#026: Parents as an Important Part of the Therapeutic Team with Lindsey Nitake

Speech and language development is more than just the words being produced and children need to be emotionally supported and encouraged to communicate. Parental involvement is critical, but professionals are often so focused on the kids that they don’t notice the parents are depleted. Lindsey Nitake uses her Help Me Grow Speech social media accounts to get information out there.

Every family is different and unique and the tools we offer need to be adapted to fit with a family’s style, so listening to feedback from parents is important. Sometimes parents are overwhelmed by the wealth of information. They need help to figure out which resources will work for their child.

Social media is a great way to provide parents with educational support. It’s the most effective and efficient way to spread the information because it allows you to share resources more widely. It’s particularly useful when in-person sessions are not possible. Lindsey uses TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube to share information.

To be better professionals, we need to listen to each other and support each other as well. As a profession, we can be quite combative with each other. It gets very emotionally charged. BCBAs and SLPs may have different approaches but collaboration is important so professionals need to have a team-based mentality.

New SLPs have to learn a lot on the job. It’s really hard being a new SLP. Oftentimes, when you start working with kids, you find out that it’s not what you learned in graduate school. You need support to figure out a treatment strategy to help them. Social media is a nice way to provide mentoring.

When you’re working on communication, don’t lose sight of the bigger picture. Communication is more than just words. It’s the environment and relationships with people. You have to consider the child and their environment as a whole, and the family unit is a big part of that, which is why having parents on board is so important.

What's Inside:

• The importance of parent involvement in speech-language development.
• Parent education and support.
• Sharing SLP resources on social media.
• Mentoring new SLPs.
• Collaborative services.