How to create your own Speech Binders-by Popular demand

Yesterday I wrote about the filing system that I’m using-but binders are my organizational system of choice.  If you have the storage available, binders are a great way to organize your resources as well as your worksheets for therapy OR for home programming.  I wrote about organizing my speech cabinets but had several people who requested more information about how I organize my binders.

Resource Binders:

I have several binders full of resources, therapy ideas and articles that I’ve found over the years.  Part of my job is supervising other therapists, so I find that I use these more when providing suggestions or ideas for others.  I have resource binders for feeding, autism, behavior/ABA, alternative therapies, general language resources and augmentative communication.  Here’s how I’ve organized some of my resource binders: I start each binder with a GOAL tab where I can include sample goals.  Eventually I’ve moved some of these to our goal bank but it is helpful to look at if I’m trying to think of goals or areas to work on. The rest of my resource binders include research articles, handouts, and information related to the main topic.  For example, I have information on PECS, Hyperlexia, Floortime, SCERTS therapy, RDI, and other programs in my binder on Autism.  I also include some sample social stories, information on visual supports, and even a section on toileting.  This is pretty dorky-but I usually take notes when I go to CEU courses and then come home and type them out.  I keep these notes in my binders too.   I’m working on organizing my language binders.  Sarah Peterson has some fantastic tips on how to organize language binders in a hierarchy of skills for a variety of areas (ex. Critical thinking, basic concepts).  I’m not going to share that information because she spent a lot of time deciding and figuring out what made sense to her.  Check out BER seminars to see if she is coming to your area!  (She also has amazing ideas for how to organize smaller therapy spaces.)  I AM going to share how I am trying to reorganize my speech materials and information from CD’s.

Vocabulary:

• General vocabulary lists (ex. first 100 words, Tier 2 vocabulary by grade level etc.)
• Associations
• Analogies
• Synonyms
• Antonyms
• Word retrieval strategies and activities
• Prefix/suffix/root words

Concepts

• Sample Goals
• Developmental Norms
• Visual Attributes (color, pattern, shapes)
• Touch attributes (soft, hard, bumpy)
•  Size attributes (big/little, long/short)
• Sound attributes (loud, quiet, rattling)
• Spatial concepts
• Temporal concepts
• Sequential concepts
• Quantity concepts

Multiple Meaning Words/Figurative language: 

• Sample Goals
• Multiple Meaning Words
• Homophones
• Homonyms
• Idioms
• Jokes/Humor

Categorization:  (I have so many resources-that I ended up creating my own binder for this)

• Category lists and pictures
• Sample goals
• Category Sorting
• Category labeling
• Category naming
• What does not belong

WH Questions: 

• Goals
• Fill in the Blank activities
• Who
• What
• Where
• When
• Why
• How
• Mixed Questions
• Paragraph level comprehension-5 W’s worksheets

Listening:

• Sample Goals
• Whole Body Listening
• Active listening strategies
• Absurdities
• Auditory discrimination
• Targeted listening activities (ex. raise your hand when you hear something that didn’t belong-or raise your hand when you hear a person’s name)
• Single step directions
• 2-3 step directions
• Conditional directions
• Before/after directions
• Main idea/details
• Short paragraph/story comprehension

Syntax:

• Goal Lists
• Target lists for irregular plurals, verbs, etc.
• Auxiliaries is/are
• Regular Past tense
• Irregular Past tense
• Regular Plurals
• Irregular plurals
• Pronouns
• Future tense forms
• Conjunction
• Question reversals
• Noun + verb agreement
• Scrambled sentences
• Writing activities

Social Language

• Goals
• Assessment checklists
• Sample social skills programs
• Play skills
• Pragmatic language and play skills developmental norms
• Emotion pictures
• Situational based emotions with pictures
• Thought bubble activities
• Nonverbal language
• Theory of mind
• Eye contact/eye gaze activities
• Expected/unexpected activity ideas
• Perspective taking actives
• Conversational activities
• Asking Questions
• Making comments

Expressive Language

• Goal ideas
• Sequencing-Procedures
• Sequencing-story retell
• Paraphrasing
• Summarizing
• Narratives

Problem Solving

• Goal ideas
• Compare/contrast
• Fact/opinion
• Identifying problems
• Identifying causes
• Making and explaining inferences
• Providing solutions
• Predicting

Articulation: 

• Developmental norms
• Auditory discrimination
• Phonemic Awareness
• Gestural cues
• Specific phoneme cues/techniques
• Articulation activities
• Phonology activities
• Apraxia activities
• Minimal pairs/contrast phrases
• R and S activities
• Intelligibility
• Carryover

Augmentative Communication

• Goal ideas
• Assessment checklists
• Communication signal inventories
• Low tech activity ideas
• Core word handouts
• Dynavox information
• LAMP
• iPad AAC app information
• Vocabulary storage ideas
• Activity ideas
• Learned helplessness
• Joint Activity routines
• Communication logs
• Lesson plans
• Charting sheets
• Scripting

I also updated my binder spine labels.  You can pick up a FREE copy by clicking on the picture below.

I print them on card stock, cut out and put in the spine of the binder.  If you are having difficulty getting the label in, open the binder wide so that the spine is face up and place the label in.

This is what I have so far-I’m still working on figuring out where it makes the most sense for some of this information to go-for example, where would I be most likely to look for inferencing activities.  Should I include figurative language with multiple meaning words or break it up?  I’d love to hear your thoughts below.  If you think this was a helpful post, please consider sharing on Facebook or Pinterest by clicking on the photos above.

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