Oso Therapy (Page 1)

Black Lives Matter

Recent years have shown us that we have much work to do to learn to face our country’s racist past and work towards a better future. That means celebrating diversity, recognizing the significant harm that both in the past and in the present, and collectively working towards equity for

Bilabials and Velars: The Phonetics of Beatboxing

A few weeks ago, I watched a video of beatboxing great and first female beatboxing world champion Butterscotch [https://butterscotchmusic.com] featured by Jason Kottke [https://kottke.org/20/04/boots-cats-a-world-champ-explains-the-13-levels-of-beatboxing-complexity] . Beatboxing has long fascinated me, possibly dating back to when I first heard Matisyahu beatbox [https://www.youtube.com/

What's new with Oso Therapy

Since my last post here, there’s been some changes here at Oso Therapy. It’s been in the works for a while, but I have taken the step from a web-based idea and blog and steadily built it into an independent therapy practice! Oso Therapy is a 100% independent

See you at ASHA!

I’ll be presenting at the annual ASHA Convention in Boston this year. If you’re planning to attend, I hope to see you there. If you’re interested, I will be presenting a poster and a seminar: > How Do You Say Hello? Working With Limited-English-Speaking Individuals With Neurogenic Impairment

Stephen Hawking, 1942-2018

Rest in peace [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/14/obituaries/stephen-hawking-dead.html] to a legend not only to the physicist community, but the AAC and ALS communities. As a long-time Pink Floyd fan, I have always loved and appreciated the power of 1994’s Keep Talking [https://www.youtube.

Football and TBI

Five years ago, I wrote a post on Super Bowl Sunday about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE. In 2015, a movie called Concussion hit theaters. One of the challenges facing diagnosis was that it was previously only able to be identified with an autopsy. In November 2017, a report was

Read My Lips

Reading lips is assumed to be a skill that’s easy to acquire. The go-to strategy for hearing people when talking to Deaf and hard of hearing people is to speak louder and to over-enunciate. This can be a mixed bag, as really the only helpful part would be the

Notes on Life and Death

In my work in acute care, I loved working with palliative care teams. Striving for quality of life, and dignity in death, is something I care about deeply. While I am less involved in this work in my current outpatient setting, this still comes up for certain patients, such as

The Importance of Sleep

Sleep is an important part of healthy functioning, and an even more important part of recovery from injury. Over at Fast Company [https://www.fastcompany.com/3057465/why-six-hours-of-sleep-is-as-bad-as-none-at-all] , I recently saw an interesting report on a study about sleep deprivation. What stood out right way was this (emphasis is mine)

ASHA Convention 2017

I’m heading to the ASHA Convention in Los Angeles [https://www.asha.org/events/convention/], and it’s looking to be a great convention. I’ll presenting a poster this year, so if you’re up and around for an early Saturday morning, stop by and say hello! Oriented

ASHA Leader: Beyond Word-for-Word Interpreting

This month, I was honored to write a cover article for the ASHA Leader. It covered one of my great passions: working with interpreters in clinical settings. “Just say what I’m saying, word for word!” It’s common for interpreters to hear this from clinicians. But this statement can

On the 2018 Budget

Hard though it is to witness, it's an important time to be paying attention to the wider world. ASHA's blog recently had a succinct overview of how the current administration's proposed budget for fiscal year 2018 [http://blog.asha.org/2017/05/24/trump-administration-releases-fiscal-year-2018-budget-request/] may potentially affect clinicians. Particularly pertinent

Coding & Billing

More on Coding

Speaking of coding, ASHA also has a nice overview of procedure codes (Current Procedural Terminology, aka CPT) for speech pathologists. The frequently asked questions page has some good overviews and explanations of changes. ASHA's website is a great resource and a great way to stay current. When I first transitioned

Coding & Billing

Learning to Code

The move from ICD-9 to ICD-10 was an interesting one, but didn’t end up being as challenging as I had anticipated. Perhaps that’s in part because online resources are plentiful, and also might be because electronic medical records help organize things. When I first transitioned from acute care

Hello, Oso

After about a year of thinking about it, a steady year of research, and then a commitment to the process of starting a business, I'm thrilled to introduce Oso Therapy. Right now, Oso Therapy is an independent operation which serves as a web presence and blog. As I work on

The Bug

Shortly after returning from the ASHA Connect conference, I got word that the paper I submitted for the ASHA Convention in November was accepted. It will be a two-hour seminar and will be a more in-depth version of my poster. If you're interested in learning about working with interpreters in

Poster Tips

My recent poster presentation at the ASHA Connect Conference was not initially planned that way. The paper I submitted was for a two-hour session. I expressed a willingness to change formats, since it was my first time going through this process and I felt I could benefit from it most

Presented

It's hard to believe that nearly a month has passed since the ASHA Connect conference. It may have passed in a blur, but I've taken and applied so much of what I learned there. An excellent experience from start to finish. Also, this happened: This was my first time to

Presenting

It turns out there's a lot of work between writing a proposal for something and then bringing that something to life. In preparing for my very first poster presentation, I've come to understand that like with many endeavors, the work you end up doing often seems much different than what

Rainbow Bridge

It's been two weeks, and the tragic shooting in Orlando is still strong in my mind, and I know I'm not alone. A few years ago, I met Crom Saunders at an interpreting conference, where I attended a few of his workshops. His poetry is captivating, and he created a

Perspective

As with many things in life, the people to listen to in difficult times is the people who have first-hand experience. From Gabby Giffords [https://medium.com/@GabbyGiffords/no-bill-no-break-812a94ef60bb?source=linkShare-92f0d2c5db73-1466998513] : > The victims are young and old — but always with so much life ahead of them. They are white and

Heartache

On Saturday, I was celebrating Pride [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_pride] with my beloved LGBTQ community. From the moment I attended my first Pride celebration over ten years ago, I was awash with the feelings of genuine love, acceptance, and beauty I found there. For someone who spent

Motivation

When I worked in acute care, I was a strong advocate for the idea that everyone deserves a chance to get therapy. I still believe that strongly, but having now worked in both home health and outpatient settings (in addition to previous placements also in skilled nursing facilities during my

Response Time

Some days, one patient encounter gone awry can feel like it throws off the entire day. Give it some distance, though, and zoom out for better perspective, and suddenly it's clear that there are many ways to respond to the same problem. If every patient we encounter has the same

Taking Chances

For a couple of years now, I've been talking about wanting to develop continuing education workshops. I have loose sketches of ideas in various places, but little in the way of something cohesive. Early this year, I saw a call for proposals for the ASHA Connect conference. I attended this