Speech with Lisa

I took a walk yesterday-- the first day out of school!!! Awesome. I'd seen one of the pop-up pianos at Highbridge Park during our 2nd-3rd grade historical field trip, and I wanted to know more!!! Imagine my excitement when I saw a brightly painted piano in my very own beloved Inwood HIlls Park. I met my neighbor and her cute 2-year-old there yesterday, and we played our best renditions of 'chopsticks' and 'heart and soul', and then we attempted to sight-read a few of the very multicultural songs provided at the piano... We paid homage to Mozart, we made plans to reconvene at the piano for more music soon, and we went on our merry way. Today: I went for my noon sunshine walk. A cute elementary-school-aged girl and her mother were at the piano, getting ready to play their rendition of 'Lean On Me.' I encouraged this, singing along with my most soulful sound. When they were through, I plopped down and warmed up my fingers with a couple of rusty scales,...

Writing a novel is a great way to improve your language skills!! Here's an excerpt from my first complete novel, written about 6-7 years ago. Enjoy! It all started the day they had the assembly at her school with The Author. Helooked normal. He had brown hair, bespectacled eyes, and a beard and moustache. Hewore a suit, smiled, and held a book in his hand. As he looked over the vast group of assembled children, poking at each other, laughing, and looking at him curiously, he smiled in a very relaxed way. He and the principal were having a little conversation and seemed to be good friends... Then he began to speak. And when he spoke, everyone became quiet. He had a soft voice, but he talked of the most wonderful things. He talked about creating worlds. He talked about creating people. He talked about writing stories. He said that in your stories, you could decide everything. You could decide whoyou wanted in your story, how tall they were, and what they liked to eat for dinner. Y...

Here is some great info for parents of preschool children who are wondering if their child is stuttering and what to do about it... Check it: www.stutteringhelp.org, then click on 'Parents of Preschoolers.' I ABSOLUTELY love this website. You can also find speech language pathologists who specialize in fluency at www.asha.org, the website of the American Speech Language Hearing Association. Thanks to all the great fluency practitioners out there!!!!

I just took an amazing class from the lovely and talented Kristin Chmela regarding her recently released product, "Focus on Fluency." Let me tell you, I'm excited to check it out some more. It's a comprehensive toolkit for working with school-aged children who stutter, and it includes contract cards, home practice ideas, and generalization tools for working in the classroom. It also includes fun games for making stuttering more easy and understandable. Thanks Kristin!!! You are one of my favorite fluency practitioners ever. Kristin works with some of the very best fluency researchers out there, and she's passionate about what she does. I remember working with her at ASHA a few years back, and it was seriously one of the most uplifting, inspiring, and rejuvenating experiences of my professional life. God bless you.

http://stuttertalk.com/2009/02/25/JohnStossel.aspx

I saw 'The Miracle Worker' on Broadway yesterday, and Yes! It was incredible. Yes! Go see it if you can, or at least see the film version or your local theatrical production. Or read the play by William Gibson. There was so much richness there... class struggles, family struggles, giving service, searching for meaning, dealing with loss, losing pride, finding love. I absolutely loved this show and highly recommend it for children and adults of almost any age. May God bless the creative people who brought it into existence.

Acting Lessons for Kids With Asperger Syndrome: Scripts, Prompts, and Visuals Improve AS Students’ Social Skills