 |
October 19, 2012
Weekly Edition Issue 32, Volume 5
It's All About the Choices! Happy Friday to all! PediaStaff would like to welcome Kristin Cummings of the Simply Speech blog to our team of guest contributors! This week she has a wonderful thematic lesson using the wonderful book Where's My Mummy to work on a variety of speech and language goals.
News Items:
- AAC in the News: PRC/Semantic and 'Speak for Yourself' Reach Settlement
- PediaStaff Establishes New Division to Place Therapy Professionals in Hospitals and Clinics
- Children with ADHD say Stimulant Drugs Help Them
- "Broca's Brain" Not a Single "Area?" - New Findings Announced
- Study Provides Good Scientific Validation that Exercise Improves School Performance For Kids With ADHD
- Mother's Touch in the First Month Could Change Effects of Prenatal Stress
- Developing Brain Is Source of Stability and Instability in Adolescence
- Additive Effect of Small Gene Variations Can Increase Risk of Autism Spectrum Disorders
Therapy Activities, Tips and Resources
- Is it Taking "Too Many Clicks" to Read our Newsletter? Try This:
- Laminator Giveaway - We Have a Winner!
- Halloween Speech Lesson of the Week: Where's My Mummy?
- Pinterest Pinboard of the Week: Apps & Extras for Therapy
Articles and Special Features - SLP Corner: Back To School Great New Games for Speech Therapy
- Pediatric Physical Therapy Corner: Torticollis
- Parents' Corner: Chasing Rainbows
- Worth Repeating: Which Came First: Music or Language?
- Also Worth Repeating: Returning to School After Brain Injury
Feel free to contact us with any questions about our openings or items in these pages. Have you discovered our RSS feed? Click on the orange button below to subscribe to all our openings and have them delivered to your Feed Reader! Don't have an RSS Feed Reader set up? Sign up at
Feed My Inbox and have any feed you like delivered to your email inbox! Have a great weekend and Take Care! Heidi Kay and the PediaStaff Team
|
|
|
The Career Center
The links to the right are "live" and reflect the most recent SLP, OT, PT and related assistant jobs, and ALL our Bilingual and School Psychology Jobs.
To further narrow your search by state,
setting, bilingual, or term, use the
check boxes drop down menus.
If a particular search is returning
no hits it is possible that we do
not currently have new openings for
you with that selection criteria.
To see ALL our openings
click HERE and further narrow your search.
|
|
|
|
|
AAC in the News: PRC/Semantic and 'Speak for Yourself' Reach Settlement
| |
[Source: Electronista]
Pittsburgh-based assistive talking device developer and dealer Semantic Compaction Systems and Prentke Romich Company has come to an agreement with competitor Speak for Yourself, and has ended the four-month-long lawsuit between the pair. Under the settlement, licenses to two patents and some copyrights are being granted to Speak for Yourself. Semantic and Prentke Romich, who make the software and devices for autistic or otherwise speech-impaired users, are withdrawing an infringement notice filed with Apple against Speak for Yourself, which could pave the way towards Apple reinstating the app on the App Store. Apple removed Speak for Yourself's app shortly after the lawsuit was launched.
|
|
PediaStaff in the News: PediaStaff Establishes New Division to Place Therapy Professionals in Hospitals and Clinics
|
[Source: PR Web and PediaStaff, Inc.]
PediaStaff, a nationwide, niche-oriented staffing company focusing on the placement and staffing of pediatric therapists, has added a new division to concentrate on the placement of pediatric and adult therapists in hospital and clinic settings.
The new division, PS MedJobs, will place occupational therapists, physical therapists, and speech-language pathologists in outpatient, inpatient, and acute care positions in hospitals across the country. While PediaStaff has always concentrated on pediatric therapy, this division places both adult and pediatric therapists, said Pediastaff Vice President of Recruitment Keith Adams.
Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
|
|
ADHD in the News: Children with ADHD say Stimulant Drugs Help Them
| |
[Source: Reuters]
Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who take stimulants such as Ritalin tend to feel the drugs help them control their behavior and do not turn them into "robots" as many skeptics assume, a study found on Monday.
The research, which for the first time asked children taking ADHD drugs what they felt about their treatment and its effects, found that many said medication helped them manage their impulsivity and make better decisions.
Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
|
|
Language and the Brain in News: "Broca's Brain" Not a Single "Area?" - New Findings Announced
| Thank you to Apraxia-Kids for recommending this article!
[Source: Daily Galaxy.com via Massachusetts Institute of Technology]
A century and a half ago, French physician Pierre Paul Broca found that patients with damage to part of the brain's frontal lobe were unable to speak more than a few words. Later dubbed Broca's area, this region is believed to be critical for speech production and some aspects of language comprehension. However, in recent years neuroscientists have observed activity in Broca's area when people perform cognitive tasks that have nothing to do with language, such as solving math problems or holding information in working memory.
Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
|
|
ADHD Research in the News: Study Provides Good Scientific Validation that Exercise Improves School Performance For Kids With ADHD
| Editor's Note: This is an excellent study to print and distribute to the parents and guardians of your kiddos with ADHD. While the results of this study are probably pretty obvious to our OT readers, it is solid scientific evidence of what many of you have been advocating all along.
[Source: Medical News Today]
The finding, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, came from a team of experts at Michigan State University who have demonstrated for the first time that kids with ADHD can focus better and become less distracted after a quick session of exercise. This is significant because "inhibitory control" is the biggest struggle people with the disorder have to deal with.
Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
|
|
Neonatal Therapy in the News: Mother's Touch in the First Month Could Change Effects of Prenatal Stress
|
[Source: Science Daily.com]
Scientists at the Universities of Liverpool, Manchester, and Kings College, London, have found that mothers who stroke their baby's body in the first few weeks after birth may change the effects that stress during pregnancy can have on an infant's early-life development.
Researchers world-wide have been studying whether stress in pregnancy can lead to emotional and behavioural problems in children for many years. Attention is now moving towards how parents might alter these effects after birth. Researchers are aiming to improve understanding of the issues to help enhance information services for pregnant women and their partners.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link on our Blog
|
|
Adolescent Brain Development in the News: Developing Brain Is Source of Stability and Instability in Adolescence
|
[Source: Science Daily.com]
Scientists are presenting new research on how the brain develops during the dynamic and vulnerable transition period from childhood to adulthood. The findings underscore the uniqueness of adolescence, revealing factors that may influence depression, decision-making, learning, and social relationships.
The findings were presented at Neuroscience 2012, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world's largest source of emerging news about brain science and health.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link on our Blog
|
|
Autism in the News: Additive Effect of Small Gene Variations Can Increase Risk of Autism Spectrum
| |
[Source: Science Daily]
An increased risk of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) could result from an accumulation of many small, common genetic variations rather than large-effect, rare changes in the genetic code, according to a multi-center team led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Their findings, published today in Molecular Autism, provide new insights into the genetic factors that underlie the neurodevelopmental condition.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
|
Tip of the Week: Is it Taking "Too Many Clicks" to Read our Newsletter? Try This
| Last week we announced a giveaway of a great Scotch brand laminator in exchange for feedback on what you like and don't like about our newsletter/blog. We are very excited about the number of entries we have received so far. We won't pick a winner until Friday, so keep 'em coming (by email please, see the contest post here)
We are very excited by the feedback we have received so far, and while we are still accepting entries for the contest through Thursday, I wanted to make a comment on the only negative thing we have heard from all of you to date.
Some of you who read PediaStaff through the Friday newsletter, have expressed frustration at "the number of clicks" that it often takes to get to an article (especially the news items) that we feature. Let me explain why that is, and perhaps offer a solution to you that might reduce clicks for you.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
|
Laminator Giveaway: We Have a Winner!
| |
We have a winner!! Jessica Lange is a community-based, outpatient occupational therapist and works with kids from birth to eighteen! If I am not mistaken, we met Jessica at AOTA this past year!
She reads PediaStaff through a variety of platforms (the Newsletter, Pinterest, Facebook and also regular visits to our blog).
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
|
Halloween Speech Lesson of the Week: Where's My Mummy?
| Editor's Note: PediaStaff would like to welcome Kristin Cummings, M.S. CCC-SLP to our guest blogging team! Kristin runs the Simply Speech blog and has some wonderful ideas to share with you. Please enjoy this great Halloween idea that she wrote up specifically for us!
by Kristin Cummings, M.S. CCC-SLP
I love fall and I love Halloween! Even more, I love the story, Where's My Mummy? by Carolyn Crimi. I use this book every October with my speech and language students. This is an adorable, not so scary, story of little baby mummy that does not want to go to bed. Instead, he plays "hide and shriek" and runs into some Halloween creatures along the way.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
|
Pinterest Pinboard of the Week: Apps & Extras for Therapy
| During our Laminator Giveaway we asked you to tell us what is your favorite aspect of our blog. One answer that came up over and over, was the App reviews! Yes, we do try to feature an app every week, but did you know that our Pinterest board has 292 pins in its own board chock full of app reviews for all sorts of therapy goals?
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link our Blog |
|
|
|
|
SLP Corner: Back To School Great New Games for Speech Therapy
|
by Sherry Artemenko, M.A., CCC-SLP
The beginning of a new school year is always exciting for students as well as educators-I still feel the thrill several years after I've left the public schools to start my private practice. Everything is fresh and new-paper, name tags, friends, teachers and backpacks. In keeping with a fresh start, I wanted to share some of my favorite new off-the-shelf products that can add a fun twist to your speech and language therapy sessions. Some of the toys and games are produced by large, international companies and some invented by ingenious educators and therapists who followed their dream and assembled a game in their garage:
Read the Rest of This Article on our Blog
|
|
Pediatric Physical Therapy Corner: Torticollis
|
Editor's Note: This article was written for parents, by a pediatric physical therapist. We present it to you here as a possible resource that you might share with the parents/guardians of your kiddos.by Dr. Joni Redlich, DPT, PCSWhat does torticollis look like? A child with left torticollis will tilt their head to the left and prefer to look to the right. A child with right torticollis will tilt their head to the right and prefer to look to the left. How do I know if my little one needs physical therapy for torticollis?
My little one always looks to the right. My doctor says to "wait and see." OR My doctor showed me how to just stretch his neck. Why does my baby need physical therapy? These are both very common situations. I suggest trying the below tests and observations. Share what you find with your doctor. Read the Rest of This Article on our Blog
|
|
Parents Corner: A Parent's Perspective - Chasing Rainbows
|
Editor's Note: This excellent guest post appeared this week on Abby Brayton's blog, Notes from a Pediatric Occupational Therapist. I felt compelled to share it here.
[Source: Notes from a Pediatric Occupational Therapist]
by Gavin's Mom, Kate of the Chasing Rainbows blog
Our life in five words: Positive, peaceful, inspiring, unexpected, roller coaster
Four qualities I look for in a therapist:
- A connection with Gavin is one of the most important things to me. If he trusts the therapist...if he or she takes the time to learn his favorite songs...if they are patient and meet Gavin where he is...they will get much more out of him.
- Unique ideas. I love a therapist who isn't afraid to try new things. You just never know what Gavin will respond to - some of his best work has come from a therapist taking a risk and trying something new!
- That they push him more than I do. I would never have thought that Gavin would have held a marker and used a "Spin and Draw". I was never so happy to be wrong.
Read the Rest of This Article Through a Link on our Blog
|
|
Worth Repeating: Which Came First: Music or Language?
|
Editor's Note: Kimberly Sena Moore is a music therapist and good friend of PediaStaff. Please enjoy her most recent post on her blog, Your Musical Self, on the Psychology Today website.
[Source: Psychology Today]
Which came first: language or music? Traditionally, music has been considered an evolutionary by-product of language. Language, after all, is one of the few skills we have that makes us uniquely human. Thus it has the more important evolutionary role. Music is just "auditory cheesecake." Unimportant. Pretty little fluff. A misunderstood by-product.
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link on our Blog
|
|
Also Worth Repeating: Returning to School After Brain Injury
|
by Madeline Uretsky
I was finally able to return to school part time in January, but with much apprehension. I had just started to put the days of the week and the months of the year in order and I was working on being able to walk better in a straight line and stand still without having to grab onto something.
I was still extremely symptomatic, and did not feel well at all, and consequently, I was unable to be my old self. One really cannot understand the frustration of this until they experience it first hand. I am usually a very energetic and upbeat person, but now my personality was completely flat and emotionless. I simply could not be "present" in any situation. I had damaged my brain and had been isolated from the world for three months. I was nothing but nerves and I was feeling
Read the Rest of this Article Through a Link on our Blog
|
|
Did You Get This From a Friend?
Sign Up For Your Copy of This Newsletter! | Would you like pediatric and school-based therapy tips, resources, articles, and news delivered to your computer once a week? Sign up here for our newsletter!
Sign up HERE
|
Quick Links to PediaStaff
| |
|
| If you would like to opt out of receiving this newsletter, there is a link located in the footer below. However, please note that once you've opted out, we will be unable to send you any future correspondence via newsletter. |
Please Note: The views and advice expressed in articles, videos and other pieces published in this newsletter are not necessarily the views and advice of PediaStaff or its employees but rather that of the author. PediaStaff is not endorsing or implying agreement with the views or advice contained therein, rather presenting them for the independent analysis and information of its readers.
|
|
|
