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At the recent Zero To Three National Institute held this month, the accepted poster, PLS-5 for Culturally Sensitive Populations provided a special look at meeting the needs for these culturally diverse populations.

Never let it be said that moss grows under any SLPs’ or audiologists’ feet! If you were able to attend the ASHA Convention in San Diego a couple of weeks ago, you joined thousands of our colleagues packing as much activity as they could in just a few days. Between attending sessions, answering questions, greeting our colleagues in the booth, and attending special events, our Pearson staff members were in the same boat.

Just a few highlights:

The OASES (Overall Assessment of the Speaker’s Experience of Stuttering) school-age and teen record forms received widespread kudos from SLPs who serve students who stutter. They observed in particular that this self-report of the impact of stuttering on an individual’s life will show progress when traditional stuttering measures may not.

The new OLAI-2 (Oral Language Acquisition Inventory, Second Edition) generated quite a bit of SLP interest. A noteworthy comment was, “Finally! Something solid for me to use in RTI!”

Sounds & Symbols digital storybooks created buzz in the booth! SLPs who viewed the demo of Marti Mouse, one of the beloved characters of this classic “High Hat” pre-literacy program, were excited to hear that all 39 stories from the Sounds & Symbols program will be available in January.

Dr. J. Scott Yaruss (lead author of the OASES) spoke on Pearson’s behalf as the sponsor for the Researcher-Academic Town Meeting this year. He made the connection between his research goals and the desire to disseminate that research through publications to the greater profession. “A good partnership,” he reflected, as he reviewed the last years of his work with colleagues around the country and with Pearson. Thanks, Scott!

How creative are our students in the professions? Very! The NSSHLA luncheon and awards ceremony was filled with great service acknowledgments, healthy competition, and fantastically creative student-made videos. If you have any concern about the future of our professions, they will be put to rest as you spend more time with our amazing and talented cadre of new professionals.

A new technology option for your next presentation! Presenters Judy Montgomery and Barbara Moore, who always have excellent content and great interaction within their sessions, used a tool called Polleverywhere.com—session participants responded to several questions via text message and watched their results tally instantly on screen!

And, still going strong 43 years after the first PLS was published, Dr. Irla Lee Zimmerman joined us in the booth to meet customers and answer questions about PLS-5. She had a great time talking with SLPs about the new test and the Spanish and Screening editions coming out next spring.

Members of the Pearson team were delighted to attend the annual ASHFoundation Founders Breakfast on Friday during the 2011 ASHA Convention. The ASHFoundation recognized 42 outstanding students, research scientists, and clinical professionals with $237,000 in scholarships, research grants, and awards. It is great to be able to support the legacy of the ASHFoundation. Click here to meet this year’s awardees: http://www.ashfoundation.org/news/2011-ASHFoundation-Awardees

On Monday August 8, 2011, Sarah James presented: Build a Foundation for Treatment in the First Weeks of School. The first weeks of school can be stressful and chaotic – instead of begging for “times that might work,” this session provides clinicians with strategies that help you build a solid foundation of quality support services with your teams that impact the whole school year.

You may watch the recording here:

**please note that CEUs were only offered for attending the live webinar. We are unable to provide CEUs for watching the recording.**

Pearson was honored to be the Corporate Partner at the ASHA Schools Conference 2011, held in National Harbor, Maryland. We were delighted to have the opportunity to meet school-based SLPs and SLPAs from all across the country–so much enthusiasm and excitement! Clinicians were energized by the speakers who addressed timely topics, from autism, to social competence, to literacy, to new technology, to articulation and fluency.

Judy Montgomery, author of the Bridge of Vocabulary, presented a full day of training, with sessions on vocabulary assessment and research based interventions. Many folks dropped by to take a look at the new Preschool Language Scale-5 (PLS-5) and got a preview of the PLS-5 Spanish that will be released in Spring, 2012. The sessions addressing literacy and RTI brought clinicians by the booth to see the Assessment of Literacy and Language (ALL), an assessment that enables you to identify children at-risk for reading difficulties due to an underlying language disorder for children Preschool through Grade 1 and the new Oral Language Acquisition Inventory-2 (OLAI-2), a tool that integrates assessment and intervention for children Pre-K through Grade 6.

We had the opportunity to chat with clinicians who provide services for preschoolers, those who specialize in adolescent language, and those who work primarily with English Language Learners. The dedicated therapists we talked with provided valuable suggestions and feedback to improve assessment practices and provide guidance for clinicians in the trenches. Clinicians interested in participating in standardization research were guided to our website at http://psychcorp.pearsonassessments.com/pai/ca/FieldTesting/FieldTesting.htm to sign up for testing.

To wrap up the conference, several of us attended Michelle Shearer’s presentation on Sunday. Michelle is the 2011 National Teacher of the Year. Her focus on the importance of communication and the personal connection that is critical to motivate students to achieve struck a chord with the audience (of course!), who gave Michelle a standing ovation.

We look forward to meeting you at next year’s conference in Milwaukee, WI!

You can watch the recording of “Preschool Language Scales-5: Assessing Language From 0-7″ below.

You can download the slides here.

**please note that CEUs were only offered for attending the live webinar. We are unable to provide CEUs for watching the recording.**

In no particular order, here are they are! Our Top 10 of 2010 for Speech-Language-Hearing professionals:

1. ASHA Honors recipients–including authors and colleagues Drs.  Judy Montgomery and Wayne Secord!
2. ASHA Fellows–including inaugural and current EBP Briefs editors and colleagues Drs. Laura Justice and Chad Nye!
3. Noted author, researcher, and all-around gentleman, Dr. Ronald Goldman, was the 2010 Frank R. Kleffner Lifetime Clinical Career Award recipient. Congratulations, Dr. Goldman, it was well-deserved!
4. Mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android: Smarty Ears, Proloquo to Go, and many, many more. Apple also set up a section in their App Store called “Special Education: Learning for Everyone.”
5. Healthcare Legislation: love it or hate it– and there’s certainly no shortage of controversy– this was certainly a notable event this year.
6. Social Media goes mainstream: One word: #SLPeeps!
7. OASES record forms for children as young as 7. Ok. We know this one’s about us, but we’re excited about it. There are plenty of stuttering severity measures out there. Instead, OASES assesses the impact of stuttering on the person who stutters in multiple areas of life. By Dr. J. Scott Yaruss, Dr. Bob Quesal, and Craig Coleman.

Yes. That’s only seven. But we want hear from you– what are three more things you’ll remember most about 2010? Sound off in the comments.

Love in Philadelphia, via littleli1985 on Flickr.com

The time has passed…and I’m pausing again to reflect on insights and wisdom I should be taking away from this year’s ASHA Convention in Philadelphia, PA.

Aside from the great turnout, which always gets me excited (many colleagues having great conversations), I can think of three take-aways:

1. The fact that SLPs are entrepreneurial is a feature of our culture.

If I had a nickel for every SLP who had developed a product/procedure/tool they and perhaps others use, I’d retire today. When a gap exists in resources, SLPs as a general rule are not complainers–they fill the gap themselves. This feature of our apparent make-up is encouraging in so many ways and I’m convinced that the efforts are done in the spirit of improving peoples’ lives through better communication. I’m also encouraged by the fact that more SLPs have felt compelled to employ evidence-based practice guidelines in the development of these tools, including reliability and validity measures. One specific example is treatment fedelity–it’s one thing to say, “It works for me” and quite another to say, “It works for anyone.” Of course, there is also the issue of whether or not “it” actually “works.” But we’re getting more and more attuned to the best process for tool and resource development, not just the end product itself. We must hold the bar high for publishing efforts in our midst–for ourselves and for others. I observed the trend going in the right direction at ASHA this year.

2. Our personal/consumer knowledge and our professional knowledge continue to blur…and that’s a good thing.

I noted a session titled, “(C)APD Therapy from the Palm of Your Hand” by Donna Geffner and Bunnie Schuler. Paging through the handout, I was literally amazed at what technology will offer to extend the evidence-based priniciples of treatment. What we learn in the consumer world of our personal lives we can extend into our professional contexts. SLPs can be particularly adept at this “congruence”–the alignment of all the parts of our lives into one identity, one skill set, one person. Especially in early adopters of technology (not necessarily age-related, of course), one could see evidence at ASHA of technology and practices you see on the news at home each night. We bring the best of our worlds into our practice. That’s not just being tech-savvy–that’s being relevant.

3. We need more PhDs, and our flexibility to this end is improving.

The Researcher-Academic Town Hall meeting was packed again this year, and the topic was the PhD. That is, we need more of them in our professions who choose to enter research tracks in academia and build the next generation of professionals. While the “PhD shortage” drum beat has been sounding for multiple years now, this meeting focused on the flexibility of what can be done to make that outcome a reality. The presenters outlined strategies for allowing professionals who are not able to go the “traditional” PhD route to achieve the terminal degree all the same. What a wonderful, inclusionary direction for our professions and I applaud and support all those who are using the height of creativity and innovation to make this happen.

For these and so many other reasons, ASHA was, once again, a great convention!

What did you learn at Convention this year?

a 6' tall Mr. Bear (PLS-5)

Some photos from the 2010 ASHA Annual Convention on our Facebook page (if you haven’t already, make sure you click the button.). Ok. Here’s a peek (on the left).

Find out what some of Pearson’s SLPs were up to at the 2010 ASHA Convention

If you’re looking for something to really sink your digital teeth into, check out this Primer on Psychometrics from Pearson VP of Development, Dr. Larry Weiss, and Pearson Sr. Research Director, Pat Zureich, MA, CCC-SLP.

ASHA has a fantastic blog, ASHAsphere. It’s full of great content from a number guest-writers. Check out their posts recapping the 2010 ASHA Annual Convention.

If you haven’t joined (or don’t want to join) the conversation on Twitter, be sure to at least check out this search for #SLPeeps on Twitter every so often. The hashtag #SLPeeps is what SLPs on Twitter use to keep track of professional conversations.

Need some last-minute ASHA CE credit? Dr. Chad Nye will be presenting a free webinar on December 16, titled Evidence-Based Practice: Clinician’s Tutorial for What Works. Space is limited, so register early!

Six SLPs who work for Pearson Assessment travelled to the 2010 Annual American Speech-Language Hearsing Association‘s (ASHA’s) Annual Convention in Philadelphia, PA: (L-R, above) Patricia Zureich, Marie Sepulveda, Shannon Wang, Nancy Castilleja (writing this post!), Lois Gregory, and (not pictured) Tina Eichstadt.

Lois is technically the newest member of the team—her “first day” with the Pearson’s speech and language crew was November 22^nd. Lois was not exactly brand new to Pearson—she had previously worked with us for 16 years before working for a company specializing in educational research. We’re glad to have her back!

Marie Sepulveda, a bilingual speech-language pathologist, was also new to the team—she began working for Pearson in August. Marie’s clinical experience in Florida and Texas make her a great asset to the team!

Shannon, Pat, Tina, and I have worked for Pearson for many years. We were excited to meet with potential new authors and talk with SLPs from around the country (and around the world) at the Pearson exhibit.

I was a co-presenter at two ASHA sessions this year focusing on working with student from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds:

Session  1566

Assessment 360˚: Taking a Panoramic Approach with English Language Learners.

Presenters: Nancy Lewis, Barbara Rodriguez, Nancy Castilleja, Barbara Moore

This session provided a case study to demonstrate an assessment process to evaluate ELLs, using a test battery tailored to the child’s needs.

Session 1728

Keys to Successful Early Intervention: A Multi-Pronged Approach

Presenters: April Smith, Nancy Castilleja

This session described an intervention approach that combined direct speech-language training, in-classroom language facilitation training, literacy mentors, and a home program. Pre- and post-testing with PLS-4 showed significant gains in preschoolers language-literacy skills.

If you’d like to see the handouts for these sessions, they’re available on ASHA’s website. You can search by presenter name and/or session number.