I wanted to share this episode from the De Facto Leader’s podcast to make it accessible on the blog since this is such as common question for my readers and listeners. When kids need support with language, reading/writing, and executive functioning, they often have multiple diagnoses. This makes both treatment planning, diagnosis, and determining eligibility…
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Executive Functioning Support: Three Paradigm Shifts for School Teams
As a professional field, we’re getting stuck in old ways of thinking when it comes to designing services for students experiencing executive dysfunction. When we think of “therapy” the first thing that comes to mind is a clinician sitting in a chair saying things like, “And how does that make you feel?” or a clinician…
Executive Functioning Resources for Parents and Caregivers
I’ve gotten requests from my School of Clinical Leadership members for resources that can be share with families and other professionals; and since coaching and training others is such an important part of effective executive functioning intervention, I decided to compile a list of content I’ve created on this topic. All of these things on…
How to make better accommodations by being less accommodating
“But isn’t this just forcing students to act neurotypical?” This is one of the most common objections I get when I talk about executive functioning; specifically executive functioning that impacts social relationships. Executive functioning skills are important for anyone interested in having relationships with others; neurotypical or not. Planning interventions in a way that is…
The best perspective-taking lesson plan is not actually a lesson plan
Recently in some clinical discussion groups, I’ve seen therapists asking for lesson plans to build perspective taking and situational awareness. This makes me feel optimistic, because it shows that they understand that social skills issues are related to executive functioning. But “activities” for improving perspective taking will not come from a set of materials you…
No, you can’t cover all the skills kids need in your therapy sessions.
When I tell related service providers that they should be coaching and training other members of their school teams, the most common objection I get is that they don’t have time. However, most of them ALSO feel like they have too many skills to work on in therapy. They ask, “How can I possibly get…
School therapists: What to do when you have to attend irrelevant PD
You’ve got a backlog of reports to do. Next week there’s a staff in-service day, and you’re hoping to use it to finally make a dent in the paperwork that’s been piling up. And then the email comes. Everyone in the building is required to attend the district professional development in the morning about the…
The problem with social skills lesson plans
If you’re working on social skills with students and seeing poor generalization, the solution is not more therapy materials. I’m often asked if I offer social skills activities that can be a quick “print and go” option for school therapists to do with students in a group therapy setting. I’m fully aware that if I…
Advocating for the Right to Read and Becoming a Literacy Leader
This past year, I interviewed Brianna Guild from SLP Literacy Corner for the De Facto Leaders podcast. In preparation for our interview, she shared a detailed summary of what she wanted to discuss in our episode, and I decided to publish it as a post because it has a lot of useful information for clinicians…
K-12 Professional Learning: It’s about what adults need, not just the kids.
One of the most common questions I get from clinicians who work with school-age kids is about scope and sequence of therapy. “How do I make time to address all these skills my students need?” “How can I help students generalize skills from one setting to another?” “How can I help the other people on…