Learn how to use this BE FAST video for speech therapy. Not only can you teach your patient this life-saving information, but you can also follow this lesson plan to address your patient’s speech therapy goals. Below, you can find tips for using the video to address:
- Attention
- Memory
- Reasoning and problem solving
- Executive function skills
- Auditory comprehension
- Speech production
- Expressive language
- Voice
Free DIRECT download: BE FAST lesson worksheet (patient handout). (Email subscribers get free access to all the resources in the Free Subscription Library.)
Outline:
- Pre-test.
- Prepare your patient for the activity.
- Watch this short video for speech therapy.
- Post-test.
- Bonus therapy activities.
- How else might you use this video for speech therapy?
- Related Eat, Speak, & Think posts.
Pre-test
When teaching new information, it’s a good idea to assess your patient’s current level of understanding of the topic. You can simply ask, “Do you know any signs or symptoms of stroke?”
If they already know the acronym BE FAST and your goal is to give them new information to remember, you’ll know to find a different video to use for your therapy session.
Prepare your patient for the activity
As with any therapy activity, it’s helpful to make sure your patient knows why you are asking them to do it. Preparing to watch the video can be a therapy activity in and of itself.
Possible goals for this therapy activity
There are several reasons why you may choose to ask your patient to watch this particular video. For instance, your goal(s) may be to have your patient:
- Learn the BE FAST acronym, information that could save a life.
- Practice attention or memory strategies.
- Engage in reasoning and problem solving during a follow-up discussion.
- Improve listening comprehension.
- Practice expressive language skills or strategies.
- Engage executive function skills to access the video or while watching it, recalling the information, or teaching the acronym to someone else.
Make a plan for practicing strategies
Before your patient watches the video, make sure they understand any strategies you’re asking them to use while watching the video. You could assess their independent recall of strategies you’ve already taught, direct them to refer to written reminders, or provide direct instruction.
Here are some possible strategies and modifications you may recommend for your patient:
- Be sure to wear any eyeglasses or hearing aids.
- Minimize any background noise.
- Pay close attention to the video.
- If something isn’t clear, ask for a replay or ask clarification questions.
- Take notes.
- Use repetition, visualization, and/or association to encode important information.
- Watch the video again.
Watch this short video for speech therapy
Once your patient is prepared for the activity, play the video for them (or have them access it). As the video plays, notice if they appear to be using your recommended strategies.
Post-test
After watching the video, ask your patient what they remember. Did they recall the acronym BE FAST accurately? If not, you may wish to prompt them for missing information to see if their difficulty was with encoding or retrieval.
If you’re working on expressive language goals, you may wish to record their answer. Recording speech allows a patient to make off-line judgments about their speech intelligibility. In other words, they can listen to themselves speak and judge whether they successfully used their speech, voice, or language strategies.
Ask your patient whether they used any of the strategies or modifications that you recommended. Do they think it was effective? If they couldn’t use the strategies effectively, what do they think they could do differently next time?
You may decide to end the activity at this point, or you may wish to extend the therapy with additional exercises.
Bonus therapy activities
There are a number of things you can do to use the BE FAST video for additional therapy activities. What you choose to do will depend on your patient’s goal(s). Here are some ideas:
- If they can’t remember the acronym, break it down. Teach one symptom at a time, emphasizing the use of memory strategies. Help the information transition to long-term memory by using spaced retrieval.
- If they do remember the acronym, reinforce learning by asking them to recall it at the end of the session and at the beginning of the following session.
- Discuss Darlene’s experience. What symptom(s) did she have? What did her family do?
- Pose hypothetical questions to discuss. What would they do if they were home alone and their vision suddenly went blurry in one eye? Or what if they were at a restaurant and their companion’s speech suddenly became garbled? What if they experienced sudden weakness just as they were going to bed?
- Discuss whether they or someone they know has ever had a stroke or TIA. Did anyone recognize the signs or symptoms? What happened?
- Ask your patient to teach BE FAST to a family member or to you, while you pretend you’ve never heard it before.
How else might you use this video for speech therapy?
In my practice, I find I often modify exercises based on how my patient responds. If you try this activity with one of your patients, I’d love to hear how you used it. I’m sure I could learn something from you that would help my patients, and I’d bet other SLPs feel the same. Please share your tips below.
Related Eat, Speak, & Think posts
- How to improve short term memory.
- How to use spaced retrieval with errorless learning to improve memory.
- 10 practical cognitive therapy activities.
Free DIRECT download: BE FAST lesson worksheet (patient handout). (Email subscribers get free access to all the resources in the Free Subscription Library.)
Featured image by VSRao from pixabay.
Lisa earned her M.A. in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Maryland, College Park and her M.A. in Linguistics from the University of California, San Diego.
She participated in research studies with the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) and the University of Maryland in the areas of aphasia, Parkinson’s Disease, epilepsy, and fluency disorders.
Lisa has been working as a medical speech-language pathologist since 2008. She has a strong passion for evidence-based assessment and therapy, having earned five ASHA Awards for Professional Participation in Continuing Education.
She launched EatSpeakThink.com in June 2018 to help other clinicians be more successful working in home health, as well as to provide strategies and resources to people living with problems eating, speaking, or thinking.
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