Can you introduce yourself and describe your role?
I am Dana Hamburg, a licensed and certified Speech-Language Pathologist in Oregon, USA. I recently retired with over 30 years of experience. I worked in the public school system, mainly with elementary-aged children aged 5 to 12, with shorter periods with both middle and high school-aged students. One of my privileges was also working with and supervising speech-language pathology university interns working toward their Clinical Fellowship Year (CFY) prior to licensure. Now, I completely enjoy creating Boom Cards for my fellow SLPs! I am able to put my experience and knowledge into projects that support other SLPs and feed my creative soul at the same time!
In what ways have Boom Cards been a game-changer for your sessions?
Boom Cards have made quality instruction easier and more accessible for both myself and my students. The planning time for developing lessons, creating materials, and searching for evidence-based therapy materials decreased dramatically and became almost enjoyable, dare I say! I found I was looking forward to specific challenges with children and how Boom Cards might help me address their needs. It seemed I could focus more on the therapy lesson and my approach rather than managing materials.
For my students with communication disorders and often other compounding deficits, having interactive therapy resources that kept them focused on learning was refreshing. Boom Cards allowed me to enjoy and have a renewed excitement about therapy again.
How do you integrate Boom Cards into your work?
I have used Boom Cards in all levels of therapy and with children having a variety of disabilities. Boom Cards are easily adaptable for either one-on-one sessions or group therapy, as well as in-person or virtual instruction. Boom Cards allowed me to do more in-class instruction while not having to carry my therapy materials around the school. This allowed me to also pull kids out for short 5-10 minute intervals in a hallway throughout the week.
This lessened the transit time for children between their classroom and the therapy setting, saved time for me and strain on my back from hauling materials/resources. I also wasn’t digging through file cabinets or cubbies, nor frantically searching through resource books to find or create specific materials for my lessons. Everything I needed was at my fingertips, or rather, on my iPad. Additionally, Boom Cards provided the format for educational assistants to support my students’ learning and communication development toward their IEP goals with ready-to-go lessons.
Can you share a success story or a particularly rewarding experience you’ve had while using Boom Cards?
One of my students with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Specific Learning Disabilities was particularly challenging. Executive functioning for him was very limited. Finding resources that piqued his attention and kept him motivated was a weekly effort. Introducing Boom Cards to him was a game-changer! Combining graphics, interactive play, and audio buttons gave him a sense of self-control in his learning.
He looked forward to completing or engaging in new decks and would ask for specific ones that he had been successful in completing. Repeated practice and integrated learning gave me data reflecting increased target skills that I could measure and track. He also found it exciting and seemed to gain a sense of pride to see his progress when we reviewed his Boom Cards report card together.
How do Boom Cards cater to the diverse needs of the learners you teach?
As a Speech-Language Pathologist, my caseload included a hugely diverse population from basic articulation to language, autism, and cognitive challenges. The range of learning abilities was always vast. With a wide variety of resources and topics to choose from within the Boom platform, finding an activity or learning resource has never been a challenge. I love that this platform is sensitive to the needs of diverse as well as typical learners. The integration of accessibility features makes it ideal for all learners at any level.
Do you create custom Boom Cards? If so, what’s your process?
I started creating Boom Cards in 2020 when virtual instruction was so critical to our students. Over the past few years, I have developed a process and strategy for creating Boom Cards. Initially, I reflect on which topic or area I want to address. I reflect on my instructional passions, past student needs, current research, and evidence-based practices. Once I decide on my target student and topic, I begin thinking about the content and how to integrate metacognitive strategies to improve the potential for learning. Finally, I add accessibility features that support the usability of my resource with a wider population of students.
How do you ensure that your Boom Cards are engaging and effective for your students?
I integrate metacognitive strategies into my Boom Cards as much as possible. Teaching students to learn but also how to continue learning is every specialist’s, teacher’s, and therapist’s goal. Guiding students to grow into competent learners and communicators is vital for our communities.
Additionally, integrating a mediated learning methodology helps to provide students with the support they need to develop skills on their own. Rather than give students answers when learning is difficult, I try to place scaffolding and hints into my Boom Cards decks to lead students in finding or developing the expected response. I find this builds confidence and motivation to learn.
Have you collaborated with other professionals in creating Boom Cards?
I spent some time collaborating with a vision specialist, learning specialist, occupational therapist, and augmentative communication specialist to develop decks for a specific student with significant learning challenges. Their expertise and knowledge of figure-ground, light and contrast, sizing, and other accessibility knowledge required me to analyze the development of decks for challenged learners and include as many features as I could to make my decks accessible to a variety of learners. Before developing a deck, it’s vital to consider who the deck is for and what accessibility features are needed to expand its potential value and quality.
What changes or improvements have you observed in learners since using Boom Cards?
I have witnessed Boom Cards bolster student engagement and attention for learning. They provided many of my students with a sense of self-competency. As we know, students with deficits or differences often feel defeated and inadequate before being asked to engage in a lesson or therapy session. This is learned behavior based on their experiences in the past. This is also due to their awareness that therapy or instruction is intended to address their deficits or need for new information.
Boom Cards, however, help support these students in a manner that allows learning to look and feel different—and possibly not so threatening when learning is difficult. I have seen students get excited about learning, enjoy learning, and build confidence in learning with Boom Cards!
Are there specific features of Boom Cards that you find most beneficial for therapy sessions?
First of all, the drag-and-drop feature with the correct/incorrect answer option is critical, as it provides immediate feedback for students. It can serve as reinforcement of a concept or a clue to modify their answer. For children who haven’t started to read or have limited reading ability, the audio option is invaluable! It allows children to take control and be more independent with their learning.
With this, they are not dependent on an adult to read directions and valuable information within the lesson. They are given the power to entertain the pleasure of learning on their own terms. The voice option is great for expressive practice of learned content and supports metacognitive learning principles as well as language development. I am hoping that the voice option will develop into a recording that can be saved and later reviewed by SLPs, therapists, and educators. Lastly, the new Ink feature supports imaging and further connection between new information and memory.
How do parents and caregivers respond to the use of Boom Cards in therapy?
From the parents I had shared Boom Cards with, I received nothing but positive remarks. Pushing out Boom Cards to students to practice at home following success in the therapy setting has provided parents with insight into their child’s learning and progress. It’s also more pleasant for parents to encourage their child’s homework using Boom Cards than paper-and-pencil tasks!
What advice would you give to other therapists considering using Boom Cards in their practice?
For busy, on-the-go speech-language pathologists and therapists, using Boom Cards is one of the most positive and effective resources to enhance or even drive your instruction or therapy. Lessons can be easily found by using a search for topic and grade level. Decks have descriptions and can be previewed before purchasing.
Boom Cards:
- are highly engaging and interactive
- target a wide variety of instructional topics and specialties
- provide immediate feedback to the learner
- can be played on smartboards, computers, tablets, and even phones
- work for virtual or in-person learning
- offer no print/no prep digital resources
Additionally, they can also be integrated into response-to-intervention (RTI) procedures along with baseline and progress monitoring. Finally, the Boom Cards platform, with a paid subscription, provides reports on student completion, accuracy, and item analysis for further review when needed.
Can you share some of your favorite Boom Cards or decks that you use regularly?
Prior to retiring and creating my own Boom Cards store, I loved the decks from BVG SLP with great graphics and clear instructions. The “Sequencing Cards” by Speech and Language at Home I used often for a variety of language goals. Honestly though, since I began creating my own Boom Cards, I typically used my own decks. They were often created for specific students’ needs that I was striving to address in therapy.
How do you see the role of digital resources like Boom Cards evolving in the coming years?
With the ever-increasing diversity of educational settings, Boom Cards is an instructional tool that fits anywhere, anytime, and with anyone. Of late, more and more families with children tend to be mobile, making brick-and-mortar schools difficult to attend and receive consistent instruction. Boom Cards helps to fill those gaps. I could also imagine that large educational curriculum developers might seek out this type of resource to make readily available their national core curriculum.
Do you use them as a main tool, reinforcer, or for practice?
I have generally used Boom Cards as the main lesson instructional tool along with a mediated learning approach. By referencing the lesson and visuals on Boom Cards, I would elaborate on the learning ideas, state the learning objective explicitly, and model the first few items.
During the lesson, I might also prompt with questioning strategies that provoke student contemplation and reflection of the lesson. Following the completion of the lesson, I often assigned it as homework for the child to demonstrate and explain what they learned learning at home with caregivers. This reinforced and provided verbalization of the lesson concepts even further. At times, I incorporated a reinforcement deck if needed, but truthfully, the interactive nature of Boom Cards was often the only reinforcement necessary!
How often do you rely on the data tools within Boom Cards to support your instruction?
While working in the schools, the data tools and reports helped to inform my instruction. These tools provided insight into not only baseline growth, but also accuracy, processing time (response time), and item error analysis. This allowed my instruction to target and review specific concepts or lessons that were particularly difficult for the child.
Is there anything else you’d like to share that we haven’t covered?
I appreciate the team at Boom for their dedication and commitment to making sure Boom is relevant, evolving in its accessibility features, and meeting the needs of diverse learners.
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