Hello, hello! I’m back after a little break off-line and full of ideas to share, focusing on how YOU can make your speech therapy sessions with adults functional, meaningful, and relevant. I even re-organized the Idea Blog into searchable topics including Aphasia + Personalized Protocols, Home Sweet Home Topics, Back To Work Topics, Hobby Hub, and Web-Based Therapy Resources. Wouldn’t it be cool if our therapy room file cabinets were organized by activity / participation this way? Feel free to peruse–more ideas will be added each month.
And now, I would like to welcome you to Week 1 of YouTube Treasures!
Plan to find me here for 8 weeks so you have a fresh treasure trove of YouTube videos to use as a vehicle in therapy, with person-centered treatment ideas. If you’re new to YouTube or want some new ideas for how to use these videos in therapy, read on!
Have you ever used a YouTube video during your speech therapy session, or as a home program assignment? Here are a few reasons why I like using YouTube videos as a therapy tool:
*They are interesting and relevant, which promotes therapy engagement.
*They give information in real-life speed (they aren’t over-simplified). This means that skills or strategies practiced with a YouTube video could likely be used in real life as well.
*You can adjust the complexity by choosing different lengths of information.
* Best of all, there are a million (plus!) topic options, so it’s easy to use something personally-relevant for the unique communication needs of a patient.
YouTube Treasure: How To Knit – Knit Stitch
Patient Scenario: A patient post-stroke (left hemisphere) is testing WNL on the Western Aphasia Battery but reports she notices difficulty following conversation. She’s able to follow 3-step commands, but during story retell tasks, she is missing steps. She also mentions that she is recently retired and is teaching herself to knit, but her hospitalization disrupted her progress with knitting.
Video Length: 5:14
Therapy Option: For this unique situation, I would use the 5-minute knitting video in therapy to challenge the patient’s comprehension and have her use strategies that might assist. Then, for a home program, I would assign a 2nd knitting-related video and have her report back on using it to learn a new stitch as comprehension practice (for both skill and strategy). Of course, depending on the unique situation, there may be other ways to use this video in therapy to target other skills–see below for ideas.
Therapy Ideas: If you like these ideas, be sure to check out my Shop. Here are some ways you may be able to incorporate a personally-relevant YouTube Video into speech therapy:
| To Target Strategies or Skills in This Area: | The Patient Could Do This: |
| Verbal Expression | *Explain the steps in how to complete this type of stitch.
*Give a critique of the content (higher level language and formulation). Use new information to give a persuasive report. *Use word-finding strategies to retell procedural information to family member. |
| Written Expression | *Write 4 main points to summarize the information.
*Create an outline to practice written organizational strategies. *Write a summary or evaluation of the topic/speaker . *Write a persuasive essay or position statement in response to the topic. |
| Auditory Comprehension | *Challenge comprehension across listening tasks for *** minutes.
*Practice using strategies such as note-taking to enhance comprehension. |
| Reading Comprehension | (Nope). |
| Motor Speech | *Challenge ability to carry-over motor speech strategy or skill while summarizing or giving a presentation about the topic. |
| Attention | *Sustain attention for listening tasks of *** minutes.
*Sustain attention to complete the knit stitch for *** minutes, with 100% acc for knitting. *Alternate / divide attention for a motor task (such as sorting) while also listening to new information. |
| Memory | *Short-term recall for YouTube procedural info (immediate or delayed up to 1 week). |
| Thought Organization | *Organize an outline of the main points and supporting ideas during the YouTube video. |
| Problem-Solving / Reasoning | *Choose to use the right strategy, at the right time. |
| Executive Function | *Evaluate strategy success during task or plan how to adapt strategies for new situation. |
| Pragmatics | *Use appropriate social language for a verbal task (Practice adjusting to situation: peers vs professional).
*Use appropriate eye contact, facial expression, gestures for presentation. |