ASHA 2013 Recap!

I had the great privilege of attending the 2013 ASHA Convention in Chicago, Illinois a few weekends ago. It.was.AWESOME! I can't even begin to describe how wonderful it was. The networking opportunities, the informative sessions, the free stuff, meeting fellow bloggers-nothing can beat all of that!

So here's a few of my favorite sessions:

• "BTW It's Time: Contextualizing the Common Core Standards for Students with Speech and Language Impairments"- This was my first session of the weekend and it was one of my favorites! Robin and Bonnie provided tons of examples for relating the CCSS to speech therapy. They discussed Speech Sound Disorders, Academic Vocab, Syntax/Morphology/Grammar, Written Expression, and Pragmatic Skills all related to the CCSS. Be on the lookout for their powerpoint presentation to be uploaded to the ASHA website!

• "Listen/Lead/Learn: At the Intersection of Quality Services & the CCSS"- When I went to this session, I didn't realize that Judy Montgomery was one of the presenters (She's the author of Bridge of Vocabulary)! I love learning new things about vocabulary instruction, so I was super pumped for this session. And it didn't disappoint! My favorite part of this session was the way that they suggested writing PLOP's and goals- all while incorporating the CCSS. Here's the PLOP outline: "Most (grade level) grade students have mastered (certain skills). Student Name is able to do (skills they have), but struggles with (skills in need of improvement). This adversely affects his/her ability to do (adverse affect). Why do I love this so much? Because it incorporates the CCSS related to their grade level when talking about what they can and can not do, and also incorporates the adverse affect from their inability to perform at their grade level on the standards. Maybe you all have been using a template like this all along, but since my district is only slowly incorporating the Common Core into everything, this was a welcome breath of fresh air when writing IEPs. 

• I was lucky enough to get a seat for Sarah Ward's "Just Treatment Tools to Develop Executive Functioning Skills"! She so graciously offered a link to her presentation so we can all take advantage of her wonderful ideas: http://tinyurl.com/justthetools. My absolute favorite part of her presentation was when she showed us the Photosynth app. It stitches pictures together to make a panoramic view of a room so you can have your student performing different actions in all parts of the room. Be sure to check it out!

• I also attended a great session on Auditory Processing Disorders- "Auditory Processing Disorder: Team Evaluation and Management". Mary Buehler went through many aspects of the evaluation and also treatment techniques based on the type of processing disorder the student presents with. 

Now it's picture time!

Here's one from lunch with some fellow bloggers! (Don't laugh, but I felt like I was talking with celebrities!!)

And there's me in front of one of the convention signs. 

This last picture isn't necessary, but I thought it was too funny not to share. This is both mine and my roommate's bags at the end of the weekend. I title it, "A new meaning to the term bag lady". 

If you didn't get the chance to attend, be on the lookout for the session powerpoints on ASHA's website sometime next week! Did you attend the convention? What were some of your favorite sessions??