The ABA Speech Podcast - Easy Strategies For Parents and Professionals

For emerging communicators, defining goals can be so stressful. I want to help relieve that overwhelmed feeling for you that I often had at the beginning of my practice. As you create speech therapy IEP goals, I want you to keep in mind how assessment, collaboration, and functional goals all work together to support and sustain the student as they work with you throughout the year.One of the common tools used in the classroom is a standardized test, but for students with autism, this may not give us the best information. Oftentimes, children with autism may not be able to answer, or their manding may not be assessed. Instead, I prefer to use the VB-MAPP test or the functional communication profile.As you set the early learning goals for your students with autism, you’ll need to consider measurable communication skills they may already have like labeling, verbal imitation, filling in the blank, matching abilities, or group listening skills.Once the initial assessment has been given, and the team collaboration has produced a good picture of where the student is and where the team would like to send him, then it’s time for you to apply a practical and systemic approach to establishing the year’s goals. In this episode, I’ll share with you why these questions are so important to ask as you write the IEP:Why is this goal important for this student?What behavior are we targeting?Is it appropriate for our client?How is this goal specific?Is the goal observable?What does mastery look like?Please take a minute and download my IEP Goal Bank to help your team as you write specific and actionable IEP goals for your students.What's Inside:Strategies for embedding parents’ concerns into their child’s IEP goals.Examples of what a specific, observable goal looks like in the classroom.Because standardized tests can’t measure the progress we are often looking for, I share my favorite assessment tools that will give you a better idea of where your student’s strengths and weaknesses lie.

I have a great routine established for my students when we’re in person. I love working on yoga with them because I think it’s a lifelong leisure skill. I use cards to demonstrate the yoga pose we’re going to practice and then together we hold the pose for ten seconds. This year, as so many of my tools have had to be adjusted to fit into teletherapy, I’ve been happy to see that I can still do yoga with my students virtually.For many of us, flexing into the teletherapy space has proven to be a challenge. In addition to dealing with unfamiliar technology, we’ve also had to come up with creative ways to teach the same skills without being in person. And we’ve had to find how to get around new barriers for therapy, including the challenge of scheduling and having students at home without parental support.My five favorite autism teletherapy strategies can help you set up boundaries and expectations for students that will help them thrive in this challenging season.Set up expectations for how the environment should be structured around the student.Decide how we can engage students during therapy.Use resources that are engaging, including my 3 favorite ones that I’ve just discovered this year.Include some parent training that will help parents become better therapy partners.Recap the therapy session so that everyone is on the same page at the end of the session.Despite the challenges of this year, I’ve found that teletherapy has made it easier to communicate with families, and it’s led to more frequent communications as well. This opportunity can help us build stronger relationships with our students’ families.What's Inside:Three of my favorite resources for engaging students over distance learning.The ways that you can support parents as they navigate teletherapy.As you recap the therapy session, you’ll get a chance to frame the session in a way that parents can understand what was addressed in that session. My favorite virtual field trips that will improve your therapy experience and help you connect with your students.

One of the most meaningful moments I had as a speech therapist was as I was watching a mentor work with a student over the age of 18. She was teaching him to use a static device to request the things that he enjoyed, and it was such a joy to watch him find a way to communicate with the world.In this podcast series, I’m going to teach strategies that help children with autism learn to communicate. As a Speech-Language Pathologist and a board-certified behavior analyst, I love working in both public and private settings. It gives me an opportunity to see many different kinds of situations and students and adjust my communication techniques to reach each one.Whatever setting a Speech-Language Pathologist is in, you can find them working on a variety of tasks like:Teaching augmentative communicationCreating functional IEPsTaking meaningful dataWorking together as a teamHelping students engage in therapyNo matter the tasks, the setting, or the age of a patient, if a topic touches on communication in any way, I’m going to address it here with my guests. Don’t miss the preference assessment that I use to engage with my patients who are on the autism spectrum that immediately helps you connect with them.What's Inside:Why I love speech-language therapy and my goals for this podcast series.The education and training I received formally were fantastic, but stepping into a real-world practice has made me realize that I want to teach other therapists about learning new skills that will reach the variety of children and adults that they’ll see.My number one strategy for engaging hard-to-reach children, and how you can implement it in your own practice.