Everyday Speech Social Skills Video {Review & Giveaway}

When working on social skills, it's helpful to have a peer model to aid in teaching the skill. With such busy schedules, it can be hard to bring in someone to your session to serve as a model. That's why I love video modeling! But it's often hard to find videos to exactly fit my needs. Everyday Speech has the solution- and it's a great one! 

Everyday Speech is best known for their iPad app, Let's be Social. When they added videos to the app, they got such an overwhelming response that they decided to make even more. They hope to have 40 videos by the time they launch-40! The videos can be purchased as standalone videos, video bundles, or you can subscribe to their website to get access to their whole library.  

You will be able to watch the videos from any computer or tablet. You can even download the files to watch them offline! To watch on your iPad, you can download the VHX app here. 

Some of the topics covered include:

-voice volume

-staying on topic

-making eye contact

-using a filter

See a lot of the videos included in the picture below.

So what do I think of it? These video rock. I mean seriously, where else can you get videos specifically designed for the topic you need to teach that goes into the depth and detail that these videos do. Each video is right around 2 minutes long. They use real kids and adolescents in their videos in situations that our kids will really encounter. The videos not only show what to do and what not to do, they pause to explain what is happening and to give additional information.  

 

Videos start out by explaining the skill that the video is targeting.

Emotions are identified and explained as they relate to each social situation.

Teachable moments are pinpointed and enhanced.

Thought bubbles are used throughout to show what each person is really thinking.

Think this is something you would love? Sign up to be on the wait list now to get the best deals! Those on the waiting list will get:

• A guaranteed 50% off promo code, with no limits on purchase size
• Two Speech with Sharon followers will win a free package!
• For the blog/site that gets the most waiting list sign ups, everyone that signed up from that site will get a free video package.

To get in on this awesome deal, be sure to use this link! How would you use these videos in therapy?

"Social Pragmatic Language Activity Packet" Product Swap and Giveaway

Do I have something fun for you today! I'm doing a giveaway with Tatyana Elleseff from Smart Speech Therapy LLC.  Tatyana is a bilingual SLP with a full time hospital affiliation as well as private practice in New Jersey. She specializes in working with multicultural, internationally and domestically adopted as well as at-risk children with complex communication and language disorders. 

The product I'm reviewing today is her Social Pragmatic Language Activity Packet. If you work with children on the spectrum or have kids with goals for inferencing or reasoning, you NEED to go get this product. Now. 

There are 30 jam-packed pages of awesomeness. The pictures and questions are presented in a hierarchy ranging from basic social situations to more ambiguous and abstract situations. Most scenarios are suitable for ages 8-9, but can be used as young as age 6. The SLP will need to use his/her own discretion in selecting the appropriate scenarios for your students' ages. 

Areas covered by the questions:

1. Recognizing Emotional Reactions

2. Explaining Facial Expressions

3. Making Predictions

4. Making Inferences (re: people, locations, thoughts, feelings, and actions)

5. Multiple Interpretations (of actions and settings)

6. Interpersonal Negotiations

7. Sympathy/Empathy

8. Peer Relatedness (Support)

9. Interpreting Ambiguous Situations

10. Problem Solving

11. Determining Solutions

12. Determining Causes

13. Determining Perspectives

14. Social Judgment

15. Safety Rules 

In addition to questions that cover the topics listed above, some scenarios also contain short stories with additional questions that focus on auditory memory, processing, and comprehension. That's an average of 10-20 questions per picture!

So why do I love it?

• It is so versatile! Like I said above, this product would work wonderful for students with Autism who need extra help in social situations and figuring out emotions. But that's not all- the questions also lend themselves to inferencing and problem solving skills. The extra questions provided through the short stories target vocabulary, higher level reasoning, and comprehension.  
• Your students get the opportunity to answer every kind of WH- question in almost every question set.
• The hierarchy from explicit to more abstract situations provides a nice progression for my students. They were able to get the hang of the skills in the simpler scenarios before moving on and building onto their skill set in the later pictures. 
• The photos strike up quality conversation. With these photos and questions, it is easy to spend two or more sessions on just one picture, especially with the more abstract scenarios.  
• I can use it with my middle school students- what's not to love about more materials for that population!?

Enter the giveaway below for a chance to win this product yourself! If you just can't wait, you can find this product in Tatyana's store here for $14.99. But that's not all- Tatyana is doing a review of my product "Winter Nonfiction Leveled Reading Passages and Questions". You'll have a chance to win my product over on her blog!

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Bugging out with Social Skills!

I'm so excited to present this product to all of you! I've been working long and hard on a wonderful social skills resource that I hope you'll all love!

This 32 page packet includes over 200 cards and 5 worksheets! Each bug has its own skill to target.

A Fly's Tone of Voice

Includes 20 tone of voice cards and 36 different sentences to use with them, as well as a worksheet to that you can use to decide what tone of voice to use in a certain situation. 

Each section starts out with a similar cover page. The skill is defined and briefly discussed. Then I tell you how to use the included cards and worksheets.

Here is an example of the sentences used in this section. You can have your students draw one TOV card and one sentence card. They must read the sentence in that TOV. You can also read a sentence to your students in a certain TOV and have your students determine which TOV it is. The worksheet includes 10 different sentences where your student must determine which TOV is appropriate to use in that situation. 

Mr. Caterpillar's Emotions

Includes 20 emotion cards and 20 definition cards. You can use these cards to help teach the definition of each emotion. After your students are comfortable with each definition, use the cards to play Go Fish or Memory.

Use this worksheet to target emotions in many different ways! There is a space for your students to draw out the emotion, give the definition, give examples, and give synonyms and antonyms. 

Perspective Taking with a Ladybug

Includes 24 cards with scenarios.

Read each scenario and determine how a person from that scenario fells. I've included a worksheet where your students can come up with a situation in their lives that involved another person. They must determine how the other person felt during that situation. 

Problem Solving with Ms. Butterfly

Includes 24 different scenarios.

Read each scenario and determine what would be the best solution to your problem. The included worksheet allows your students to brainstorm a problem and possible solutions to that problem. 

Making Conversation with a Dragonfly

Includes 36 topic cards and 3 pages of hint cards.

Your students draw one of the topic cards. They must use the topic word or words on the card and form their own questions. If this is too hard for your student, I've included "hint pages", where I've provided example questions for each topic. 

The Spider Can Stay on Topic

Includes 24 conversation cards.

Each card presents a scenario and your student must determine an appropriate comment to make that stays on topic. There is an included worksheet that allows your students to make up their own conversation topic and determine appropriate comments.

Also included are 6 special cards and a game board. 

Are you as excited about this product as I am!? You can check it out here! And if you're feeling really lucky, enter in the Rafflecopter below and try to win a copy for yourself!

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Through Your Eyes- A Perspective Taking Game about Emotions

The ability to take another person's perspective is hard for those students with a social language disorder. I've developed a packet that provides a prompt about another person or group of people and requires your student to answer questions about the prompt. 

I introduce you to:

It includes 48 task cards that provide prompts such as this: "It rains on a bride's wedding day. How does she feel? Why does she feel that way?" There are also prompts such as: "The doctor successfully removed the child's brain tumor. How does the doctor feel? How does the child's parent's feel?"

The questions provide your students the opportunity to identify with the other person and to determine why they are feeling that way. This is perfect for your older students to practice using high level thought processes. 

I've also included a generalization activity that allows your student to pick an emotion and write a few sentences about when and why they would feel that emotion. 

You can find my newest download here. If you download, please let me know what you think!