July '22 - Bilingualism & top CPD reads

🔥 For this month, we highlighted bilingualism during our interview with Taylor Kreis and key research paper uploaded to our CPD Library, "Bilingual education for young children: review of the effects and consequences"

💻 Online speech and language therapy has been a trending topic in the market, as we share some key articles from the month past speaking about current realities and 2030 visions

👇 If you want to read more about what's been happening with noala and sign up to our next noala club, scroll to the bottom 

☀️ Summer is here, hoping some relaxation is booked into your schedules

💜 Little by little, our community grows, building stronger connections

This month we read, "Bilingual education for young children: review of the effects and consequences" by Ellen Bialystok - full text available on our platform

Key findings from the research paper: 

• There is no credible evidence that bilingual education adds or creates burden for children
• Incontrovertible that it provides the advantage of learning another language and possibly the cognitive benefits of bilingualism
• The overall conclusion from the available evidence is that bilingual education is a net benefit for all children in the early school years

We would love to hear from you! Feel free to share your experience working with bilingual children with the Noala community on our forum

Introducing Taylor Kreis, M.S., CCC-SLP, following our interview about her drive to bilingualism

My passion for bilingualism began when I was in my master's program. I learned about the shortage of bilingual speech-language pathologists (SLPs), how to identify a difference from a disorder, and the importance of a language sample and dynamic assessment. I took this information with me to practice.

As a supervisor, I encouraged my graduate student clinicians to take courses in bilingual/bicultural considerations and pursue becoming a bilingual SLP if they spoke a second language. I put together educational resources: the age of acquisition of phonemes in Spanish and English, language and pragmatic milestones, information about the different Spanish and English dialects (with a focus on characteristics of Spanish-influenced English), and the limitations of standardized assessments due to inherent bias against culturally and linguistically diverse populations. I also shared my activities with them and gave advice on creating their own activities.

I noticed there were not enough bilingual materials available, but this inventory was further reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic when therapists needed digital-only resources for telepractice. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, I, like many other therapists, shifted to telepractice. I pivoted to create digital-friendly activities that were still kid-approved. The best activities are rooted in evidence-based practice, fun and engaging, and allow children to feel confident in building their skills and working towards their goals.

All of these experiences led me to create my own business, Speechabla!

The focus at Speechabla is on providing bilingual materials, activities, educational resources, and services. Currently, I am working on new bilingual articulation and language activities and an ebook. Soon, I hope to launch a mentoring program for undergraduate and graduate students to help answer questions about the field and provide guidance on how to pursue becoming a bilingual SLP.

I hope my website serves as a good source of information for SLPs, graduate students, and parents. I am looking forward to creating new content and connecting with speech therapists worldwide!

Other news we've been reading

👉 School releases the "2030 vision: we need to talk about speech and language" explaining the 90 per cent target won’t be reached without this under-served 1.5 million children

💻 During this month the RCSLT, Voice 21, the national oracy education charity, and I CAN, the children’s communication charity, brought "Over 35 organisations support Schools Bill amendments" 

👶 The Irish Sun news reported, "More than 30,000 children on waiting list for speech and language assessments or therapy services" which reveals the reality of the backlog extent for children therapy services

👀 USA Today News published an article on "Pandemic babies are behind after years of stress, isolation affected brain development", experts saying parents need more support due to children born in the COVID-19 era lag in certain skills and are more prone to challenging behaviours

What's been happening at Noala 

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 During this month, we're thrilled to have launched Noala Hub, opening our online platform to families with children of speech and language difficulties

👩‍👦 Including the release of Noala Connect, allowing our professional subscribers to invite their patients to create a noala profile to access at home digital activities in between sessions, including secured messaging

🌈 Within our community we featured Sophie William's "Telehealth best practices" on our Noala blog, as well as "The evolving SLP practice" by noala ambassador, Sienna Bonomolo-Lenoir

🔥 As of last week, the combined caseload of our active Speech and Language Professionals community includes 200 patients, both children and adults!

🎨 During that same week, close to 100 live sessions occurred on our platform, leveraging our clinically-backed exercises in Noala World 

💸 In spirit of summer, we're delighted to offer 1 month free trial to our Noala Pro platform - make sure you utilise our content team to request new exercises

Join us for 1 month free

Join our next Noala Club

Free online session, led by Sarah Lyons, Noala Clinical Director - we will be discussing AAC, obstacles to effective use and effects of interventions to promote peer interactions

This count as a CPD activity. To received the invite link, register