Januray Love It & List It Link up: Social Skills

This month's link up from Jenna at Speech Room News is about your favorite social skills activities. I don't do very much in the line of social skills but below are my top 3 go to products.

1. Superflex A Superhero Social Thinking Curriculum created by Michelle Garcia Winner and Stephanie Madrigal. This activity contains a story and activites targeted for elementary age students. The story is great, the students don't even realize they are learning.

2. Sorry for Social Skills-a TPT product I created to target middle school and high school students. This activity is based on the board game Sorry and contains game cards with scenarios on them. The students must answer the question correctly to move their game piece. Find the activity in my TPT store here.

3. Learn to Respond Appropriately by Natural Learning Concepts. These cards have pictures on one side and questions on the other. The goal is to have the students come up with appropriate responses to the scenarios presented in the pictures.

What are your favorite social skills products?

Breana

Answering TherAppy app review!!!

I love my Tactus TherAppy apps. They all provide such comprehensive settings so you can set them for many different levels of play, both children and adults benefit from these apps. When I received my copy of Tactus Therpays newest app, I couldn't want to start playing with it.

When you first open this app you see a long menu (pictured below). First you enter the students name and set their profile for play in both wh-questions and yes/no questions, which are separated in different sections. I love that you can select if you want a male or female voice to read the questions and how fast the voice will speak. You can also pick how many questions (trials) you want the client to have. I tend to select all just so I don't run out of questions. The therapist can also select if they want their client to receive motivational messages, audio reinforcement, auto advance (slide progresses by itself), and whether clients can select outside links on the home screen.

The second part of this window allows the therapist to set specific information for each type of question.

 

 

There must by endless possibilities of setting configurations and without a doubt this app can be used with a patient/client/student of any age.  

 

In the settings for WH questions, the option for a Receptive Response mode, the student get to select their answer from a field of 2-4 answers based on level of difficulty. For Expressive Response mode, the student must answer the question for themselves and the therapist can record the response as correct, approximation, or incorrect.

 

Below are sample question pages:

 

 

 

 

I love that the app reads the question for the student and does not read the answers unless the megaphone next to each answer is touched. This gives my students the choice to try and read the answers themselves for extra reading practice or get a little help. 

 

Pros:

• The voice reading the questions and answers can be adjusted for speed and can be made male or female
• The question and answer is repeated before moving on to the next question
• Uses both questions and questions with visuals for students with receptive and/or expressive needs
• Begins speaking automatically after switching to next slide

Cons:

• A few random words were pronounced incorrectly (some of my students had trouble understanding a different pronunciation)

Tactus Therapy also released another app set up very similarly called Asking Therapy where students are given part of the answer to a question and have to develop the question. I would highly recommend both apps.

 

Breana 

The opinions in this review are mine and only mine. I was provided a copy of this app and no other compensation.

Gluten Free Menu at Cheesecake Factory!!

Disclaimer: The menu may have been edited since this post was published.

I recently heard that Cheesecake Factory was re-releasing a fairly large gluten free menu. I was surprised at the multi-page menu that was provided when I asked. I was also surprised how knowledgeable the server was when I asked questions about food preparation protocol. I have learned the hard way in the past that asking how pasta is prepared (checking for use of separate pasta water) can be the difference between sleeping at night and being up sick. I loved my food, see the pictures below, although it was a little dry I would still eat it again. I had a great experience with this specific location, luckily it's near my house, and I would have no problems going back.

This is the menu I got at my location, I cannot guarantee it is the same at all locations. If you get a different menu, please leave a comment and let everyone know what you noticed.

This is the picture on the back of the menu, I forgot to take a picture of my actual cheesecake. It is the Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake and it was really good.

 

This is a picture of my actual food. I had Evelyn's Favorite Pasta.

Hope you enjoy a great meal!

Breana





Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year to all of my followers!!! Don't forget to invite your friends to follow on the blog or the new facebook page.

 

 

 

 

Breana