Can you introduce yourself and describe your role?
I started my career as a pediatric speech therapist in Japan in 1999. After working in a pediatric clinic for four years, I moved to the United States. I earned my master’s degree in speech-language pathology from Portland State University in 2007. After graduating as a speech-language pathologist, I worked in brick-and-mortar and online schools. I also started my private practice in 2009 to serve children who needed Japanese & English bilingual speech-language support. I moved back to Japan in 2018 and am currently providing speech-language therapy services to children with neurodiversity and multilingual/multicultural backgrounds.
What unique insights do you bring to therapy materials and educational technology as a Premier Publisher?
As an English-Japanese bilingual SLP with 25 years of clinical experience serving children with neurodiversity and those with a multilingual/multicultural background, I bring the insights of personalization and global perspective into therapy materials and educational technology. I believe educational materials should be carefully tailored to each child’s needs, preferences, and learning styles to ensure adequate progress. Moreover, these materials must be responsive to each child’s linguistic and cultural background. Incorporating these insights into speech therapy materials and educational technology will help children to achieve adequate progress while maintaining their motivation and engagement.
Can you share a success story or a particularly rewarding experience you’ve had while using Boom Cards?
One girl came to mind when I thought about the most significant impact from my Boom Cards materials. Let me call her “Emily” here. Emily was an eight-year-old Japanese-English bilingual girl with limited receptive and expressive language skills when I started working with her. What I did for Emily in addition to her regular therapy sessions was to create Boom Cards decks for her so she could work on them with her parents outside of the therapy sessions. Emily started to show amazing progress with daily practice using the decks to such a degree that I needed to create and assign new decks almost every one to two weeks!
What made this outcome so exciting or rewarding for you?
It has been very exciting and rewarding to see Emily making great progress in her language skills and becoming more confident, enjoying verbal communication with her parents and me.
How do you ensure your Boom Cards are engaging and effective for your students?
On top of the amazing functions of Boom Cards, my expertise in speech therapy allows me to create Boom Card decks that address a wide variety of specific therapy goals to meet each student’s speech and language needs, preferences, and learning styles effectively and efficiently. My 25 years of clinical experience also helped me develop ideas on how to design therapy materials that promote students’ engagement and motivation.
What tips can you share with emerging publishers on maximizing instructional impact while minimizing prep time for busy educators?
There are a few tips that I would like to share with emerging publishers:
- Start with creating materials that will help your students meet their goals while also encouraging their motivation and engagement.
- Once you become familiar with the steps to create decks, broaden the variety of decks in your specialized areas.
- Listen to the feedback to improve the quality of your decks.
How has becoming a Premier Publisher impacted your approach to designing innovative curriculum?
I have always loved creating therapy materials, but becoming a Premier Publisher has heightened my sense of responsibility to design high-quality and innovative therapy materials. I make every effort to maintain a high quality standard in the materials I create.
What are some ways you make your Boom Card decks adaptable and inclusive for all types of learners?
As an SLP, I am passionate about creating materials that meet each child’s unique needs. My career as an SLP has involved serving children aged 2-18 years, many of whom come from multilingual/multicultural backgrounds. This is why I have created many Boom Card decks to address each child’s needs, and my collection is still growing! When designing a new deck, I strive to ensure that it targets a specific goal for the child and fosters motivation and engagement in the activity. I have found that the meticulously designed decks benefit fellow professionals and assist parents in effectively working on the same or similar goals for their children.
What opportunities do you see for therapists collaborating in the Boom community?
Boom Cards Facebook groups are great resources for therapists to learn new tips and collaborate.
Editor’s note: Since you’re reading about Therapy Tales, you might want to get started with the Specialists’ Group, but we have four different groups to choose from!
What role can publishers play in supporting therapists’ self-care and preventing burnout?
Publishers can support self-care and prevent burnout in the following ways:
No preparations: Boom Card decks require no preparations such as printing, cutting, and laminating, allowing busy teachers/therapists to dedicate their valuable time to supporting students’ learning.
Tailored materials: A wide range of Boom Cards are designed to meet the specific needs of the classroom and individual students. This can reduce the pressure on teachers and therapists to constantly create new resources from scratch.
Self-grading: Boom Cards are also self-grading, saving time for progress monitoring. By streamlining these time-consuming activities, teachers/therapists can focus more on directly working with their students and spend less time on administrative work.
Integrating high-quality Boom Cards into daily practices can reduce their workload and stress levels for teachers and therapists, ultimately helping them to prevent burnout and promote overall well-being.
Any final motivational words for aspiring publishers and educators looking to make a difference?
The words I would like to send aspiring publishers and educators are “impact” and “empower.” Your work as a publisher and educator has the great potential to create a lasting impact on the lives of your students. You also have the tools to empower your students to reach their full potential and become confident, independent learners.
