Workshops for Speech Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, Special Education and English as a Second Language Teachers.

Accent Reduction 101

Return to Life After a Brain Injury or Stroke

Articulation and Language Intervertions that Work!

Accent Reduction 101
Expand your Career in Corporate Communication by Offering Accent Reduction Services and Learn How to Start A Small Business!

Course Description for Accent Reduction 101

Offering accent reduction services is a great opportunity for language professionals. Many individuals want to speak American English more accurately and corporations seek out professionals skilled in this area. Accent Reduction 101 fully outlines how to identify accented patterns and demonstrates a full step-by-step program on how to offer accent reduction services.
This course will show you how to:

• Identify and compare many accented habits across cultures.
• Teach American intonation that dramatically improves speech intelligibility and modifies accents.
• Learn functional, real world teaching approaches for busy professionals to do during their workday, creating “natural” rehearsal.
• Become skilled at teaching tricky consonant and vowel sounds that transition smoothly into conversational speech through a simple hierarchy.
• Learn how to identify and minimize facial and laryngeal tension that influences accented speech.
• Learn how to assess and profile of wide variety of accented speech patterns using real speech samples.

By the end of this course, you will have all of the materials, treatment approaches and assessment skills needed to successfully analyze and reduce someone's accent. Included in your course is the Accent Reduction 101 Instructor's Manual .

In addition to learning how to modify an accent, you will also be trained on the basics of beginning and operating a small business.

• Learn the difference between marketing and advertising and get the best out of both with little money.
• Become skilled at evaluating your community and identifying several opportunities to promote your services, most of them free of charge.
• Gain insider tips on how to approach corporations.
• Learn the techniques on how to present fees with confidence.
• A wide variety of local and national resources will be shared to help you become business savvy and ready to expand your career in corporate communication.

Working with business professionals, corporate executives, public speakers and actors who want to reduce their accent is exciting and having a small business is gratifying. Come learn how to have both with this information packed course.

Accent Reduction 101 Course Outline

8:00-8:30 Registration

8:30-9:00 Learning the typical accented behaviors across many cultures

9:00-9:30 Techniques on getting your busiest client to use their new skills out in the real world

9:30-10:15 Intonation: The foundation for having American sounding speech

•  How to teach American speech melody

•  Strategies that will slow down fast speech

•  Eliminating facial and laryngeal tension

10:15-10:30 Break

10:30-11:00 Clinical Practicum: Applying techniques on how to reduce an accent

11:00-12:00 Assessing and profiling regional and foreign speech

•  Analyzing auditory accented speech samples

12:00-1:00 Lunch (on your own)

1:00-1:45 Techniques and strategies for teaching correct pronunciation of consonant and vowel sounds

1:45-2:15 Presenting the most expanded /R/ and /L/ program anywhere

2:15-2:30 Break

2:30-4:00 Turn your new skills into cash! How to start a small business

•  Techniques on how to present fees and program recommendations

•  Basic business plan development

•  The difference between marketing and advertising

•  Opportunities to promote your services in your own community

•  Local and national networking and small business resources

•  Finding the right clients who can pay for your services

4:00 Adjourn

Past Participant Comments:  

“I have taken other accent reduction workshops in the past and this course clearly told me everything I needed to know about accented speech.”

“I feel very confident that I can begin my business immediately and be great with accent reduction.”  

“This approach on how to lose an accent is so practical. I can't wait to begin.”  

“Elizabeth Peterson is a high energy speaker and was so approachable with questions. She knows this subject well.”

Review the About the Director, for a detailed background summary on your presenter.

Visit the Bookstore for similar products.

This seminar offers both new and seasoned therapists a fresh approach to delivering functional, real-life programs that are interesting and motivating for all, the client, therapist and caregiver. Due to the current trends of shorter rehabilitation programs, higher caseloads, multiple job sites and the new demand of offering evidence based services, speech pathologists and occupational therapists are challenged to offer clients quality therapeutic experiences. This program will provide several functional, evidence based therapy approaches for clients functioning at a basic language and cognitive level, to clients with emerging executive functioning skills as well as community integration. This course will present many strategies that supports evidence based practice and are ideal for today's shorter program length. These activities are purposeful to the client's needs and can be created on site at no cost.

In addition, intervention programming will be discussed that advocates the need for the profession and services to be delivered by a licensed therapist. Third party reimbursement and eliciting physician and other team member support will be incorporated through the activities. Tasks will also be presented that are well suited for individuals with limited hobbies, interests or responsibilities. Functional assessment will be discussed that teaches therapists to determine how much language and cognitive support is required for clients to complete goal-directed and functional tasks in 30 minutes or less. At the end of the seminar, you will feel refreshed and inspired with new and innovative activities, as well as strategies to meet your client's needs.  

Course Objectives:

• Be able to create a wide variety a basic skill and higher level evidence based activities for clients.
• List 30 or more strategies to offer clients or family members to improve independence.
• Assemble several basic skill tasks or “kits” for low level language and cognitive clients.
• Offer activities that challenges alternating and divided attention and other higher cognitive and linguistic skills.
• Learn how to facilitate insight and awareness into deficits.
• Present useful activities to clients with unique personalities, limited hobbies, interests or household responsibilities.
• Assess a client's language and cognitive level and determine how much support is needed to follow through on functional tasks in 30 minutes.

Returning to Life the Functional Way!  

8:00-8:25 Registration

8:30-8:45 Clinical Values for Functional and Evidence Based Programs

8:45-9:30 Basic Skill Programs Activities for clients presenting at a lower language/cognitive level with emphasis on identifying different clinical environments and group therapy.

9:30-9:45 Break

9:45-10:30 Clinical Practicum: Developing Programs for Basic Skill Clients

10:30-11:00 Demonstration of Functional Real-Life Reading and Writing Activities

11:00-11:30 FAST: Functional Adult Screening Tool. Informal measures on how to determine how much support a client needs for successful follow through on goal directed tasks in the area of language and cognition.

11:30-12:00 Case Study Presentation: TBI and Basic Skill Functional Therapy

12:00-12:45 Lunch

12:45-1:15 Evidence Based Programming -
Current expectations. Where to get it and how to do it.

1:15-1:45 Facilitating Insight and Awareness into Deficits

1:45-2:30 Clinical Practicum: Strategy Training Boot Camp

Brainstorming multiple strategies! Techniques for strengthening team communication and interaction for follow through on strategies and goals.

2:30-2:45 Break

2:45-3:45 Executive Functioning Program Development

Demonstration of higher level functional activities to facilitate successful transition into the home and community.

3:45-4:00 Case Study Presentation: Temporal Meningitis and Higher Skill Programs.

4:00 Adjourn

Past Participant Comments  

“I have been a therapist for over 30 years and this was the best seminar and intervention program I have been to in my career.”

“The information was awesome, very user friendly, practical and functional.

Excellent information from beginning to end.”

  “Relevant and timely topic that was well prepared, organized and sincere. Ms. Peterson understands the demands of our changing. Great job”!

  “This program was so functional and made so much sense. My patients will truly benefit from me taking this course. I highly recommend it.”

Review the About the Director, for a detailed background summary on your presenter.

Visit the Bookstore for similar products. 

Articulation and Language Interventions that Work!

S.O.S- Strategies Offer Solutions with the New D.O.E.S. Delivery Model

S- S elect 3 easy SOS strategies that works  

O- O rganize the instruction using the new D.O.E.S Delivery Model

S- S et up a program that is evidence-based and supports Response to Intervention in all classroom settings.

This approach incorporates highly effective visual, auditory and tactile prompts by using evidence-based strategies for a wide range of articulation, fluency and language/cognitive disorders. Participants will learn the “ S.O.S ” formula which uses 3 easy directions/strategies grouped in a mnemonic to obtain specific skills from students. Focused instruction will teach participants how to implement S.O.S's unique D.O.E.S. Delivery Model, which takes a student from a dependent state of constantly being prompted of “what to do”, to a higher level of independence where a student “ D.O.E.S ” the desired behavior with more independence and less prompting. Strategies presented are very easy to implement, practical and will result in functional outcomes that will make a real difference in the student's classroom experience. Participants will leave the course with knowledge and materials that will improve articulation and language skills as well as being better prepared for the I.E.P. process and Response to Intervention.

By conclusion of the course participant will achieve the objectives:

Learn strategies using this format for all common articulation errors

Past Participant Comments

•  I've been to 3 seminars in my 25-year career that I consider “life changing” on how I operate. This is one of the best and most important seminars I have ever attended.

•  “It was helpful to hear first hand accounts of this strategy and know that it is adaptable for a number of different student populations.”

•  “It has really helped me to frame all my hopes and expectations for my student's progress using the S.O.S language.”

•  “Can't get enough – one of the best presentations I have ever attended. What a thinking shift! I know it will increase my effectiveness and decrease my stress.”

•  “Strategy based therapy makes so much sense to me and helps us to make therapy much more meaningful.”

Visit the Bookstore for similar products.

22344 E. Kenyon Place
Aurora, Colorado 80018
Phone: 303-330-3309
Fax: 303-862-9770