Speech Therapy Materials for Bilinguals Who Suffer From Brain Injury, Aphasia, or Dementia

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Assoc. (ASHA) is a great resource for any information on aphasia, dysphasia, dysarthria, brain injury, dementia, and other cognitive impairments. The association even has webpages in Spanish to help guide your clients and their families in understanding conditions such as aphasia, dysarthria, dementia and brain lesions.

The question is, what are the treatment options when a translator or bilingual speech therapist is not available? The few Spanish assessments are limited to individuals of Caribbean and Mexican heritage, as listed on the ASHA website.

The following are bilingual screening tools and therapy workbooks you can use:

SCREENING TOOLS

As part of your dynamic assessment with bilingual clients, consider using the Oral-Motor Skills Checklist. This resource is an excerpt from a new book titled COGNITIVE, COMMUNICATION AND ADAPTIVE THERAPY EXERCISES FOR DAILY LIVING: English and Spanish.

This includes the following screening forms:

1. Oral-Motor Skills Checklist for School
2. Oral-Motor Skills Checklist for Parents in English
3. Oral-Motor Skills Checklist for Parents in Spanish
4. Clinic Dysphasia and Oral-Motor Checklist
5. Speech Agility Screening in English
6. Speech Agility Screening in Spanish

A bilingual workbook by Dr. Cristina Saldaña, CCC-SLP is used by therapists in hospitals, clinics, and schools for screening and therapy purposes. It can be found at this link on Amazon and targets many goals listed below.

Therapy goals for aphasia and/or other cognitive impairments may include the ones addressed in this workbook:

(1) improve skills of daily living

(2) improve functional skills for cell phone, maps, and calculator use

(3) understand how to compare prices when shopping at the store and online

(4) name categories of common items

(5) state functions of common items

(6) recall a series of 3- to 5-words in sequence

(7) answer “wh” questions from verbally presented sentences and paragraphs

(8) answer “wh” questions from written texts

(9) sequence 4+ steps to common tasks

(10) recall details from passages

(11) recall labels of common objects

(12) complete word association tasks

(13) recall words given phonemic clues

(14) recall words that start with a target sound

(15) segment words

(16) accurately insert missing vowels given consonants

(17) accurately insert missing consonants given vowels

(18) recall final syllables in words

(19) match syllables to form words

(20) perform speech agility drills of multisyllabic words

(21) perform speech agility drills of phrases

THERAPY WORKBOOKS

For the best bilingual therapy workbook for adults, consider the following:

Speech Therapy Workbook on Amazon and on Teachers Pay Teachers at a lower cost. Click here Speech Therapy Workbook on TPT. The following objectives are among many that can be targeted in English and Spanish during therapy while using this resource:

(1) improve cognitive skills of daily living

(2) answer "wh" questions about photographs

(3) answer "wh" questions about written texts

(4) recall labels of common objects

(5) state feelings and emotions

(6) state functions and attributes

(7) make inferences

(8) categorize and make lists

(9) make word associations

(10) complete phrases

If your client demonstrates in difficulties in memory, word recall, and/or processing verbal information, the Auditory Processing workbook is most useful.

The following objectives are among many that can be targeted in this workbook:

(1) increase vocabulary knowledge in the categories of animals, household items, school items, vehicles, and food items

(2) recall a series of 3- to 5-words in sequence

(3) repeat sentences of 6+ words given minimal repetitions

(4) increase mean length of utterance to 6+ words

(5) answer “wh” questions from verbally presented sentences

(6) recall details from verbally presented sentences

(7) understand and express the definition of target words

(8) recall labels of common objects given context clues

(9) complete cloze activities by recalling nouns and verbs

(10) recall details from verbal passages

(11) summarize verbal passages by stating at least 4 parts in sequence

(12) use imagery skills to improve memory by drawing and coloring a scene from auditorily presented paragraphs

(13) complete word association tasks

(14) express similarities and differences between associated words

The Following Directions workbook uses pictures of common objects target auditory processing, memory, and comprehension of basic linguistic concepts to assess and treat the ability to follow instructions.

These objectives can be targeted during this activity:

(1) improve receptive vocabulary of basic pictures
(2) increase comprehension of spatial concepts
(3) increase comprehension of temporal concepts
(4) increase comprehension of sequential concepts
(5) increase comprehension of conditional linguistic concepts
(6) follow 1-step directions
(7) follow 2-step directions

(8) follow 3-step directions
(9) follow 4-step directions

The Formulating Sentences workbook is ideal to focus on vocabulary and sentence structure while strengthening fine motor skills.

All worksheets come in English and Spanish so that your clients can practice the skills at school and at home. Additionally, every activity reveals a percentage score that can be used as data points for RTI, therapy progress monitoring, or screening! The workbook includes numerous worksheets to target the following objectives:

(1) formulate sentences of 6+ words given target vocabulary, conjunction and/or dependent clause

(2) the student will use target vocabulary to formulate sentences containing correct grammar

(3) state synonyms for target vocabulary

(4) formulate compound sentences given two target words

(5) formulate compound sentences given three target words

(6) formulate complex sentences given 2+ target words

(7) formulate complex sentences given a dependent clause

SALE ITEMS

To make the workbooks more affordable to therapists, clients and teachers, sections of the books are sold through Teachers Pay Teachers at the Bilingual Resources for Therapists and Teachers store. Therapists, teachers, patients, and parents can sign up for a free account on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Here you can find the bilingual English and Spanish versions of the Phonemic Exercises Workbook and the Cognitive and Communication Therapy Workbook. They can be used for monolingual English speakers, monolingual Spanish speakers, or bilingual individuals.

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