What is the difference between the home edition ($69.95) and the professional edition ($149.95)?
The Home and Professional Editions target
In the Professional Edition, educators
Also, the home edition allows only 1-4 students to be programmed in and the professional is unlimited. However, you can always add, subtract, and modify the students on the program if you can only justify the cost of the home edition.
Now onto the descriptions of each activity and how you can incorporate it into your speech sessions!
Are you thinking, “But I work with groups of students! How can I use this with all at once?” The same way you may use an app, or take turns in CandyLand during speech sessions! You can have students take turns after each turn, you can use this on a Smart Board, or you can have one student working on the computer, one with you on an iPad, and the rest doing review work at a table. I personally like the idea of teaching the students to be patient and take turns! They can learn from each others’ correct and incorrect responses. Although they may not be playing at that particular time, if you teach them to sit and follow along, they will get extra exposure to the tasks as well.
Overall concept of program, students become Recall Agents and help save “MemoryTown” from Dr. Forgetsit while learning key strategies for remembering numbers, words, sentences, and stories. You can set up that after several correct responses they can be rewarded with a game that is built into the program. Each activity starts with a cute animation that introduces the activity and explains what the students will have to do. My students could not get enough of these animations!! They thought it was hysterical!!
For all activities, you can set up ahead of time, the amount of background noise, and which tasks to start and stop with (length and complexity). You can set this up before the students enter by adjusting their settings if you have their names entered in the program.
Memory for Numbers (3-7 digits):
Your students will be shown a key pad and will hear a string of digits. They must repeat the numbers to themselves using strategies such as chunking, singing to self, asking for repetition if necessary (I provided the repetition) to recall the numbers and plug it into the key pad to open the lock. Such a functional and motivating way to work on digit recall!
Memory for Words (3-5 words):
For this task, students will be shown an array of pictures (3-6) and will hear a list of words. They must attend, retain, and recall the order of the words presented. Then they must click them in order. It is important that they know the vocabulary ahead of time so it is truly a memory task not assessing vocabulary. Again, I reviewed with my students our strategies for listening and remembering. I allowed them to ask me for repetition or clarification if necessary. I think it is important that our students learn to advocate for themselves and feel comfortable asking help from a teacher or adult.
Memory for Details (1-4 details):
Students are shown various scenes with different cartoon characters. They must listen and look for the missing “agent.” They hear a description of a character and must listen, recall and find what was heard. In addition to reviewing memory and listening strategies, I think it is important to review descriptions ahead of time. Freeze an image from the program that shows a scene, how many people do you see? How are they similar and different? One girl is wearing a red shirt and the other is wearing yellow. What can we listen for: boy/girl, clothing colors, actions, locations, hair color, if wearing glasses, etc? You can probably follow up this activity with a barrier game where your students provide the descriptions and their peers must locate the characters.
Auditory Closure (sentence completion):
I thought this activity was hysterical! There was a screen telling the students a message that kept getting cut out (realistic right?!). The students had to listen and use clues and background knowledge to figure out what word is missing from the message. They are provided choices by putting the mouse over the different colored boxes. They must listen to the choices and remember the sentence they heard as well! Then they click the box that has the correct missing word to complete the sentence. Some phrases of sentences included: “peanut butter and _____” and “Jack and Jill fell up a _____.” It was very interesting to see which students had difficulty with this task. It required many skills! They had to attend, listen, and use reasoning skills to think and find the answer.
Memory for WH Information (2-3 sentences/2-4 Questions):
For this activity, students will listen to a plan and must respond to a wh- question based on information heard. It is important to remind your students to listen (and take notes if capable) for who, what, where, when, and why of the information heard. One feature I liked about this was the ability to hear the information again. My students got so focused on the question they forgot what they heard. I worked with them to click to hear again instead of guessing. I used mini dry erase boards with Boardmaker symbols taped on to create a “graphic organizer” for note taking. This made note taking fun and motivated while we played the game. It is a great skill for students to work on and correlates to expectations in the classroom.
Overall, I think this program is great! It allows you to modify and create individualized settings. You can monitor progress and email/print scores (data collection woohoo!). Since it is the end of the school year, it is difficult to tell you how my students progressed over time (I only received the program last week!). But I have some ideas of how I want to incorporate this program into my sessions next year. I plan on selecting several students that I feel will truly benefit from it. I will teach each strategy and good listening behaviors. I always use “whole body listening.” I will try and post some materials I use for that another time. I will try and use this program in the beginning to collect a baseline. I will determine which tasks were the most difficult at what levels and complexities. Based on this information, I will create different lessons to build memory and practice using strategies: repeating to self, asking for repetition, note taking, listening for key words, making guesses using clues, singing to self to help recall, picturing it in your head, mnemonic devices, chunking, etc. As a reward, I will let the students play on the computer using this program. I will monitor the progress through the data collection feature and work accordingly. I think this program is great to reinforce yet teach at the same time.
Does this program align with common core state standards? YES!! If you visit the Super Duper Website, you can view it for yourself. View the “learn more” page here for links to information regarding research and common core. It also has more tables that demonstrate the difference in the two editions.
Are you intrigued yet?? I hope so!! Check this product out, read reviews, watch videos, read research, and try it out on their website. It also shows the different strategies that you can copy and print for your students! I recommend this program for all speech-language pathologists working with school-aged children with poor auditory memory/comprehension, processing difficulties, and weaknesses in attending to auditory information. Have you used this program? What do you think?! http://www.hearbuilder.com/auditoryMemory/
