Language Therapy and Leadership for Pediatric Clinicians
How do I know if these therapy materials are “evidence-based”? That’s a question I get a lot. There’s a lot of pressure on clinicians to prove that what they’re doing is based on research…but there are so many products to sift through. A lot of times it’s hard to tell if the product was made…
I get asked all the time, “What’s the best language screener”? Usually people want some kind of a formal test, because that’s what most speech pathologists been trained to do. But if you want to accurately identify kids who might need a full case study evaluation…that type of thinking might result in overidentifying or worse…underidentifying…
What resources can I share with parents to build vocab at home? It’s a great question and it comes up a lot. Unfortunately, it usually comes in the form of “What app can I use to build my child’s vocabulary”? My response is usually that the best way to build your child’s vocabulary is not…
Building spelling skills can have a huge impact on overall language processing and vocabulary growth, which falls perfectly in line with your expertise. Vocabulary is one of the biggest predictors of success or failure in school because of it’s impact on overall comprehension and language processing (Nagy & Scott, 2000; Nippold, 2017). But most people…
A lot of people think executive functioning skills are just about “being more organized”…but there’s a lot more to it than that. Executive functioning skills enable us to engage in productive behavior towards a specific goal. They help us focus, figure out specific steps to take, and then do those steps in a reasonable amount…
Knowing exactly how to support parents can be tricky, especially when you’re concerned that people won’t follow through with their “speech homework”. What most people don’t realize is that when homework isn’t getting done, it’s often NOT a lack of motivation. Many parents I’ve worked with have expressed how overwhelmed they are when getting their…
Attention issues have gotten more and more prevalent in today’s world. There’s a lot of information out there about how to improve your child’s attention span. That can be a lot for parents to sift through-especially when come of the interventions are quite controversial. What most people don’t realize is that attention is a SKILL….
When I talk to the different SLPs I mentor, I usually hear the same things over and over again: They want to be able to go to work confident and actually SEE their students making progress… And they want to do it without sacrificing the rest of their life in the process.They’re starting to realize…
It’s possible to provide quality therapy as an SLP without burning out. When I started my first SLP job in the school systems back in the early 2000s, I felt like a “Jack of all trades, master of none”. There were so many different cases falling on my plate, and I didn’t feel like an…
When I search through a lot of commercially available social narratives for people with ASD, I often find myself underwhelmed. In many cases, they just don’t fit the specific scenarios relevant to students. In other cases, they’re too cutesy and not a fit for older students. There’s a lot about playing with friends, taking turns…