Dear Readers,

I’ve always had a scrabble problem. Or rather, a spelling problem. That is, a problem spelling too well, and compulsively correcting the spelling of those around me who might otherwise be my friends. My love of correctly-spelled words is the likely force behind my love of scrabble. It used to be a board game (and I hear it still is, in the nineteen hundreds), to be played face-to-face with an opponent you could see, and by extension laugh at when said opponent placed an incorrect combination of letters on the board, commonly known as the misspelled word. When your fit of laughter ended, you were then to challenge your partner, and watch him or her suffer through looking up the word in Webster’s dictionary and reach the eventual conclusion to which you’d already come; that the word was misspelled. Your partner then had to undergo the humiliating act of removing his word from the board and losing a turn, a satisfying end before you placed your next zinger.

And while the advent of spellcheck threatened to render my special skills obsolete in the academic and professional world, it was in the scrabble world that the inaccessability of spellcheck maintained the significance of my spelling superiority.

When at first scrabble programs became available on facebook and in iphone apps (first in the ill-fated scrabulous and then in the current scrabble-like giant words with friends), I rejoiced in my 24/7 access to scrabble (and my concomitant decrease in real-world social interactions, surely a coincidence). However, I soon came to find that the ability to spell, not to mention vocabulary and even the strategic skill of singlehandedly arranging one’s letters to create a word, had been usurped by a fatal flaw in programming. No longer did a person need to know how to spell, or even distinguish between a word and a nonword; a person need only randomly arrange letters in any number of combinations and place them on the electronic board that would declare their word “not a word” until their fortuitous three hundredth attempt when, by sheer luck, they placed the word “burgoo” and the computer accepted it, passing their turn on to their virtual opponent. Their opponent, of course, would not have been witness to their 299 failed attempts, unable to challenge their unwords like “rfgyi” and “gyifr.”

“What do these words even mean?” I asked a friend in the midst of her iPhone scrabble game the other day as I observed words like “chthonic” and “jorum.”

“I have no idea,” she replied, “but the computer accepted them, so that’s all that matters.”

IS that all that matters? Is anybody else interested in returning to the original scrabble game that adheres to the legitimate scrabble rules? Wherein the computer doesn’t notify you that “plirdiger” is a nonword (which I only know after having tried to play it in my current iPhone scrabble game) and allow you infinite retries, but rather displays your word to your opponent, who either accepts your word, or challenges you? Were this the case, upon a challenge the computer would then declare whether or not your placement is in fact a word, and if it were not, you would lose your turn, and your partner would play. Intelligence, not dumb luck, would prevail.

And that is why I’m taking a stand. Readers, I implore you to join me in my movement to Take Scrabble Back. It will be bigger than Scientology, though perhaps not as lucrative.

–Troi out

Dear Readers,

I recently wrapped my latest experiment: kindling. Not the dry sticks of wood easily ignited for the purposes of making s’mores, but rather the experience of reading on a kindle*. When my friend first offered to let me borrow his kindle, I wrinkled my nose in distaste, ready to denounce the latest in the wave of computers pretending to be other things,** but then I remembered what Jesus said, about how Thou shalt not judge the kindle in thy neighbor’s eye, if thou hast not removed the kindle from thine own eye, so I decided to accept my friend’s magnanimous offer and launch an investigation into the kindle. And you, my Readers, are the first to receive exclusive coverage of my findings.

*Kindle: (noun) A computer that, having witnessed the savage overthrow of the paperback book, has entered the Witness Protection Program and now masquerades as, inexplicably, a paperback book. To throw the paperback police off its trail, most likely.

**iPod: Computer pretending to be radio; iPhone: Computer pretending to be phone; iPad: Computer pretending to be weird flat screen of no use; Kindle: Computer pretending to be book.

In the following expose, I report my findings objectively with the highest journalistic integrity you’d expect from a speech therapist with no background in journalism.

The Kindle: Pros & Cons

Pros:
• The kindle has internet capability. This is awesome, because not enough things do these days.
• I no longer need a tray or endtable for my coffee. I can actually hold my kindle in one hand, cradle my coffee mug in the other, and click the “next page” button with either my chin or the excess flesh on my giant thumb.
• Flexible text size. I can magnify the text until only a few words are visible on the screen, and I can subsequently brag, “Look how fast I read that page!”

Cons:
• High risk of electrocution. While reading my kindle in the bath, I dropped it into the water (and quite frankly, I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t extend this information to my friend from whom I borrowed it), and this could have led to a disastrous and untimely end for my kindle. And myself. Also don’t take your kindle scuba-diving or on your jet-ski.
• Disorientation. One false click and you’re trapped in a maze of menus accidentally purchasing the entire Harry Potter series when all you want is to get back to the page in your current series where you find out if Katniss is going to end up with Peeta or Gale.
• Speaking of pages. There are none. So when you misclick, you can’t navigate back to a specific page number. And you can’t brag about how many pages you’ve read. You can only say, “I’ve already read 7% of my book!”
• Bookmarks don’t work. So despite tireless attempts to mark my spot by placing a bookmark on the screen, I was thwarted by the complete absence of pages.

The Traditional Paperback Book: Pros & Cons

Pros:
• It has pages, so bookmarks are an effective means of keeping one’s place.
• All books are available as books, but not all books are available as kindles. If you’re having trouble following this logic, it’s much like how all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are cardboard boxes, and no rectangles can be triangles without shapeshifting.
• No danger of electrocution, except for that one time when I tried reading in the bathtub while straightening my hair and texting on my cell phone.

Cons:
• Lack of space. In the absence of regular trips to Powells to unload one’s book collection, books quickly fill and eventually overtake one’s living rooms, bedrooms, and even the bathroom. I recently had to sell my toilet to make room for a bookcase in that exact spot. I really need to pee.
• Death. While one’s head remains stable while reading the kindle, everybody is familiar with the slight shift in neck position as one transitions from scanning the left page of a book to the right side. With these slight shifts happening as often as several times per minute, a frequent reader is at high risk of Spontaneous Neck Snap, wherein one’s head actually pops right off after one too many slight shifts. While practiced readers are skilled in shifting their books rather than their heads, no reader is entirely protected from Spontaneous Neck Snap.

And there you have it, Readers, from my (friend’s) kindle to your brain, all you need to know in order to make an uninformed decision whether the kindling experience is right for you. Comment below for your chance to win a FREE TRAINING VIDEO on how to hold the kindle. Comment TWICE and receive a free booklet entitled, “How to Tell If Your Kindle is Upside Down” AND an unlimited subscription to my blog.

“Using apps in treatment is a win-win. The client engages with an exciting device, and the clinician is able to model and elicit the targeted skills more easily.” -Sean Sweeney, SLP

Apps: (plural noun) /ae ps’/ : software applications that have brainwashed society into believing in their necessity for human survival, without which mankind will cease to exist in the form of a rapture (alternative spelling rappture), taking place today. Any minute now.

Reading through my most recent ASHA (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association) newsletter today, I found that my current speech therapy practice of engaging directly with clients using archaic forms of communication such as conversation and eye contact is obsolete, replaced by a much more effective conversational partner known as the mobile app, which is “the future of the profession and some clinicians are already there” (Jeremy Legaspi, pediatric speech-language pathologist).

According to the article, apps can be used as contextual tools to enhance clients’ engagement in therapy and willingness to practice at home to improve transfer of targeted skills to other environments. “For a majority of my clients, the iPad is the first thing they ask for in treatment,” says Legaspi.

And what can the iPad do that other therapy tools can’t? According to Jessica Gosnell, an SLP at Children’s Hospital Boston, there is a “whiteboard” mobile app on which she writes and lists the therapy session’s activities. The client uses the whiteboard app to check off each listed activity that is completed.

Seen at Portland Antiques Shop, this rare artifact is from 2011. Teachers and students wrote on it before the r-app-ture.

This is fantastic, because there is no such thing as a “whiteboard” app in the real world. There is, however, a real whiteboard, on which low-tech SLPs such as myself can write the session’s activities, and another invention called the eraser, that can be used by clients to erase each listed activity that is completed.

The truth is, I can acknowledge the relevance of mobile apps in certain settings. As the article notes, SLPs who travel from setting to setting lugging a suitcase loaded with therapy tools could benefit from the number of resources (books, articulation therapy cards, board games) that could be incorporated into a single device for quick and easy access.

But there are many potential downfalls as well. The article points out that the true purpose of the therapy session —- which is to enhance communicative success whether it be in the area of articulation of speech sounds, fluency, voice, or social communication —- could become peripheral to to using the mobile apps*. Being expected to adapt treatment to a mobile device brought in by a client is another concern noted in this article. And in a career field intended to improve our use of speech and language for human interaction, I remain wary of replacing the rich communicative opportunities of the speech-language therapy environment with a device that could depersonalize that connection.

–Troi out

*This caution as it relates to using mobile apps is not to be confused with the field of AAC—-augmentative and alternative communication—-which is a vital need for those clients who are nonverbal or produce limited verbal output and require the use of a communication device. For these clients a highly-trained professional matches them with an AAC device, and learning to communicate using this device should be a primary focus of treatment.

Dear Readers,

Those of you who are fans of my earlier works, “Trying to charge my videocamera with my cell phone charger,” “Vacuuming up my cell phone charger,” and “Running over my Ray Ban sunglasses with my car,” will be thrilled to discover my latest installment, “Plugging my videocamera into my computer using the wrong cord.” Please note the following conversation that was, thankfully, overheard by none:

Troi: My computer isn’t recognizing my videocamera. I can’t import my video footage. This is the end of the world as we know it.

Friend: Did you plug it in using the firewire cable? That is the correct cable.

Troi: I used the first cable I could find that had an end that fits into the camera and another end that fits into the computer. This is how the pros do it.

Slightly Exasperated Friend (SEF): What does the cable look like?

Troi: It looks like a fork thingy.

SEF: That’s your problem. That’s a USB cable. You need the firewire cable—-the one that looks like a Y.

Troi (escalating into typically dramatic agitation): All of my cables look like forks! This is the end of the world as we know it!! How can I live if living is without a cable that looks like a —oh wait, here it is. This is the cable I need to plug in? Cool, thanks.

SEF: No problem. Except, you really need to learn the difference between a USB cable and a firewire cable. You call me about this same problem every week.

Later over dinner, as I profusely apologized for my weekly calls regarding the ambiguity of computer cables and my general inability to independently solve simple technical problems without a step-by-step tutorial from my friend, he assured me that, while I’m surely not the brightest crayon in the box (although everybody agrees I’m about as bright as a crayon), there are those crayons who didn’t even make it into the box. One such crayon grew increasingly frustrated a few years back as my friend told her that she needed to move her mouse to the designated link and click.

“It’s not working,” she bemoaned to my friend over the phone as he attempted long-distance technical assistance.

“Well, what are you doing?” he asked calmly, having developed extraordinary patience during similar interactions with me.

“I’m putting the mouse on the computer screen, and then I’m clicking, just like you said!” she replied, as she touched, not the mouse pointer, but her entire mouse to the screen.

I’m proud to report I’ve never done that.

The moral of this story is obvious, but if you’re not smart enough to identify the difference between a USB and a firewire cable, you might miss it. Allow me therefore to proclaim my moral plainly: If you want to appear smart, do not confess your brainless blunders on your public blog site.

Oops.

–Troi out

If so, you’re not the only one!

I spent four post-college years tirelessly studying the field of speech and hearing sciences. Knowledge and memory of politics, world religions, important dates such as my best friend’s birthday, the name of my favorite breakfast cereal, and the Starfleet ranking of my favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation characters gradually seeped from my cortex as knowledge and memory of theories of language development, audiology and aural rehabilitation, fluency disorders, voice disorders, swallowing disorders, and articulation and phonological disorders took its place. I nearly lost the ability to have a normal conversation as I discarded my usual pleasantries in favor of a more analytical approach to interactions:

Starbucks barista: Can I take your order?
Me: Did you mean “MAY I take your order?” And I notice your initial rhotic /r/ sound in “order” appears to emerge from the retroflex lingual position rather than the more typical bunched position. And did you know that “I,” while being a vowel denoted by a single letter, is in fact a diphthong denoted by the international phonetic alphabet with two letters, and produced only in the presence of lingual movement?
Starbucks barista: [calling for security]

And today I discover to my dismay that all of this training is for naught, and that my time might well have been better spent remembering my friends’ birthdays and watching Star Trek: The Next Generation reruns. Because, as boingboing.net so eloquently pointed out to me, my human expertise in the field of speech-language pathology is simply no match for the technological expertise that analyzes the speech patterns of young children as well as information regarding children’s language environment and development. Which leaves me to simply twiddle my thumbs and eat bon bons while a computer objectively identifies the number of conversational turns a mom has with her baby (Mom: Ga ga! Baby: Ga ga ga! Computer: Congratulations! You have just completed one full conversational turn!) and the complexity of the sentence structures used by the parental figures (Mom: Stop chewing on mommy’s expensive jewelry! Computer: Congratulations! With the plethora of grammatical forms utilized in your conversational turn, including but not limited to present progressive -ing ending, possessive form, adjective, noun, and an imperative negation, your baby will be attending Harvard before his seventh birthday! As long as he stops eating jewelry!)

This technology, known as LENA, appears unnecessary, and I’ll tell you why. While it’s based on solid research that indicates the quantity of speech input and output experienced by a child between the ages of birth to three is correlated with that child’s IQ and vocabulary size, LENA (as per boingboing.net) “was developed to give parents useful information to help ensure they are providing the richest language environment possible to their children during the critical years between birth and age 4, before they enter school.”

The problem is that those parents who are both sufficiently concerned and financially equipped to purchase LENA are the parents who are already likely providing their child with an adequate environment of enriched language input and whose child is more likely to acquire the language necessary to reach their academic potential in the school environment. And were those parents to have concerns about their child’s language development, they could access the free early intervention services provided through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Part C, by which a simple screening could either validate or ease their concerns, and without the $200 price tag attached to LENA. On the other hand, those families who would most likely benefit from LENA, whose children may be at a higher risk for speech and language disorders, are those for whom LENA is likely a resource they cannot afford to access. Once again, a free screening by a real human who can identify areas of concern and connect the family with early intervention specialists who can support and advise the family in an environment conducive to family need, such as the home or daycare setting, is a more realistic and inclusive approach than LENA.

But to further prove my point, I think I’ll buy LENA anyway. She might be able to analyze speech patterns, but let’s watch her spend seven hours a day evaluating and treating speech and language disorders in young children while managing concomitant attentional and behavioral challenges. My guess is that I’ll still make a better speech pathologist than she does.

–Troi out

Dear Reader,

For decades, leaders in the entertainment industry have foretold the consequences of inventing machines whose intellectual capacity will eventually combine with self-awareness and free will, culminating in unstoppable power that will wreak havoc on the weak human minds that carelessly created them. 2001: A Space Odyssey, I-Robot, Terminator, Terminator 2, Terminator 3, Terminators 4-10, Finding Nemo, the recent box-office bomb Eagle Eye, and various other films have given insight into the inevitability of such a catastrophic end.

I have been told that so-called “scientists” have also considered this possibility, but I’m fully aware that their intellect pales in comparison to those in the entertainment industry. Really, who listens to scientists these days when their geeky claims are asserted next to Hollywood legend Arnold Swartzenegger, belting out with unquestionable authority the words “I’ll BE BACK!” (And his prophecy came to fruition: He did come back, just a few short years later, in Terminator 3!)

Yet I didn’t realize just how pervasive this too-smart machine epidemic had become until today, as I attempted to leave a well-intentioned but admittedly raucous rendition of “Happy Birthday” on my friend’s voice mail machine. After all, friends don’t judge, and I knew my pal would be gloriously happy to hear my tone-deaf harmony as it drifted cacophonously through the phone lines.

Her voice mail machine, however…….not so happy. Just a few bars into my song, a cold automated female abruptly cut me off with a simple: GOODBYE. This female did not offer me so much as an explanation. Nor did said female offer an apology, or even a suggestion that I take voice lessons. Simply: GOODBYE.

How did this automated woman know the depths of my poor serenading capabilities? Who taught her to evaluate the song coming through the receiver; who instructed her to shun voice mails that didn’t meet the minimum criteria for pleasant aural reception??

What’s next? Will my radio start changing my station selections? Will my computer log me off when it knows I haven’t yet finished my laundry? Will the candy machine in the recyclying room at my apartment laugh at me and deny me my Hershey’s bar because it knows I cheated and ate two at work already?? Will I REALLY have to go with Arnold Schwarzzeneger if I want to live???

(Or was my experience with my friend’s voice mail today a random occurrence that I read too much into?)

–Troi out

I regret to inform you that the UV germ light (UV Rays: Not Just for Skin Cancer Anymore!) did not solve all of the cold and flu woes I have experienced since working with the multiple-germ infested larvae, or what the other teachers refer to as “students.” The UV germ light might have worked better had I actually bought it, instead of just writing about it while intermittently poking fun at it. That’s just one hypothesis, though, and I’m not one to jump to conclusions.

At any rate, undergoing my fifth sickness of the last 8 months has made me realize I need to throw caution to the wind and replace said useless caution with extreme paranoid PREcautions. Having been blessed with the genetic predisposition for paranoia I find that I am just the blogger to break this new precautionary ground.

This new ground is also referred to as a Level A aluminized Hazmat Suit. Please see image below.

This groundbreaking (literally, it’s so heavy, it will break the ground) protective Level A Hazmat Suit is just one step above antibacterial instant hand sanitizer and one step below the total annihilation of all bacterial and viral germs known to human lifeforms as documented in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The Level A Hazmat Suit, when worn to the jobsite as work attire, has a number of benefits in addition to protecting you from the germs of young children. First of all, its silver sheen goes well with almost any room decor, so you can galavant from your classroom, to the cafeteria, to the faculty lounge, while remaining fashionable. Second, no more fire drills! You will remain protected through almost any calamity, including fire, earthquake, or terrorist attack, while your poor unsuspecting coworkers will have to flee the building for their lives. Kick back, relax, and drink some coffee amidst the panic and dread.

Speaking of drinking coffee, the Level A Hazmat Suit does have a few drawbacks that I should mention before you invest in the Hazmat Suit family and extended family discount to swathe and protect all of your beloved family members. First, it’s actually impossible to drink coffee while in the Hazmat Suit, because its protectiive outer covering precludes the possibility of anything actually entering your mouth. And even if you could successfully bridge the gap between the coffee and your mouth, you wouldn’t want to, because it will also be impossible for you to use the bathroom while in your Level A Hazmat Suit. Finally, you’ll find that as you make pleasant small talk with your coworkers, you’ll receive looks of confusion and disdain, because even though you’re saying, “Why, hello coworker, have you noticed how sharp I look in my fine new Hazmat Suit?”, all they will hear through the largely soundproof protective gear is a blurred “Welloworersharloohazmasuit?”

I can hardly wait to wear my new Level A Hazmat Suit to work tomorrow. In its sparkling clean and freshly pressed state, I will be the envy of my coworkers and I will remain as disinfected and germ-free as the day that I spilled a bucket of instant hand sanitizer on myself.

And remember my motto: Instant hand sanitizer dries, but a Level A Hazmat Suit lasts forever.

–Troi out

Now you have a new reason to drag your kids kicking and screaming away from their perch in front of the X-Box. A recent study correlates endless hours of mind-numbing computer gaming with, can you believe it, three personality traits associated with Aspergers syndrome, a type of high-functioning autism. These traits are neuroticism, lack of extraversion, and lack of agreeableness. And while the researchers wouldn’t go so far as to label these gamers as having Aspergers syndrome, they do contend that the game addicts “share some of the same characteristics because they find it easier to empathize with computer systems than other people.”

I couldn’t agree more. Thank goodness this problematic behavior is confined to gamers. People such as myself never have to worry about such neurotocism or introverted behavior. Why, it’s not as if I refuse to board a plane because I’m convinced it will crash, nor that my cell phone is currently ringing but I have no plans to answer it because I prefer to continue chatting with my friends via instant messaging. And people like me most certainly don’t suffer from a lack of agreeableness. Quite the opposite, I find that I agree with myself nearly always, and when I program my computer accurately, it agrees with me too. (“Good morning, Troi! You’ve got mail, because you’re so popular! And you’re always right!”)

All kidding aside (my computer doesn’t REALLY say that when I log on–a well-programmed computer never patronizes its user), couldn’t it be said that, generally speaking, computer systems are easier to empathize with than people? Particularly of the opposite gender? My computer is here every night when I get home from work and it’s always willing to communicate the day’s news with me. It takes but a minute to turn it on and it stays on as long as I need it. My computer doesn’t quit working two weeks after our first encounter, and when it’s ready to quit for good, it sends plenty of warning messages*. Can human contact begin to compare with such reliability??

*I have a mac. I cannot speak for PCs but I hear they’re less reliable, like men.

The study I read goes on to state that “there is a scale along which people…can be placed upon…..and that people such as engineers, mathematicians and computer scientists are nearer to the non-empathizing, systemizing, end of the spectrum.”

I like to call this God’s way of balancing the universe. The way I see it, engineers, mathematicians, and computer scientists got all of the brains, so they had to be shorted elsewhere. A deficiency in emotional intelligence for these folks was the only way to equalize the universe so that it wouldn’t collapse upon itself. Therefore, God created two kinds of humans: People who are highly intelligent but who cannot relate to other people, and stupid people who are popular.

When these two strains of human mate, there is born a third type of human: The Average Joe. Due to the high instances of breeding that have taken place since the beginning of time, most existing humans are a hybrid of smart and stupid that embodies the classic Average Joe.

So as you reflect upon this important study, take a good look at yourself and discern into which breed you fall. Are you a gamer? Or do you have stellar social skills? Or are you good at nothing in particular? If you find that you fall into the third category, don’t despair. Simply program your computer to compliment you daily when you turn it on. You probably don’t know how, but call a gamer and ask for his programming assistance. Just don’t mate with him.

*As always, Troi would like to point out that she does not believe what she writes, nor write what she believes.

–Troi out

p.s. Thanks for the link, e. Lucas. I don’t think you act like you have Aspergers. Keep playing those computer games.

My mother values Dr. Phil’s opinion. So when he recently discussed the benefits of lights that kill germs, my mother immediately thought of me. No, not because I am a germ to be killed, but because I attract germs that haven’t yet been killed. In the past month I have successfully caught every germ that my students have generously coughed and sneezed on me.

But a germ light?? I’m sure Dr. Phil is one of the brighter crayons in the box, but I remain unconvinced. After all, my therapy room is already filled with light. I am an advocate for administering speech therapy with the room lights turned on so that students can learn in a well-lit atmosphere. Since Dr. Phil’s advice, I have bought fourteen flashlights that I dutifully shine on students as they walk into the room to kill potential germs. The students complain of being blinded, so I imagine their germs are being blinded as well. I carry a lightbulb around at all times, and I have attached a small reading light to my belt buckle to kill germs that are hiding below eye level.

Yet, inexplicably, the germs are thriving. I know this because I continue to catch them.

Clearly the lights are doing nothing for my immunity. Thus, after donating the bulk of my flashlights, lightbulbs, and reading lights to cavemen living in the dark ages, I called my mother to proclaim Dr. Phil’s inadequacy.

Well, it turns out, says my mother, that not just any light kills germs. (This would have been helpful knowledge before I spent my life savings on the flashlights.) It takes a special kind of light to kill germs. Ultraviolet (UV) Light destroys a microbe’s DNA and prevents it from reproducing.

Now I know what you’re thinking, how is this any more ethical than shining a light on a woman to prevent her from reproducing? Where are the microbe’s rights in this light? What if the microbe wants to reproduce? Is it really our place to render the microbe infertile, stealing its lifelong desire to reproduce and have a family?*

*For more on this important topic, please purchase a copy of my treatise: “The Ethics of Reproduction: An infertile Microbe tells her story.”

Regardless of the ethics, if you continue to find the idea of a germ light appealing, there are several options. The $500 Halo ST-UV is a vacuum with a built-in UV light that shines on the carpet. If your budget is a mite (mite, get it?) too tight, Hammacher Schlemmer offers a Wide-Coverage Germ-Eliminating Wand for a mere $100 which will destroy germs when held over an object at a distance of three inches for 20 seconds. And my personal favorite is the Hammacher Germ Killing Light Gun for $79.95 (see image below), not because it is the most reasonably-priced, but because it looks just like a tricorder from Star Trek: The Next Generation, so I think it might double as a probe for intelligent life on nearby planets.

*Remember, UV lights do not replace the general sanitary practices of handwashing. You should still wash your hands at least twice a month even when equipped with the germ-killing UV light technology.

–Troi out