This morning I listened to an Emily Blunt interview on the Howard Stern show, and it was interesting to hear her discuss her stuttering. Emily said she started stuttering at age 7, and she couldn't get a handle on it until she began acting at age 12. Many people know that rhythm and melody improve fluency, but she talked about the psychological side in regard to becoming a character. She described acting as a "removal of self from yourself," and how that idea helped her stuttering. To me it sounded like Emily gained confidence by acting like someone else, and was thus more comfortable being someone else than being herself. Emily went on to say that people on the street have influenced how she played a role. For example, when Emily was doing 'The Devil Wears Prada', she said the following l[...]

Percentally Pro 2 is coming soon! Before it arrives, check out this video preview showing the iPad version. In the video, you’ll see how to collect data during a session, and how to export a student’s data for a select range of dates. Exporting data for a range of dates is very exciting, as it greatly improves the ability to report student progress quarterly and annually.

Over the years of my career as an SLP, I have used several different spreadsheet templates for tracking students’ speech-language service minutes. The spreadsheets allowed me to track a general number of minutes per month; however, I wanted a more detailed form to specifically track services that are different types and frequencies. I was seeking the ability to easily verify that I am providing all speech-language services per students’ IEPs. After searching the Internet and asking colleagues, I couldn’t find anything that met my criteria. So, I decided to create my own spreadsheet that included the following 3 features: 1) Track minutes per week as well as minutes per month 2) Separately track minutes for individual, group, and consultation services 3) Embed formulas to add the minut[...]

We have wanted to revamp the original Percentally app (released in 2009) for sometime now. When we had a chance to work on it, we thought Percentally could be greatly improved with several new features. Users had requested features for conducting group sessions, indicating prompting, and tracking session time, just to name a few. As we began working on adding these new features in a modern, updated interface, we realized it would be best to completely overhaul the app to make Percentally a more comprehensive data collection tool. As a result, we created a robust data collection app that is a Pro version of Percentally. At its core, Percentally Pro revolves around the notion of sessions. Since we know a majority of the work for special education staff such as SLPs, OTs, and special [...]