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Today’s kids really like memes, digesting them from internet spaces we are too cool to inhabit! Therefore, they serve as a textual or language-infused genre that we can exploit for our students’ engagement. Often a meme suggests some element of a narrative that serves to facilitate a discussion or mapping of other elements. We can compare and contrast these narrative forms with exposition, or explaining ideas (see Thememaker^®). When critiquing narrative works such as movies, it’s always felt to be a no-no to have too much exposition, or telling (not showing), such as when a character suddenly explains the mystery inherent to a plot...

For July’s entry in the “Summer Study Series,” we’ll be looking at some cool connections to the science curriculum in addressing the macrostructure and microstructure of language. Our posts this summer are summarizing recent research related to narrative and expository language and Story Grammar Marker^®/ThemeMaker^® to give you some scientific thought for summer. To set the tone, there are some natural connections between the SGM^® and ThemeMaker^® methodologies and using science content with students. Narrative and expository elements give a framework for summarizing story and information, elaborating, focusing on main ideas and reducing the load on working memory by providing a scaffolded structure. The scientific method itself, moving from observation (Character/Setting), planning and hypothesizing, following experimental steps, and developing a conclusion, can be reframed using the Story Grammar Marker^® as is demonstrated in the original SGM^® manual...

This summer we are bringing back the “Summer Study Series!” This series of posts will provide overviews of recent research related to narrative language and Story Grammar Marker^® in order to give you “food for thought” to digest relevant to clinical techniques in the upcoming school year. I was quite excited to discover that a recent study on developing inferential language has a direct connection to SGM^®, as MindWing’s icons were used in story mapping activities included as part of the studied intervention. Dawes, Leitao, Claessen and Kane (2019), developed and studied a specific intervention sequence for improving inferencing in students with Developmental Language Disorder (DVD). Some summarized points from the study are as follows...

Of late, I’ve unfortunately had a number of students who are needing to deal with getting teased or bullied. This is a tough area to intervene in because it is so sad and frustrating to see a young student being victimized, particularly when their social learning and communicative challenges likely are the reason why. It’s also difficult because we can’t really just provide one way to respond. “Ignore it,” being realistic, oftentimes does not work. Over the past few years, I have worked in these situations around problem-solving approaches, Story Grammar Marker^® providing a great tool in the process. Problem-solving can be considered to be a forked format, with SGM^®’s icons providing a guide to consider the who, where and when the problem involves, the nature of the problem itself, feelings and internal states/thoughts resulting, and the plan (in the case of teasing, to end it)...

I know some of you are already in school, so forgive the “Summer Study” aspect of this post, as I am holding on to the last days of summer (which goes until September, anyway). I have been impressed of late with ASHA’s publication of “tutorial” style articles that offer a synthesis of research and practical ideas and techniques for intervention. One of these recent articles is particularly relevant to the topic of this blog and to MindWing’s tools for narrative intervention: Telling Tales: Personal Event Narratives and Life Stories (Westby and Culatta, 2016). In this post I will discuss this article along with tech tools particularly related to the intervention suggestions around eliciting and scaffolding event narratives. Westby and Culatta set out to emphasize the importance of personal event narratives...

In April, Autism Awareness and Acceptance month, we have a specific focus on the population of students with autism spectrum disorders, awareness of their strengths and challenges, as well as strategies to help them be successful. This diagnosis often accompanies difficulties in social attention and situational awareness, as well as the ability to use narrative language to describe situations. And what is a situation? Essentially it comprises people (Characters) in a place and time (Setting) when events typical to the situation or unexpected for the situation (Kick-Off) occur. Besides the clear tie-in with Story Grammar Marker^® in this regard, also see the work of SLPs Sarah Ward and Kristen Jacobsen on the Space, Time, Objects, and People (STOP and Think) model of situational awareness...

As we have previously discussed in this blog, play and narrative are inextricably linked (see our post about Braidy the StoryBraid^® and overlappings with Social Thinking^®’s Incredible Flexible You Program — now titled We Thinkers! and with a new 2nd volume)! “Play Plans” within a group or individual session can emphasize social cognitive concepts that are important during play such as “sharing an imagination” but also narrative elements that are acted out or realized in the process of play. A great series that can be used to emphasize early storytelling and play skills can be found in the apps from Sago Mini. These apps comprise contextual “sandboxes” fostering exploration and experimentation as characters are moved around a setting, resulting in interactive events. Sago Mini’s line features apps that allow interaction with characters such as superheros and neighborhood friends, and settings such as space, a forest, a construction site, and a cafe.

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...

On this Technology Tuesday, our monthly post in which we describe a simple technology resource that can be useful in integrating MindWing’s tools in your work, I wanted to align with recent posts describing resources for expository language, specifically listing and describing. As these posts describe, almost any text can be used as a context for analyzing expository language (see also the many engaging expository texts in the EPIC! app). In addition to Thememaker^® expository language maps, a number of apps serve as a “blank slate” for you to create a short-or more extensive—activity targeting these language structures.

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 (at left) 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...

StoryBird is very helpful for using technology to develop story telling and story writing skills. However, while providing artwork and a very simple platform for adding text, it does not provide the narrative structure necessary for writing the actual text of the story. Using Story Grammar Marker, students can have the structure to know what parts go into the story. The Common Core State Standards call for the blending of narrative and expository text in lessons as well as integrating technology and multimedia. The following lesson demonstrates it...

This past week my 5-year-old daughter Casey went to camp. On the first day, I suggested that she wear a T-shirt that depicts something she likes (LOL: Dolls, Unicorns, JoJo Siwa, Mermaids, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc.) so that when she is meeting new friends, they can immediately know something she likes and ask her about it. She chose a T-shirt with a picture of “JoJo Siwa,” who is a young, popular performer. By wearing that, new friends will know a little about her as a “character” in a social setting. Upon arriving at camp, within 30 seconds, a Dad and daughter walked in and the Dad said, “You like Jojo Siwa? Avery and her mom saw Jojo Siwa in a concert this summer!”...

We received many positive comments about our blog last week, Story Grammar Marker Summer Reading List, which featured ten resources focusing on the Complete Episode. This week, we have included eight previous blogs that focus on the concept of Character. Please review them all, as they span across multiple grade levels. This sampling of Character blogs demonstrates the versatility of the SGM! There are many more resources to support the use of our SGM tools available free of charge on our MindWing website...

COVID19 is certainly the biggest “Kick-Off” that many of us have ever experienced. As teachers, specialists and/or parents, this thrusts you into the position of having to completely change how you teach, or how you deliver services or has put you into the homeschooling role. At MindWing Concepts, we want to do what we can to assist you with these distance learning and homeschooling challenges as well as offer alternative ways to access training and PD. Maryellen will continue to “GO LIVE” on social media daily and we will continue to offer FREE Webinars. And, you asked and we’ve answered: DIGITAL VERSIONS OF OUR TRADEMARKED ICONS...

During National Autism Awareness Month, we have been using text and illustrations of the picture book Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch to enhance our teaching of feelings using the SGM heart icon, Feelings mini poster, and newly created maps. This is the final post of the Mr. Hatch series.

After completing these activities, older students may enjoy using the same Feelings template we began this blog with and a You Tube presentation of The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan. Click here to watch The Lost Thing...

It has been a long time coming, but MindWing Concepts has partnered with three talented Speech Language Pathologists: Meghan Graham, Karen Head and Jill Perry of All4MyChild www.all4mychild.com) to create the Story Grammar Marker^® App! All4MyChild is the creator of The Bag Game©, the Social Adventures© App, Talking Train© and Fun Timer©. They have used Story Grammar Marker^® extensively for years. As regular readers of our Blog know, Sean Sweeney (www.speechtechie.com) has written many, many Blog entries where he teaches how to incorporate Story Grammar Marker^®, ThemeMaker^® and our other products with various Apps and web-based technologies. His expertise, enthusiasm and ingenuity has always been an inspiration to MindWing, helping us to see how this platform is a "must" for SGM®. It will be exciting to now see the use of Story Grammar Marker® in its own App format. Thanks to the creativity and technical knowledge of all4mychild.com, the SGM® App has become a reality.

Valentine’s Day was always one of the most enjoyable days for students when I taught kindergarten, and Anna Dewdney’s Llama Llama books were popular with this age group. Llama Llama Be My Valentine! is a Penguin Young Reader book based on an episode of Llama Llama’s animated Netflix television series. Below are some of the ways I used this selection recently with groups of kindergarten and first graders of varying skill levels. Modify as you wish, depending on your goals/objectives and students...

Orange County Public Schools
Orlando, Florida 2007

As a speech language pathologist, I am a member of two of American Speech, Language and Hearing Association’s (ASHA) Special Interest Groups: Divisions 1 & 16. Both relate to schools and to students who are having problems with language and literacy. It has long been my thought, as many of you know, that discourse level language skills, those that extend beyond the sentence as students strive to express personal stories, story retells and expression of content area knowledge, are oral language skills that are vital and foundational to academic learning and social success...

In the early 1970s, I began my work as a Speech/Language Pathologist in the Hartford, Connecticut Public Schools. The department head, Margaret Kennedy, an Iowa native, was trying to entice someone to teach a “Language Disabilities Class” at Dwight School in the South End. Language Disability was the new term in our field at that time. I had just gotten my Master’s Degree at Penn State and had an enlightening summer course in “language disabilities” under my belt. We used Helmer Myklebust’s text entitled Differential Diagnosis of Language Impairments, as our basic text and studied intervention methodologies such as the Association Method, developed at Central Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis, the ITPA, Auditory Discrimination in Depth (now known as Lindamood/Lindamood)...