recommended) at the Kerpoof Scholastics page. More next time on how to use Kerpoof to address more complex levels of narrative! Comments, questions or feedback are always welcome. For more ideas on integrating technology in your practice, please visit my own blog, Speechtechie!

Story-based Intervention for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 17:26:00 GMT

Story-based Intervention for Children with ASD

Since April is Autism Awareness Month, we thought that the contents of this blog entry should be about MindWing’s tools and methodology as a Story-based Intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders.

In September, 2009, the National Autism Center announced the results of its multi-year National Standards Project1. This project “serves to support parents and professionals and answers one of the most pressing questions…: How do we effectively treat the growing number of students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD)?” (Wilcynski, S. (2010). Communique. National Association of School Psychologists, 38, 5). In the Findings and Conclusions Report of the National Standards Project and the more comprehensive technical report entitled, National Standards Report, Story-based Intervention was cited as one of eleven established treatments for autism. The following is Wilcynski’s definition of a Story-based Intervention Package: These interventions include treatments that involve a written description of the situations under which specific behaviors are expected to occur. Stories may be supplemented with additional components (e.g., prompting, reinforcement, discussion, etc.). Social stories™ are the most well known story-based interventions and they seek to answer the “who, what, when, where, and why” questions in order to improve perspective-taking.”

The National Standards Report stated that Story-based Intervention influenced self regulation and interpersonal skills. The age group most affected was 6-14 years. The diagnostic classifications most affected by this intervention: Autism Disorders and Asperger’s Syndrome. We at MindWing, through our research and experience over the past 16 years, have found that narrative development is basic to:

Writing and comprehending social stories™ as well as
Comprehension and expression of social situations in real life AND
Comprehension and expression of situations in story books read in school and for pleasure.
Perspective taking of self and others
Continuing development of a Theory of Mind, including mental state sentences.
Cohesive communication of the story as a whole
Problem-solving and conflict resolution

Children are assisted, through the use of MindWing’s multi-sensory tools and methodology, to comprehend and communicate “the story” at their developmental stage. Story form may be written, oral, pictures, play or drama.

Our new Autism Collection is designed especially for our colleagues working with children with ASD. Please CLICK HERE to see the description in our Store.

April is Autism Awareness Month

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:21:00 GMT

We are proud to finally (officially) introduce our NEW Autism Collection with two spiral-bound manuals (It’s All About the Story & Making Connections), games, activities, cards, stamps and more! Click here to see a picture of the Autism Collection and to learn more about this brand new product. The Autism Collection is available at a discounted, introductory price of $74.95 during the month of April.

Happy St Patricks Day from MindWing Concepts

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:15:00 GMT

We wish you the luck of the Irish - Happy St. Patrick’s Day from MindWing!

A wonderful lesson was sent to us by our good friend and colleague Valerie Fluhr, M.A., CCC-SLP and her speech intern, Tammy Tran, both from OCPS in Orlando, FL.

It is to be used with Story Grammar Marker® and the book My Lucky Day by Keiko Kasza. Click here to download the lesson.

Sláinte!

Welcome to MindWing's New Blog!

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:43:00 GMT

As you visit our blog, please feel free to “SHARE” this information with your friends and colleagues by clicking on the links below. Within this blog we hope to infuse your knowledge and use of MindWing’s methodology with new lesson ideas, new research findings and new products! Maryellen Rooney Moreau, M.Ed. CCC-SLP will be blogging about her current thoughts and research about oral language, comprehension, writing, critical thinking, narrative & expository text. Sean J. Sweeney, M.S, M.Ed, CCC-SLP (a longtime friend & colleague, but new to MindWing’s team) will be blogging about technology integration with MindWing’s methodology. Sean, an SLP, also has a degree in Instructional Technology and has hundreds of fantastic technology-based ideas using Story Grammar Marker®, Braidy the StoryBraid®, Talk to Write, Write to Learn™ and ThemeMaker™. We are looking forward to his exciting lessons! I (Sheila Moreau) will be blogging about new products, new product uses, success stories, and Professional Development information & locations and tidbits about our travels throughout the country as we bring MindWing’s message to more and more educators and parents. Enjoy!