The ABA Speech Podcast - Easy Strategies For Parents and Professionals

Play-Based Speech Therapy can open the door to so much interaction. My guest, Emily Cohen, talks about using Play-Based Therapy with her clients and all of the benefits it can provide. Emily Cohen works with families with children as young as 15 months old, coaching the parents. We talk about all the elements of play, interaction, and language and I share some pretty cute anecdotes from my therapy experiences with play. Engagement is such a huge part, and the more they are engaged the more meaningful their learning will be. Imitation and nonverbal imitation can be the start of engaging in play. Emily shares the idea of a mirror “game”,  sitting in front of a mirror practicing making large body movements, and even using hand over hand when needed. Patience, flexibility, and following the child’s lead is key when creating an engaging play space for therapy. Kids may not always use or interpret toys or activities in the way we expect things which can make for even more enriching experiences.Stay away from toys that have batteries. When we are interacting with a child and a toy that has all the bells and whistles, moving and making noise, the toy ends up doing the work. Go back to basics and allow the student to use the toy as a prop so that you can truly build new and meaningful interaction.Interaction comes before language, so there are so many opportunities for skills in play even nonverbally. As a speech therapist, Emily coaches parents on playing with their children and working with their kids to find these opportunities. Her advice for parents is to remind them that they are their child's best teacher, every time their child is watching them is an opportunity for learning.What’s Inside:Play-Based Speech TherapyFollowing the child’s leadOpen-Ended ToysFacilitating social, play, and language interactionInteraction before language

Marisha Mets, a school-based SLP, shares tips on using language samples for assessment and intervention. Language samples offer a snapshot of students' language use in natural settings. Assessing language function in natural contexts is crucial for setting goals for students with autism.

Today I have Kimberly Scanlon, licensed and certified speech-language pathologist, best-selling author, and fellow busy parent. She has written two great books in the world of speech therapy, Toddler Talks and My Toddler’s First Words. Kimberly works as a private practice speech therapist doing primarily home-based visits and she is here giving us some tips on how to build early interventions into day-to-day life.Because Kimberly is a home-based therapist, she has less barriers in communicating with parents and families. This allows her to relate to being busy and just trying to fit that language development in.The ideas and advice Kimberly shares today focus around these central questions: What does your day look like? What is your typical routine? What do you like to do with your child? When is the best time of day for you to reach your child?We discuss ways to embed language and early intervention into your routines by finding connection-building activities that don't take away from your daily life. This makes each activity symbiotic with various parents’ personalities, cultures, and what they are at a base level comfortable with.If you’re already cooking or doing laundry, think twice about setting your child in front of a screen. Instead, think about how you could be getting them involved. We discuss how there are so many language opportunities in everything we do and our toddlers just want to be with us. Make chores fun and make them learning opportunities with these tips! Don't be afraid of this undertaking, you don't have to have them participate in the entire chore just a small part.Kimberly leaves us with this special advice, reminding parents to do the best they can and not worrying about being perfect. Take several moments throughout the day every day to just enjoy your child, judgment, and worry-free to be fully present and enjoy the moment!What's Inside:Early intervention and language strategies for busy parentsSimple ideas for embedding language practice into daily life.Kimberly’s special advice to parents.

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.

Lori Frost is a traditionally trained speech-language pathologist who has spent most of her 40-year career in public schools working with preschool and elementary kids. She met Dr. Andy Bondy when she was working in the Delaware Autism Program and that’s when she began learning about applied behavior analysis. This fundamentally changed her practice and made her more aware of what was leading to good outcomes and what was leading to poorer outcomes for the students she worked with.When she was working with Dr. Bondy in the Delaware Autism Program, they were helping a little boy who was non-speaking. They tried a range of things including speech imitation, sign language, and picture point systems but he made little progress. When he wasn’t able to communicate, he displayed challenging behaviors. It was only when Lori presented individual pictures carefully selected to be of interest to the child, let him touch the picture, and pass it to his communication partner, thus doing something very overtly to communicate, that he made progress. This was the beginning of PECS or the Pyramid Educational Consultants in 1992 where it grew to have 6 phases in its protocol, offices in 15 countries and made the manual available in 16 languages.The long-term goal for the kids is to be as independent as possible and independence is only possible if you initiate, so teaching the kids to initiate communication is the first skill taught in the PECS protocol. The starting point always has to be tailored to each student’s likes and the things they enjoy. It can take time to figure this out. If kids start with PECS at the right time, they usually transition to a speech-generating device quite easily. This normally coincides with phase 4 of the PECS protocol when the kids have mastered the following skills:InitiationPicture discrimination Able to make some picture sentencesEven after this transition, PECS remains a useful backup for when technology fails or is misplaced or forgotten. PECS has great results with younger kids. Around 80% of kids who are six and younger who are on PECS for nine months to a year start to talk.Lori’s most important advice for parents or professionals supporting autistic kids is to listen to the kids and be guided by their wants and needs. What's Inside:How PECS began.How PECS has grown.The importance of initiation of communicationHow useful are speech-generating devices as communication tools?When should speech-generating devices be introduced?

Laura Smith was a speech-language pathologist, mostly in elementary education, before her children were born. After her daughter was born, she realized that she wasn’t reaching her developmental milestones. She crawled and walked late and feeding, dressing, and speech were also delayed. When her daughter was diagnosed with apraxia, she focused her professional interest on learning everything she could about it and started her private practice specializing in childhood apraxia.For many parents, the diagnosis of apraxia feels devastating. They wonder if their child will ever speak. What does the future hold? It’s normal to feel sad and to grieve and there should be no guilt about having these feelings. Once you have a diagnosis, you can have a plan.Early Signs of Apraxia:Lack of babbling - a quiet baby.Vowel sounds but a lack of consonants.Lack of a word by age one.Pop-out words - words that a child says a handful of times and then never says again.Word sounds morph into other word sounds.A “go-to” sound - a sound that is frequently repeated.How to find an appropriate therapist:Search on Apraxia-Kids.org for a therapist in your area.Find a therapist through The Prompt Institute.Ask the right questions using the list on SLPMommyofApraxia.com.Resources for speech therapists and parents:Apraxia-Kids.org is full of articles and on-demand webinars.Dr. Strand’s free online course, Diagnosis and Treatment of CAS, is packed full of useful information.Dr. Edwin Maas’s webinar, Principles of Motor Learning and Childhood Apraxia of Speech, is a great place to get an understanding of the basic principles of motor learning.Laura’s most important advice for parents of kids with apraxia:Recognize that this is a lifelong neurological disorder.Early and appropriate intervention promotes the best outcomes.Don’t be scared to advocate for your kid.Have a growth mindset and be willing to learn.What's Inside:Laura’s personal journey of having her child diagnosed with apraxia - testing, assessment, diagnosis, and intervention.Diagnosing apraxia - early signs and characteristicsHow to find an appropriate therapistResources for speech therapists and parents

Whether you’re a professional or a parent, you can use these strategies from Chloe Hill in the classroom, in therapy, or at home. As a pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist, Chloe’s focused on pre-reading or emerging reading skills. She works with students to help them develop phonological awareness. For young readers, it can be as simple as:Becoming aware of lettersUnderstanding that letters stand for somethingExposing them to booksPointing out print while out in publicChloe and I also cover some of our favorite reading strategies in the classroom. Chloe loves the CROWD strategy which stands for:C- Completion promptR- Recall promptO- Open-ended promptW- Wh questionsD- Distancing promptWhat if a book is too hard for a child to understand? We also cover strategies you can use to adjust it for a child’s level. This episode is chock-full of so many early learning resources that can help any parent or professional who is looking for inspiration. Check out Chloe’s TPT store or follow her Instagram account for more ideas too.What's Inside:A book can be a window or a mirror into a different world, and we should consider the diversity of our literature collection for the children we teach.How Chloe uses the CROWD technique to teach different reading concepts throughout a story.We should be mindful that reading progress looks different for everyone.How is reading development taught to children with complex communication needs?

Michele’s oldest daughter’s first word was “calculator”. Because she was highly verbal and  seemed to need less intervention, Michele struggle to get a diagnosis for her. Her second son’s presented quite differently, but Michele suspected that he too had autism. Knowing that early intervention was key, Michele was so disappointed to realize that it took until they were pre-teens to get help. She just wanted to understand why her children behaved the way that they do, and this sent her on a journey to get a Master’s in Behavioral Therapy.Michele speaks directly to parents in her podcast Navigating the Spectrum. As a mom and an ABA therapist, she knows that an autism diagnosis can have an emotional pull on parents. For her though, the diagnosis was a relief since it means that she could get to work helping her children.In this episode, we have a great conversation about some of the negative perceptions about ABA therapy, and how she approaches those challenges in her practice. She points out that you can do speech all day when you’re in the office, but that it only starts to click when the child also does speech at home with their family. One of the major reasons that she approaches therapy as a whole family event is that she knows exactly what it’s like as an autism mom herself. She practices inside Colorado, and outside the state, she provides teletherapy services.We are putting together a top-notch teacher of ABA therapists and SLPs to provide teletherapy beyond Ohio. I am so excited for this new venture that will be able to help more children and parents around the world. Check out my website for more information.What's Inside:For girls and highly verbal children, getting an autism diagnosis can be especially difficult since they don’t present like the checklists that most doctors are working from.Because she knows that there may be a team outside the school system, Michele works hard to include parents in the IEP goals so that everyone can be on the same page.As a parent and an ABA therapist, Michele would like Speech-Language Pathologists to know that she doesn’t always understand their lingo.

After Kelsey’s son started seeing a speech regression at 15 months old, she started on the journey to have him diagnosed. Pretty soon she realized that her second son was also exhibiting many of the same signs. Kelsey moved from Alaska to Canada because she hoped that universal healthcare would help her, but the waitlists in Canada were so long that she soon saw that without taking a more active role in therapy, she wouldn’t have good services for her sons.When the local therapy center told Kelsey, “Brentley cannot come if he doesn’t wear a helmet”, that was the last straw for her. Because there was no plan for how a helmet was going to help him or what the plan was to eventually remove the helmet. It was just their quick solution to an immediate problem. That’s when Kelsey decided that she could use Mary Barbera’s courses and her own strategies to help Brentley.I’m really into teaching my students lifelong leisure skills for maximum life enjoyment. For families, there can be a lot of barriers to enjoying activities together. I love following Kelsey on Instagram because she’s made it her goal to teach her sons to enjoy the outdoors safely. There are a lot fewer social rules outside and it’s a low-barrier activity.There are parents like Kelsey all over the world. Parents who want the best for their children with autism, but don’t have access to resources or services. Whether it’s a waitlist that’s holding you back, a rural area, or any other of the dozens of reasons that parents can’t get the help they need, I want you to know that I see you. We’re going to be offering more teletherapy services very soon. I’m putting together a dream team so we can expand and help even more people. Check out my website for more information!What's Inside:One of Kelsey’s main goals in therapy is to make sure that her sons aren’t isolated, and that’s really driven her to get outside of her comfort zone.Living in a rural area with limited resources helped Kelsey realize that she can be a primary resource for her children’s services and therapies.Performing what she calls “low-key assessments” lets Kelsey constantly keep tabs on where her sons are at developmentally.

How do you differentiate your speech therapy work from your autism work? Does it even matter? Serving the whole child, Braxton Baker, an SLP, and BCBA is a huge advocate of the big picture approach to therapy. For him, ABA gave him the vocabulary to describe what he's doing, which he can, in turn, apply everywhere. For me, after ten years of being both an SLP and BCBA, I can agree with him. ABA is just how my brain works now, and it helps me approach life with a better understanding of the learning processes.In this conversation today, Braxton shares some of his therapy philosophy. He starts off IEPs and therapy goals with what the end result needs to look like in the natural world. Because he believes that if you’re not focused on the end result, then you miss the entire point of therapy services. You’re going to hear about how he brings in what he calls the 5 Ps into creating better goals and IEPs for his clients:Creating processesGiving them more purposeCreating more possibilitiesMore overall progressMaking more peaceSometimes emotions can run high at an IEP meeting, so Braxton’s approach is to diffuse the situation with “Do you think that this person or anyone here would have intentionally done something to be harmful?”. If the answer to this question is yes, then you have more than a communication problem; you have a trust problem.Braxton’s approach is authentic, and it fits well into the real world. You can connect with him on Facebook. And if you love social media, check out my new TikTok channel!What's Inside:The questions you can ask in an IEP meeting to make sure that all stakeholders are on the same page.How to make your sessions less rigid and embrace flexibility to meet your students’ needs better.Braxton prefers to think of ABA not as a therapy technique, but as a way to describe the world.If generalization doesn’t occur, did you actually teach a new skill?