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Welcome to another episode of the SLP Now podcast! We’re continuing the series where we do a deep dive on all things GOALS, and I’m bringing some of the best in our field to join me and share their expertise.

Today, Amy Graham discusses setting goals for the cycles approach for speech sound disorders!In this episode, Marisha interviews Amy Graham about setting goals when implementing the cycles approach for speech sound disorders. Amy shares her journey into specializing in speech sound disorders and her experience with the cycles approach. She emphasizes the importance of a thorough assessment to understand the nature of the child’s deficit and choose the appropriate approach. Amy recommends resources such as the book ‘Speech Sound Disorders in Children’ and her own assessment checklist. When it comes to writing goals, Amy suggests focusing on the specific speech task rather than a specific approach. She also highlights the importance of goals for intelligibility and stimulability.Takeaways from This Episode

A thorough assessment is crucial to understand the nature of the child’s speech sound disorder and choose the appropriate approach.
Resources such as the book ‘Speech Sound Disorders in Children’ and Amy Graham’s assessment checklist can be helpful for assessment.
When writing goals, focus on the specific speech task rather than a specific approach.
Include goals for intelligibility and stimulability to track progress and generalization.
Understanding the nature of the child’s deficit leads to more effective and efficient service delivery.

Guest Bio

Amy Graham received both her bachelors and masters degrees in Communicative Disorders from California State University, Fullerton and has been a speech language pathologist for 25 years. She owns Graham Speech Therapy, a private practice in Colorado Springs that specializes in the assessment and treatment of children with speech sound disorders.

Amy frequently travels across the country to train SLPs on various evidence-based practices regarding the assessment and treatment of SSD and is the creator of numerous SSD-specific assessment and therapy resources. She has been a guest on numerous SLP podcasts and has a particular interest in supporting and equipping SLPs by posting frequent therapy videos and practical therapy tips on her social media platforms.

Links and Additional Resources

Amy’s Instagram
Amy’s Website
Amy’s Cycles Resources

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TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabMarisha (00:01)

Hello there and welcome to the SLP Now podcast. I am really excited to be chatting with Amy Graham today. We are continuing the Goal Series and chatting about goals when implementing the cycles approach. And just a little bit of background, you might, well, I think if you're an SLP, you probably already know Amy Graham. She has been on the podcast twice already. So if you're...

You can head to check out episode 17 where she talks about oral facial exams and episode 31 where she talks about childhood apraxia of speech. And I'll just do a super quick intro and then we'll get into the content. But Amy Graham, she specializes in the assessment and treatment of children with speech sound disorders. She has a boutique private practice and only sees kiddos who

for your SSD. And she also has, she's just a phenomenal resource. She presents all over the place and she has a really helpful Instagram account where she actually has videos of her implementing strategies and she answers all of the questions. Just a phenomenal resource. And I'm so, so grateful that she's here with us today. So hello Amy.

Amy Graham (01:23)

It's so good to see you again. Thanks for having me on.

Marisha (01:25)

Good to see you too. And so I'm, I feel like I didn't even do your bio any justice, but I'm curious too. I think it's always interesting to hear kind of your story or anyone's story. But how did you end up learning so much about speech sound disorders or the cycles approach in particular? Can you share a little bit of your journey there?

Amy Graham (01:49)

Well, yeah, I mean, it probably starts with my SLP origin story, which everybody seems to have one, which was my sister had speech therapy when she was little and she's younger than I am by about three and a half years. And knowing what I know now, she had a phonological deficit. And so when she was like, you know, four, five, six, I kind of got dragged along to all of her speech therapy sessions. And so in my mind, I thought.

that's what speech therapists do. They help kids with their sounds. And at that point I thought, that's all we did, right? We fixed S's and R's. And so I thought as I was in school, I thought, you know, that's kind of sounds like after I changed my major like three or four times, I thought, that would be kind of fun. I remember going to that office with the aquarium and the fish tank that my sister was in. I think that would sound like a fun job. You help kids, you know, learn how to say sounds and then you get into the program.

and you learn that our scope of practice is insane. And so I kind of took little detours here and there. I really loved adult neuro. I thought I might go into that, but they weren't hiring when I graduated. They weren't hiring CFYs anyway, or CFs. And so I went into the schools, which I'm really glad that I did because as you know, if you're in the schools,

your caseload is composed of a lot of kids, especially if you're in the elementary ages or even preschool, a lot of speech sound disorders. And so I kind of rediscovered why I like the field with those kids, because I soon discovered too that if I were to match the particular approach,

to the right kid who has the right severity, the right kind of speech sound disorder, I could literally see improvement in real time in one session. And I loved that because that is not necessarily true about a lot of other areas that we treat. And so I love that about speech sound disorders. And I think I was also really fortunate in that my graduate program, I went to California State University Fullerton in Southern California, where I'm originally from.

Colorado now though, but they had a really great SSD class course. And so I felt like I felt really comfortable in kind of tackling speech sound disorders. And now I went to the school in the 90s. So if you went to school in the 90s, you learned all about the cycles approach. That was like the approach of the moment. And so that's what I learned was one of my favorite approaches.

And so even when I did clinicals as a grad student, I had a kid on my caseload who was pretty significantly impaired phonologically. And so I could use cycles as a student and have my supervisor observe and critique. And so I kind of learned how to do the approach that way. And yeah, and so working in the schools, I just found it to be really effective for my kids who are kind of more on the...

severe end of the spectrum when it comes to phonological deficits. But also it was really adaptable if I went into preschool classrooms. And if I had time where I had to push in and we had centers and it's really adaptable because it's so structured. So I really enjoyed that aspect of it. I also really liked the fact that, especially as a newer clinician, that it was pretty much here's a step -by -step.

guide to what you do in your 30 minutes or 60 minutes of therapy. Because it was like literally here's the seven components of a therapy session. And so your lesson plan is done. So I love that. That's how I kind of got into the speech sound disorders aspect of it and how I started using the cycles approach.

Marisha (05:29)

I love that. And I'm excited. Like I have all of the questions now. So the goal of this podcast is to chat about goals. That's a question that we get all of the time. Like, okay, so I decided I want to use this approach. Like, how do I write the goals? But that's like a tiny part of the puzzle, because you mentioned like, we need to know which approach is appropriate. And we want to make sure that we have a thorough assessment.

Amy Graham (05:35)

good.

Marisha (05:57)

to help us make that decision. And so there's a lot of other elements that we want to consider and it's not just, okay, let's write some goals. So what are, and that's, we're not going to focus on that during this podcast episode, but what are some resources that you would recommend? Maybe just kind of in speech, for speech sound disorders in general, where we can do like a good assessment and help narrow things down and then.

Amy Graham (06:19)

Mm -hmm.

Marisha (06:24)

kind of just learning more about implementing the cycles approach.

Amy Graham (06:28)

you're right, absolutely all of it starts with a really appropriate and thorough assessment. Because until we understand the nature of the child's deficit, if we just take a traditional articulation approach and just throw it against the wall hoping something sticks, we're going to be spinning our wheels with most of our kids because that traditional articulation type of intervention where, you know, we just pick a sound that they don't have and we're just going to work on that sound and that traditional hierarchy of isolation, syllable word, phrase, so on.

not appropriate for kids with phonological deficits. So we have to understand whether or not the child does have a phonological deficit. And if it gets loud right now, I'm in Colorado and we've got hail. So it's literally going on in the background. So sorry about that if you hear it. But yeah, we do have, we have to understand what's going on. So make sure that you've not only done your assessment, don't just give that Goldman Fristow, but analyze the, analyze the child's speech. Like,

okay, what is going on there? Are there patterns to the types of omissions or substitutions that they have? And if there are, if there are those consistent omissions and substitutions and they're highly unintelligible because that's what cycles is meant for. Cycles approach, and I think that's commonly misunderstood. Well, you know, can we do the cycles approach for everybody? It's really most appropriate for kids who are on the moderate to severe to even profound end of the spectrum where they're missing so many sounds.

in their inventory or they have so many phonological errors. Everybody has this kid. If you work with preschoolers or even early elementary age kids, you've got the kid who has cluster reduction and stopping and final consonant deletion and gliding and fronting and it's like, wow, that is a lot of phonological errors. And that kid is highly unintelligible. And so when you get a kid like that, we're often like,

Well, where do I start? Do I work on K and G until they get it? Do I work on S's? Like, where do I begin? And the cycles approach, we work on all of it in a very cyclical way. And so that's what I love about all phonological interventions is that we're not just teaching motor production of a sound because that is not the nature of a phonological deficit. Yes, they may have trouble learning how to produce a sound if they're not immediately stimulable.

So there's always a motor component to speech, but the nature of a phonological deficit is that the child does not necessarily understand the rules for when we use sounds to change meanings of words, which is why we are always operating within the context of words. So our speech therapy is with words because that's how we teach the rule. And I love this. I talk about this all the time because I had a parent, it illustrates this point really well.

I had a parent who messaged me on Instagram and was really concerned about her, I think it was five year old son. She thought there was something wrong with him because she said, okay, can you say the snake sound? Cause he wasn't doing any S's apparently. And she said, and he could do it immediately. He could do the snake sound when she said it like that. When she said, just make the snake sound, you know, do that, that sound effect and he could do it. And then she's thinking, great, he has S. So she's, so she would ask him, okay, now say snow. And he went, no.

not because it was a motor issue with being able to produce a sound. He did not know the rule that the word snow has to have an S on it to change the meaning from no to snow. And that's what the cycles approach does. That's what all phonological interventions do. Complexity approach, minimal pairs, multiple oppositions, they all teach the rules along with the motor production. And so, yeah, so that's what the cycles approach does. And I think I...

probably forgot what your question was because I just went off on a little tangent there.

Marisha (10:08)

No, I love that answer. And so you gave us a little bit of insight on in terms of what we want to consider in our assessment, like going beyond the basic articulation test and looking at the patterns. And I think you did an episode about oral facial exams, which could be helpful too. Do you have any, because we don't have time to dive into all of that.

Amy Graham (10:19)

Mm -hmm.

Marisha (10:32)

But do you have a favorite resource if someone is wanting to learn more about, okay, I know I feel like I could some SLPs might be listening and they're like, okay, I know, like I have a good system for my evaluations. So I'm good there. But for the people who are listening to this is like, Ooh, that could be an area that I really want to learn more about. Do you have recommend?

Amy Graham (10:53)

about assessments, I know it's actually on my agenda to do a differential diagnosis. And actually I've done a two hour course and I've traveled and I do it a lot over Zoom. I just haven't recorded it yet to have it on my website. So that's in the works, a differential diagnosis course for yeah, absolutely. But I would say just kind of.

going through what we know from and hopefully, you know, we all had a course like that, but remembering and going back, what do we all need to include? And so I do have a free assessment checklist that I made for myself to kind of keep in mind, okay, what do I need to remember to do? I need a connected speech sample. I need to do the oral facial exam. I got to analyze the Goldman Fristo or the articulation tests for patterns. And so I do have a free assessment checklist.

that people can download and it's got links to different assessments that you might want to consider, links to intelligibility ratings from Dr. Sharon McLeod. So you can download that. It's on the freebies portion of my website and I'm sure maybe we can even link it in the show notes.

Marisha (12:00)

Yeah, we will link that in the show notes. Perfect. And then because we are recording this quite a bit ahead of time. So I'll connect with Amy before the podcast airs to see if we can add the link to the differential diagnosis course, if it happens to be ready by then. So I'll make sure to check in about that. And then, yeah. And then so that like.

Amy Graham (12:15)

I'm hoping so. I have a lot of plans.

Marisha (12:25)

So we have some resources in place for the assessment and hopefully we'll have the course for differential diagnosis. And then what about the cycles approach specifically? Because we'll chat a little bit about considerations for goals. But if the site goals approach is really new to an SLP, do you have any resources that you'd recommend?

Amy Graham (12:45)

Yes. So I'm going to share this book that is just amazing. So it's Interventions for Speech Sound Disorders in Children. And this is by Dr. Lynn Williams, Sharon McCloud, Rebecca McCauley. And it's a compilation of every chapter is a different approach. And so you can actually go to the cycles approach chapter and learn all about it. And it's a really great reference. It's a great reference for all speech sound disorders interventions.

I also recorded a two hour webinar on the cycles approach. So, cause I got questions, I consult with a lot of SLPs. I do consultations. And so I would find out that as I talked to more SLPs, there was very frequently misunderstanding about what a cycle is, about when you target certain sounds, how long you target those sounds. And so I decided, you know, I'm just going to do a course and really go through it step by step. We go, we even go through assessment.

We go through analyzing their speech errors and we go through the construct of what a cycle is, but we also go through, here's what a therapy session can look like and here are the different components of a therapy session with a lot of actual videos of therapy so that you can kind of see it in action. So, yeah, and I know there's a cycles approach resource page on my website as well too, that all of that is linked in addition to a lot of other resources that I have for the cycles approach.

Like I do have, I have these over here, my cycles decks. I have six authored for Bjorum speech and they're divided by particular phonological pattern. So all of the work has been done for you in those decks as when you're thinking of target selection, because that's another thing we got to think about for target selection. It's very different in the cycles approach and really a lot of phonological interventions because we have to think through, you know, monosyllabic words.

phonetic context, and all of that work has been done for you on those decks as well.

Marisha (14:41)

Awesome. So we have lots of great resources and again, we'll add those all to the show notes. So everyone has easy access to them. Okay, so now let's get to the like the meat of the episode where we get to chat about goals. So once we've done a great assessment and we've decided that the cycles approach is a great fit for our students, how would you like what tips or recommendations would you have when it comes to?

starting to develop goals for that student and kind of whatever you think would be helpful here.

Amy Graham (15:12)

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, so when it comes to writing goals for kids who are pretty significantly impaired, because that's who the cycles approach is appropriate for kids who have a lot of phonological errors going on. It's really important one. I mean, we want smart goals, right? It has to be, you know, specific, measurable, attainable, relevant to the child and timely. The timeliness part is going to differ based on your setting.

You know, in the schools we write annual goals. For me, I write 12 week goals because I'm private practice. And I feel like after 12 weeks, a lot of times I can kind of get a feel, most of the time I can get through a cycle, not always, but I can kind of get a feel for how that child is doing in therapy after about 12 weeks. So that can vary, but you have to think, okay, what do I think by the time my time period is over? What do I want that child to achieve? And so if you're thinking about,

Goals specific to an approach. I'm going to give an answer that might be a little, a little different than most people might think. I actually don't write goals to a specific approach. And here's why. cycles approach is not the only option for kids who have, you know, severe or moderate to severe phonological deficits. There are other interventions out there. There are multiple oppositions. There's the complexity approach. And so,

sometimes I might have the best of intentions with a child and think, yep, this is the approach I'm going to go with, go for with this child. And then we get into a few sessions and I think to myself, ooh, this isn't working. They're not responding to the construct of this approach or the targets that we've selected based on this approach over here. And so when that happens, I want my goals to be flexible enough to where I can switch approaches and my goals are still going to be appropriate. So I don't really write goals.

to the cycles approach or to the complexity approach, others do, and I know that's how others do it. That's just not how I do it because I want to give myself some flexibility. So I write my goals to the specific speech task that I want the child to acquire, regardless of how I get there. So if you have a child who is stopping and cluster reducing and fronting, that's what I'm going to write my goal for. I want to write my goal for the sounds that I want them to achieve. So.

My goal might sound something like this. And this is just one example. Say we're gonna write a goal for fronting. Maybe they're fronting all the Ks and Gs or T and Ds. So I might say something like, by a certain amount of time, the child will reduce the occurrence of the phonological error pattern of fronting by, and I like to include both. I know some people don't like the negative, but I like both.

I want to know, well, why am I working on K and G? What are they doing? they're fronting. Got it. So we're going to reduce fronting by producing K and G in initial and final position of words with 90 % of the time, with no cues across maybe two sessions or whatever. You can be pretty flexible with that, however you like to write your goals. So that might be how I write a goal.

And the way that I get there might be through the complexity approach. It might be through the multiple oppositions approach. It might be through the cycles approach. And so I might have multiple goals. So if a child has a lot of different phonological error patterns with the cycles approach, actually, as with most phonological approaches that are appropriate for kids with severe phonological errors, you can target a bunch of sounds in a year, in 12 months.

the way we do it might be a little different depending on the approach. So that's how I like to do it. And I have a goal for each phonological error pattern that I want that child to eliminate or reduce in the time period that I'm going to be working with them.

Marisha (18:57)

That makes a lot of sense. And it's okay.

Amy Graham (18:59)

I might have another goal too, just to add to that, because the goal with the cycles approach is a little different than others in that the overall goal is to increase intelligibility. And so I might write a goal for intelligibility. And I love writing a goal for the intelligibility in context scale, which is a free resource to help you gauge intelligibility of kids based on parent or caregiver report. And so I will write a goal to that.

And I have that linked on my, again, on that free assessment checklist. So if a parent, it's a seven question questionnaire basically that a parent answers and you ask them, how much does a stranger understand your child? Five, I forget, it's like one to five from not at all to often, I think, if I'm remembering correctly. And you can score it. And so I've actually written goals to that.

Like if a parent is reporting 20 out of 35 or 15 out of 35 when you calculate their score, my goal might be, based on parent report, intelligibility will improve to 25 out of 35 on the ICS when administered to the parent. So there's some different ways that you can measure improvement. And those are just a couple of ways I like to do it.

Marisha (20:15)

Yeah, and so I love that. And because we do, it could be that for whatever reason, the approach that we chose isn't the ideal approach. I love the suggestion to take that into consideration. That makes a lot of sense. And then in the show notes, I'll put like a sample goal in case anyone was scrambling to try and write it down. But that'll be in the show notes. And I'll also link the...

intelligibility and context scale. And I love that as a goal too, because especially if our, our student, if we're in the schools and we have a student is exhibiting a really, really long list of processes. I mean, we may want to write a goal for each one of them, but we could also like pick the biggest thing for our book and then add the intelligibility goal as well.

Amy Graham (21:04)

Yep. Yeah.

Marisha (21:10)

Like is that what you would recommend or?

Amy Graham (21:12)

You know, it kind of depends on the child. Like I like to, I mean, it might be more goals than you're used to, but if you are, if you've got a kid that's that impaired, I think that's, I think that's okay. Especially if you're using an approach that you know, yeah, I'm using the cycles approach. So when, you know, 15 weeks or so, I can absolutely target all of those error patterns, then why not write a goal for it? That doesn't mean that.

Maybe they'll achieve all of those. Maybe if they're not stimulable for K or G, I may not write a goal for that yet, but I'm going to still, you know, at every session, see if I can get them to be stimulable. But I maybe I don't think they're going to be able to achieve that by the end of my reporting period. So maybe I don't include that yet, but I might down the road. So there's, or maybe I'll write a goal for child will be stimulable for the K and G sound in isolation, right? If they're not stimulable yet.

So again, that's another goal that you can write for any approach if it's a sound that you want that child to eventually acquire. Yeah, so I think if we're creative, I think we need to step away from this idea of we have to pick one sound and that sound has to be 90 % accurate in all word position. That's an articulation approach, right? That's articulation. I want to know, I want that child to start learning about these particular sounds.

that we're trying to teach. And that's why another goal, I'll give you another example. With the cycles approach, when we get through an entire cycle and we've targeted all the patterns and all the sounds that we are gonna target in that cycle, we reassess to see if any of those sounds begins to emerge in spontaneous speech. And so when, according to the cycles approach, when a child starts to use, let's say, let's keep fronting for example, when they start to use K and G,

in spontaneous speech at about 50 % accuracy. So 50 % of the time, they're saying it correctly. You don't have to target it in the next cycle. So I have often written a goal too, and I'll write this across the board for other phonological, because this really is true for phonological learning. Once a child reaches past that 50%, most of the time they're saying it correctly.

The rest is likely to emerge on its own without direct intervention. So I might even write a goal for, you know, child will produce K and G at over 50 % accuracy during a spontaneous speech sample of 10 minutes, you know, across two sessions or whatever, you know, you can kind of get as specific as you need to, but write a generalization goal and thinking about what we know about phonological development, because again, we're teaching the rule.

And once the child starts to learn that rule and it starts to emerge in their spontaneous speech, we know that rule is probably taking hold. And then we can just monitor it without having to necessarily directly target that in their speech.

Marisha (23:58)

Yeah, that's a great suggestion. And then, so going back to the word level goal, and I'm just curious, kind of in your practice, what you've seen. So if we write the goal at the word level, and let's say they achieve like the criteria and 90 % accuracy, do you typically see that go into conversation or?

Amy Graham (24:14)

Mm -hmm.

Not always. So that's another thing to consider too, because that is acquisition of the skill during your assessment. You know, that's what they're, you know, when you show them the pictures, can they do the sound? But generalization is our ultimate goal. So we have in phonological interventions, we have this narrow measure of generalization, which would be that. Like maybe give them a list of 10 words that have the target sound that you've been working on, but you haven't addressed those in therapy. Is it generalizing to untrained words?

So you can write a goal and add untrained word list to that goal at the word level. But once they're about 90 % of that time, they're producing that in untrained words that you haven't addressed in therapy. Once they get there, then it's time to start looking at that generalization to spontaneous speech. And we continue to address it until we hear that child start to use it in spontaneous speech, even if they're like 100 % accurate over here. We got to still address it.

that because just because they're accurate with at the word level doesn't mean learning has taken hold. So we have to continue to address it. We might even tweak what we're doing in the therapy session, which I go into in my course, like maybe we're gonna use those words in phrases and those kinds of things. We're gonna make the, you know, change the linguistic context a little bit about what we're practicing, but we're gonna keep addressing it until the ultimate goal is to get to that.

at least 50 % I like to shoot for a little more even spontaneous production.

Marisha (25:47)

Perfect. And then are there any other goals that you would add? Because we talked about at the word level, kind of spontaneous speech. Would you ever write goals kind of in between that, or would you always just?

Amy Graham (25:59)

I don't because I think some people think of the in -between goal might be use them in phrases, use them in sentences. Again, that's a traditional articulation goal. That's not what I'm going for. I'm going for is the child learning the rule for these words have to have the back sound, right? The K and G versus the T and D. And we do that most of the time, we're doing that at the word level. So that narrow, we have that narrow measure of generalization when it comes to phonological interventions. And we have a generalized, you know, a general or a broad measure of generalization, which we.

spontaneous speech. So those are kind of the only two that I go into. But I also, like I said, I do like that intelligibility goal because here's why. When you have a child who's so impaired, let's take, for example, maybe they have final consonant deletion, right? And they're saying, I don't know, like cat, for cat, they're saying cat, right? They just drop it off altogether.

And so you're doing your cycles, you're targeting final consonant deletion and everything else and maybe S clusters and gliding and fronting and all of it. And then you get to the end of your cycle and you're reevaluating and the child says something like, pass. Well, is it accurate? No, it's not accurate. But is it better? Because now they're at least marking a final consonant? Yes.

So if a child says, I want to pet the cats versus I want to pet the cat, is it more intelligible? Likely it is. And so that's why I like an intelligibility goal because as the child's speech system improves, the sounds may not always be perfect and accurate, but we want them to get closer and closer and closer until it is accurate. And so that's why I like that measurement of intelligibility too, because it looks at not just, is that sound perfect in that word position? It looks at, yeah, but are they being understood a little bit more?

Marisha (27:49)

Yeah. And that's the ultimate goal. So I love that. And then, cause you also mentioned, so to recap, we did the word and spontaneous conversational speech goals. Then we talked to the intelligibility and context. And you also mentioned a stimulability goal.

Amy Graham (27:51)

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, because some kids for the cycles approach, we don't address word level practice. We don't do an entire session at words until they can actually produce it correctly, because this is one of those approaches where we want errorless learning. We don't want to reinforce inaccurate productions. But what if you have a kid who can't do K or G yet, right? I get a lot of those kids who takes time. And so we don't focus an entire session on that. We maybe focus five minutes at the end of the session.

to see if I can get them, if I can use new cues to get them to be stimulable. And then we can, once they are stimulable, then we're gonna spend an entire 60 minutes of therapy on that sound with particular words. And so if a child is not stimulable, absolutely, I will maybe even write, child will produce or child will exhibit stimulability of this particular sound.

I'll even write in any phonetic context. Maybe they can get it at the end of a word. I just want them to show me that they're stimulable. So in any phonetic context, or you can say in isolation, given maximal multisensory cues, because we're going to go through our entire toolbox until we can get that kid to say that sound. And then, you might even say like five times out of 10 trials or six out of 10 trials or eight out of 10 trials.

whatever you think that child will be able to achieve within that time frame. Because once they can achieve that, then you can start targeting at the word level and then you can rewrite for that next reporting period, you can rewrite that goal to address word level practice.

Marisha (29:40)

Perfect. And anything else that you would add in terms of goals?

Amy Graham (29:45)

I'll probably have something to add after we stop recording. I'll probably think of something, but I don't, nothing that's coming to mind at the moment.

Marisha (29:48)

That's always how it works.

Yeah, and I love this because it's like once you have a little bit of a framework and everything, like it feels so simple and it like it makes sense. So.

Amy Graham (30:04)

And I think it is. It's a lot simpler than we think. I think most things like apraxia therapy, it's a lot easier than we think. Not easy, but simple. It's a lot simpler than we think as far as choosing targets and thinking of what do we actually want. If you stand back and you kind of take a big picture as opposed to getting up close and looking at the 45 sound substitutions and omissions that the child has, step back. What's the big picture? What do we want to happen? What sounds do we want them to acquire? It really is simple.

Marisha (30:31)

Yeah. And I, especially with speech sound disorders, it seems like, like the cycles approach and like DTTC for apraxia, a lot of them have really nice like step -by -step guidelines to at least guide the intervention. and I love what you said about writing goals for the specific speech task and not having it be for a specific approach. because that, that makes it simpler too.

Amy Graham (30:43)

Yeah.

Absolutely.

And it gives you freedom to change your mind. I love the complexity approach. It's one of my favorite approaches where we target a complex cluster or two that it might be challenging for the child that they may not even be stimulated before, but that's what we're doing. But that depends on the resilience of the child, the maturity of the child, the age of the child. I've had some kids, I go in and I'm like, yep, this is what we're doing. And the minute I challenge them with something that's hard, they're under the table and I've lost them. And so I think, okay.

you know what, this is not working, I'm gonna switch to the cycles approach because we're working within their zone of proximal development for the cycles approach, where they just need a little bit of help to be accurate. And sometimes kids need to feel that success right away in order for you to get buy into the whole therapy process. And the cycles approach can be a really great way to do that.

Marisha (31:45)

Yeah, that's great. So any last tips or tricks before we wrap things up? I mean, you could speak for hours and hours and hours and hours. We could be here next week still.

Amy Graham (31:53)

man.

I could go on and on. I think my biggest tip for any SLP, and this kind of goes even beyond goals, is to understand the nature of the child's speech sound disorder. Meaning, again, we're going back to assessment, but what's going on? Is it articulation? Is it a distortion, like our lateral lispers, those are distortions where we should use a motor -based intervention? Or is it phonological? Do we really need to...

to even if they're not stimulable, just because I think this is a common misunderstanding. If a child is not stimulable for a sound, then it must not be phonological. That is not true. A child does not have to be stimulable for their primary deficit to be phonological in nature. Just means we're going to have to work extra hard and use a lot of cues in our toolbox to help them become stimulable for that sound. But once you understand, OK, what's the nature of the child, it's going to help you choose a better approach.

And honestly, it's gonna help kids get off your caseload faster. And I tell when I do my courses, that is my goal for parents, for the kids, for SLPs. I wanna get kids off your caseload and I don't wanna see it this time next year because I want to have implemented an approach that matched the child's deficit so that we can make them intelligible so much faster. And using a phonological intervention for phonological deficits is so much faster than using that traditional articulation approach. So I think that would be my takeaway.

specific necessarily, but find out, make sure you know what the deficit is so you can be much more effective and efficient in your service delivery.

Marisha (33:34)

Yes, a thousand percent. And everyone wins if we're able to do that. Because like you said, our caseload's more manageable, kids get like, they don't have to come to speech, they get to be, if they're in the schools, they get to be in the least restrictive environment. And if they're able to be intelligible, their quality of life will be that much better. So lots and lots of wins with that.

Amy Graham (33:36)

yes.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Marisha (33:58)

yeah, and I'm just so grateful for you, Amy, for continuing to share so generous generously. I'm always super inspired whenever I hear you speak or I get to chat with you on the podcast. yeah, just really grateful for your time and that you're sharing your expertise with us. And I think that's a wrap.

Amy Graham (34:19)

Thanks, Marisha. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me back on. It's been fun.

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Today, Rachel Madel discusses setting goals for AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) users.In this episode, Marisha Mets interviews Rachel Madel, an AAC specialist, about setting goals for AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) users. They discuss the importance of independent initiation, expanding vocabulary, and developing pragmatic functions. They also emphasize the need for neurodiversity affirming goals and the involvement of communication partners in goal setting. Rachel recommends her course AAC Ally for more in-depth information on goal writing and provides a resource for understanding neurodiversity affirming practices.Guest BioRachel Madel M.A.,CCC-SLP is a board-certified speech-language pathologist and AAC specialist. She co-hosts a weekly podcast called “Talking with Tech” that guides parents and professionals on utilizing technology to support communication. Her work has been featured in Autism Parenting Magazine, Speech Science, Practical AAC, Xceptional Ed, and ChildNEXUS. She is the founder of a digital media company that provides educational resources, therapy materials, and training videos to help support parents of children with autism.Takeaways from This Episode

Independent initiation is a crucial goal for AAC users, regardless of their age or communication modality.
Spontaneous language samples can provide valuable insights into a student’s current communication and help identify areas for growth.
Expanding vocabulary to include core language and developing pragmatic functions are important goal areas for AAC users.
Repairing communication breakdowns should be a goal for students with low speech intelligibility.
Incorporating AAC into the entire team’s goals and training communication partners is essential for success.
Rachel Maydell’s AAC Ally course and the interview with Rachel Dorsey provide valuable resources for goal writing and understanding neurodiversity affirming practices.

Links and Additional Resources

Rachel’s Instagram
Rachel’s Website
Rachel’s YouTube Channel
Rachel’s PodcastTalking with Tech
Rachel’s Course; AAC Ally
Interview with Rachel Dorsey

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TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabMarisha Mets (00:00)

Hello there and welcome to the SLP Now podcast. I'm really excited to be continuing our Goal series. We are going to be chatting about goals for AAC with Rachel Maydell. She is a board certified speech language pathologist and AAC specialist. She also co -hosts the podcast Talking with Tech, which is an incredible resource. And she's also been featured in tons of publications and

has created some amazing courses. And so I'm gonna turn it over to Rachel. So hi, Rachel, welcome. Hi, I'm so excited to be here. Yeah, I'm so excited to have you and to dive into this conversation. And I'm curious, just before we start chatting about all things goals, how did you end up learning so much about AAC and having this become your specialty? You know, I always like to share the story.

when I was in graduate school, I remember walking into a preschool classroom and seeing a few of the students using picture exchange and watching the SLP that we were kind of there to observe just using pictures and visual supports. And I remember thinking to myself, like, why is she just not working on having them talk? And so I'm just like, wow, like young, like fresh me.

just being so judgy about AAC. And it's ironic that that's now my specialty and definitely an area of passion for me. But I think it's a testament to not truly understanding the power of visual supports, the power of AAC. And so very quickly I realized that many students benefit from AAC. And I was in a situation early on in my career where

I had a lot of students that just weren't making progress with traditional approaches with, you know, they weren't imitating verbally. They didn't have a lot of sounds. their speech was very inconsistent and unreliable. And I remember one of my first cases where I was like, okay, I think this is a really good candidate for AAC. Like, let me call the AAC specialists. And she came in and helped support, you know, me in kind of an assessment and

it was incredible to see the progress that we could make. And so as soon as I had that experience, I was just like, okay, what other kids could I introduce AAC to? And then one thing led to the next. And my personality is very much intense rabbit holes of research. And so as soon as I was just like, my gosh, I need to learn more about AAC. I don't know, hours and hours and hours later, I...

was like, is so awesome. And the more I learned, the more I integrated into my clinical practice. And then here we are. And now I'm like teaching others about AAC. it's definitely an area of passion for me simply because the kids that were helping to support communication with AAC, they're very complex cases oftentimes. And communication is not coming easily. And it's become, you know,

a passion of mine to help support that population of students because it can feel very overwhelming as a parent. And I've had a lot of families come to me in my practice and just feel hopeless that like nothing will work. And when we get the right tool in front of a student and we know how to utilize that tool and support them through that tool, it's really incredible to see language develop, to see all different skills.

and really get to know who that student is because now we have a way to connect with them. And so that's kind of the short version of how I got interested in it and I think why I'm so passionate about it. Yeah, I love that. And I could just see you lighting up. That passion definitely comes through. I love that. so the goal of this podcast is to chat about goals and help SLPs navigate that.

But that's clearly a very small piece of the puzzle when we're thinking about our ultimate goal of helping students, students a form of communication. And we're thinking about high quality assessment and implementing treatment strategies and all of that. So what are your favorite resources? Maybe we can just call out a few things or maybe just mindset types of things just to help SLPs

navigate those elements and maybe point them towards some resources. Yeah. So I think the first thing to mention is that if you're working with students, making sure that they have access to a robust AAC system. So it's like, before we can dive into kind of the goals, like we need to make sure that we have all the elements of an AAC system that will help support our students fully.

And so when I'm thinking about robust AAC, I'm making sure that that system has access to lots of core language. It's not just a bunch of nouns. It supports motor planning for communication, which we know is so important when it comes to AAC, meaning the buttons don't move and they stay in one place. The more kind of touches you need on an AAC device to get to where you're going, the harder it becomes, the longer the motor plan.

the more complex it is, the less likely our students are going to be communicating with us. And the less likely communication partners are going to be modeling on that device if it's six hits to get to where I'm going. so motor planning becomes an important principle of robust AAC grammar, being able to change from singular to plural, from regular tense to past tense and future tense. All of those things become really important.

And another huge one is access to a keyboard and literacy. Because we know that we can only program so many words into an AAC system. We have to give kids access to letters and spelling so that they can fully communicate all the things that they want to share and what they want to say. And so those are kind of like the big points. So if you're working with a student who doesn't have access to high tech, robust AAC, then there's definitely some,

things that you can do to start trialing, it's okay, because that's the reality of the nature of the work that we do, right? I just saw a kid the other day and he's using a pecs book and I'm like, okay, like how do we start aligning that student on a trajectory for high tech robust AAC? And so I just wanna kind of call that out because I think that sometimes we can feel like stuck as clinicians, like, okay, like I know that.

He might be a good candidate for something more robust or I don't know the private SLP recommended this system, but I'm not seeing a keyboard and I'm not seeing core language. so definitely making sure that our students are on that path because so often I see families come to me in my practice with AAC systems that are already set up. And I'm like, there's some tweaks that we need to make here because

This is just like a bunch of nouns, right? We know we need lots of different parts of speech and all of those kinds of elements of robust AAC. So I wanna start there just because I think it's an important reminder for everyone. Does it necessarily have to be high tech? Although that's the easiest for most students in this day and age, but there are things like pod books and things that are robust that are not necessarily on a high tech speech generating device. But for most of our students, we're looking towards high tech.

and so anyway, I just want to, I want to share that first and foremost. Yeah. And I think this is, cause I feel like in grad school, in my AAC class, they went through like all of the different options and there is kind of like, if we see these things, like use this type of system. and I feel like that's one thing that I've learned from you is that like, like, like, there anyone who you wouldn't use? Like anything that would exclude a kiddo from using, like a

high tech device that has that robust AAC system with the core language supporting more motor planning? No, the only exception potentially to that would be a student who is really young and we're just trying to get them initiating on AAC. So I just did that assessment with that kid with the PEX book. We actually recommended more of a stepping stone AAC, which is what I like to call it. It's like not

Super robust, however, we know that we're not gonna stay there forever. And I'm very clear with the family and the whole team, like we're using the system so that we can improve fine motor so that we can eventually get to this system. And I show that system, that kind of end goal. So that would be the only exception. Sometimes we need an in -between system where we're trying to really target the fine motor and just kind of.

get this young little one to understand the cause and effect of an AAC system. But no, I feel like so often we can go directly to high tech AAC and have a lot of success. I think it's a myth that we need to get to a certain level of PEGs or we need to try paper -based or light tech AAC before we do something robust. I've worked with two -year -olds that are on a high tech robust AAC system.

Granted, have to make some modifications sometimes and use some masking of some of the vocabulary, but like it's really cool that we can, you know, right out of the gate, start with something more robust. And again, we have to design with the end in mind, meaning if we know this is where we're headed, then like we need to get there as soon as possible and kind of reverse engineer our ways, our way back instead of like, well, right now.

gonna start with this system that has super big buttons and there's only six words on the screen. And it's like, that might be where the student is now, but if that's not where we want them to go, then we're gonna have to change the system over time. And so my biggest concern is that I don't wanna have to change that AAC system if I can avoid it. Cause that's like metaphorically pulling the rug out from underneath a student, like to completely change their AAC system takes time and.

all of that energy we've spent for that first system, now we have to kind of start fresh with a new one. So my goal in an assessment and the selection process is like, how can we get to that end goal and then work our way back? It's like, okay, we know we want this system long -term. How do we make those modifications to help support it more? They are currently knowing that over time, these skills will build, their vocabulary will build, all of these things will improve and we'll be in a really solid place.

Yeah. And it's almost like a kid starting preschool in English, and then he starts to master it. And then in kindergarten, like, just kidding. We have to speak Spanish now. It's almost like telling them to learn a whole new language because they're starting over with that motor plan and all new icons and all of that. So yeah, that makes sense. OK. And then anything else you wanted to share?

No, I mean, that is just like a really important reminder. And if you think that it is student might benefit from AAC, like you're right. So like try it. AAC hurts no one, helps everyone. And if it's not necessary, eventually we don't need to use it, but it can definitely be such a great support for students in learning language. Even, you know, many of the students in my practice, they have verbal speech. They just, they're autistic and it's not consistent and reliable. And so they need some type of backup.

And so there's so many different ways that you can utilize AAC to help support students. Yeah, I love that. Great. So should we start diving into some goal chat now? Yes, let's go. So because I feel like we could talk about this for hours and hours and hours. But if you were sitting down with an SLP who is like,

Okay, so I have this new AAC kiddo. Like, what do I think about as I start to navigate goals? Like, what would you say? Yeah, I mean, I think that it comes down to a few different areas that I like to think through when I'm thinking about goals for an AAC student, especially one who's an emergent communicator, because oftentimes kids that are getting AAC...

they're just kind of starting off now having an OO, a way that's reliable to express themselves. And so we're really thinking through that lens of emergent communicator, even if they're 12 or 15 or the age doesn't really matter, right? An emergent communicator is just starting off with language, just starting off, you know, with AAC especially. And so I like to think about how is this student currently

initiating communication because so often I see that especially if they haven't had access to AAC, even if they have some verbal speech, these students become very prompt dependent. And so they're not really initiating communication. And so I'd say 95 % of the students that I start working with, my primary goal is to work on independent initiation.

And that can be across any modality of communication, meaning it doesn't have to just be with AAC, but I really need kids independently initiating more. And the reason why I need that is because one, we know how quickly and easily students can become prompt dependent. And one way to think about this is if you are looking at a student and you're doing an assessment or this is a student that's on your caseload,

happens when you take all of the supports away, meaning like you're not prompting them, you're not asking them a question, you're not modeling language, like what are we left with? And that would be, you know, spontaneous language sample, right? Like what is a student saying completely on their own? And when I, and this is an exercise that I actually have communication partners do. Parents, like when I first meet a student, I send them home with a tracking sheet. like, tell me what your child said and in what context throughout the next week before I see you next.

and we're gonna look at that together. Same thing with teachers. You can even do this, you know, if you're doing an observation with a student that's brand new to your caseload or not brand new, just observe in the classroom, what are they saying? And oftentimes it's not a lot of communication. And so my first goal is how do we get kids more independently initiating communication? Again, whatever modality, it's just important that kids are initiating.

And the reason that becomes so important is because it really forces the communication partners around a child to pull back and give them space and wait time. And all these beautiful strategies that we know are so important to allow kids the space to become independent with their communication. And so that's the number one, I'd say goal area for me. And of course it's looking at what a student's currently doing and building off of those strengths.

But so often I really want to build up the current communication they have and I want to get them using that communication more independently. And that can be a huge shift again, because it's like, seems pretty straightforward. It's like, yeah, independent initiation. However, in order to get there, you often have to do a lot of training and support with the communication partners because

Communication partners like teachers and paraprofessionals, parents, they're jumping in, they're asking the question. They're saying, tell me on your talker, tell me, what do you want? They're giving us super high levels of support. But once you train communication partners to kind of tempt, pause, just give space, all of a sudden we see kids initiating communication more. And then we have a really strong foundation to expand vocabulary.

to go into all of the of nuances that many people think of when they're thinking about goals for AAC students. But if we don't have independent initiation, then we're not going to get very far without super high levels of prompting. And at the end of the day, when I send my student off, like I want them to be able to independently communicate and such an important thing. And again, it takes a lot of kind of training of the circle of support.

But when you see that, and you can oftentimes see that happen pretty quickly if you are capitalizing on what a student's motivated by and you're really doing that communication partner training, that can be huge. And again, you're not coming in with something brand new. It's like building off of the communication the child's already showing you. And so that is a huge topic area for goals, in my opinion. Yeah, I love that. And that makes a lot of sense because we're

if we're focusing on what they're independently communicating, that's what's going to be most important to them and most functional too. Like that's how they communicate. So we can easily work off of that too. Exactly. And when you see that spontaneous language sample come back, right? It's like, I know there's intrinsic motivation for communication because these are the things you were motivated to say in the last week. And so it shows me exactly what kids are motivated by. It's like,

Okay, they said iPad, they said outside, they said more when it comes to jumping on the trampoline, right? It's like so obvious what they're currently motivated by. And then if we look at that, then we can figure out ways to expand on what they're currently doing spontaneously. And that's really how you figure out targets for vocabulary is, you know, take that spontaneous language sample and then figure out how can I maybe...

If this student's using primarily nouns, it's like, how do I expand into more core language? Which gets me into the other topic area of goals, which is really important is like core language, right? So many of my students are using mostly nouns for communication and we can expand that into core language. There's opportunities when a child says their favorite food to then model eat or drink, right? And so it, but if the,

if you're trying to figure out goals, the best way to do that is to see what a child's communicating independently and spontaneously. And again, build off of that, because you have so much information there about what a child's currently doing. And we don't have to come out of the field with something brand new. It's just like, no, get them better at what they're already doing and nudging them in the right direction as far as expanding into more core language. Another one is pragmatic functions.

Many kids are just using requesting. And so how do we expand their pragmatic functions? These are all things I'm thinking about when I'm looking at that spontaneous language sample to figure out like, okay, where does this child actually need to go? You know, that would make a big impact for them. And those are kind of topic areas that I'm ticking off those boxes. I'm like, yes, most kids need to work on independent and initiation. Many of them need work with more core language and

many of them also are only using language for requesting for the most part. And so I need to expand into all the different reasons that we use language. Yeah, I love that. And then are those like the three main areas that you think about to start or is there anything you would add? Yeah, I mean, there's other kind of topic areas. say I'm working with a student who

I would consider it to be a primarily verbal communicator, meaning they are speaking and talking and the reason that they need AAC is because no one understands what they're communicating and what they're saying. So they have really low speech intelligibility. So for that student, I'd be thinking through repairing communication breakdowns, right? And so that's an area where I would certainly be writing a goal for repairing breakdowns because

So often our students don't even know that there was a breakdown. Like they're not even aware. So it's like building awareness. Like you were not understood my friend. Like, you know, cause oftentimes kids will say the same thing in the same way. And unfortunately some kids don't have the ability to say something more intelligibly. And so my primary goal for that student is getting them to understand, to go say it a different way, i .e. go to their

talker and say it using AAC. But there's very specific things you can do with kids to show that there's a communication breakdown. I'm a really big advocate of being super confused and like, how with this super confused face and my hands up in the air. Those are gestural cues to a student that they're not being understood. It's a naturally occurring thing that we can.

and exaggerate for our students so they can understand, someone's not understanding me right now. And then, you know, making sure that we're scaffolding that support for students. If every time they're not understood, we jump in and we say, tell me on your talker. Then guess what? That child's never gonna learn how to independently go to their AAC and tell you.

because we just come in with that prompt and like, they're like, okay, great, someone just puts my AAC device in front of me and that's what reminds my brain that I can use this, right? So again, it's kind of scaffolding that support so that we can, again, move towards independence. And so that would be one area that if you're working with a student who has verbal speech and is primarily a verbal communicator, they're excited to say things verbally even if they're not intelligible.

Repairing communication breakdowns would be a really big goal area. Yeah, that's great. And this has been a really nice overview of different areas to think about. so hopefully anyone listening feels like, I might have some goals for independent initiation or vocabulary or pragmatic functions. And that would be a good place to start. But if someone is wanting to learn more,

and dive more into all of the goals and all of that. Do you have any resources that you'd recommend? I actually am launching a brand new course. So I have a course called AAC Ally. It's the assessment version, but I'm really excited this fall I'm releasing the treatment edition and I go into tons of details about goals. I actually had an interview on talking with tech with Rachel Dorsey. Rachel Dorsey is

all about neurodiversity affirming practices. She's an autistic adult who talked in detail about goals for AAC. And one thing that I loved during that interview, and this was years ago that I had her on the podcast, but she said she always adds to the beginning of her goals for an AAC user when given unrestricted access to AAC, student will. And I've been like using that ever since. like, yes, I love this.

because it reminds everyone on the team to get that device. This device needs to be in front of the student all the time. I love that and it's actually a really great resource. can send you the show notes. Should I send you the link for the show notes? Because that's just a really, really great interview. Those are the big things that I'm thinking through when I'm thinking through goals and resources. We oftentimes will touch on these things during talking with tech.

But that episode in particular, feel like we really go into goals. And I know Rachel Dorsey has, I believe, a course on goal writing, which again, like she's a big proponent of an advocate of AAC. And yeah, I know that that is something that we're thinking through too, right? It's the goals that we're writing need to be based in neurodiversity affirming practices. And I'm always thinking through that lens too. And one other thing I'll add is that

You know, I think that when you're writing a goal, you have to consider the entire team around a student. And I think that, you know, there's ways that you can kind of build in these safeguards. So say a student doesn't have a lot of core language and you don't see a lot of modeling happening in the classroom. You can write in the goal.

when given aided language import or when given a model on their AAC, student will. And so I just wanna share that because there's ways that you can embed things into a goal that really help get that team bought in, get that team on board. AAC is for everyone. so it's like integrating into all the different goals and in IEP, I think is really important. And so.

Those are just some things too, to kind of keep in mind and consider. Just because I feel like we have an opportunity to integrate and embed AAC into an IEP in very strategic ways. And so that would be one more kind of piece of advice that I would give. Yeah, that's great. And I will make sure to add the links to the courses in the show notes and then also

The interview with Rachel Dorsey sounds great. And so I'll add all of those resources in the show notes so they're easy to find. then, so just a quick recap of the things we talked about. So we talked about considering independent initiation and then using the spontaneous language sample to help as a jumping off point to look at vocabulary goals, pragmatic function goals, and then

I love the snippet that you gave, like when given unrestricted access to AAC. And then definitely diving into Rachel's episode for more details on things to consider for those neurodiversity affirming goals. And then to consider that entire team. And like, if we're not seeing that modeling in the classroom, we can add a phrase like when given aided language stimulation. And I'm sure

that your AAC Ally course goes in or no, would it be the new course that goes into more of this? So they're both going to be called AAC Ally. So it's AAC Ally assessment, AAC Ally entry. So yes, it will definitely go into a lot more detail. There's a whole module on goal writing for AAC because it was an area that many people wrote to me about for the original AAC Ally assessment version. And I was like, man, like I need to help support the goal writing process. That's like such a big piece of this.

So yeah, there's a whole module on goal writing. Awesome. And then also, because I think a huge part of this is supporting the students environment. So of course there's things that we are going to teach the student, but we can potentially have way more impact by training the communication partners in their environment too. So I'm sure you dive into all of those. Totally. Well, that's the thing is like we

in order to be successful in this work, we have to actually be coaching communication partners. And so the other element of this is how do I help communication partners set goals for themselves? How do I help a teacher set a goal for how much she's gonna model during her specific lesson? How do I help a parent figure out how they're going to model this specific word?

in this routine. And so, you know, of course we have goals for our students, but we also can have goals for communication partners and help that communication partner set a goal. And we also can have goals for ourselves if we're new to AAC and we're like, I'm not even sure how to model. You know, we can have those goals for ourselves. And so I feel like the goal writing process can actually be a lot larger than just thinking about the goals for our students.

And yeah, I mean, that's what I do all day is I coach communication partners and part of that coaching is like, okay, we're all gonna, we're gonna sum it up and like, how are we gonna integrate this? How are we gonna make this a part of our routine? How are we gonna create these healthy habits so that it feels more seamless? Because I understand that AAC can feel very daunting and overwhelming and we have an opportunity to start integrating into people's routines in a way that feels really easy and achievable.

and we can kind of build off of those small wins. so, yeah, goal writing, we're in like a goal -writing matrix when we're thinking about AAC, because it's like, there's goals for me, there's goals for communication partners, there's goals for students. Yeah. I love, that's great. So many good things. Thank you so much for breaking this down for us. This was really helpful, and I'm excited to dive into the other resources too, because we're never done learning. There's always more.

Totally, I feel the same way. like, okay, like I get the chance to do a lot of, you know, presenting and speaking at conferences and things. And I'm always like so excited for the learning that happens because we all have our own unique experience and we all have really incredible ideas. And so it's like the more you are just curious to learn, I think the better a clinician you can be. And so it's just really exciting in this day and age how easy information is to get access to.

Yeah, I'm always curious to learn more. And I'm so thankful that I have so many people around me that are able to teach me and help me become a better clinician. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm grateful that you're one of those people who are me. So yeah, thank you so much for your time. This was amazing. And then again, check the link to the show notes is like in the description of the episode. So if you're listening and want access to those resources, go check it out and then.

Yeah. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. This was so fun.

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Today, Rose Griffin discusses how to write goals for older students who are not yet speaking.In this episode, Marisha interviews Rose Griffin, a speech language pathologist and board certified behavior analyst, about writing goals for older students who are not yet speaking. Rose shares her experience working with this population and emphasizes the importance of a high-quality assessment before writing goals. She recommends resources such as the Functional Communication Profile Revised and the Communication Matrix for gathering data on a student’s communication abilities. Rose also discusses the importance of implementing evidence-based practice and provides tips for SLPs new to working with this population. She highlights the need for goals that focus on functional communication, vocational skills, and leisure skills, and provides examples and strategies for writing these goals. The conversation concludes with tips for building rapport with teachers and parents and the importance of ongoing communication.Takeaways from This Episode

Understand how to conduct a high-quality assessment before writing goals for older students who are not yet speaking
Use resources such as the Functional Communication Profile Revised and the Communication Matrix to gather data on a student’s communication abilities
Implement evidence-based practice when planning treatment based on goals
Focus on goals that promote functional communication, vocational skills, and leisure skills
Build rapport with teachers and parents and maintain ongoing communication

Links and Additional Resources

Rose’s Instagram
ABA Speech Connection Membership
ABA Autism Goal Bank

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TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabMarisha (00:01)

Hey there and welcome to the SLP Now podcast. I'm really excited to have Rose Griffin with us here today. We are going to be chatting about writing goals for older students who are not yet speaking. And Rose has been on the podcast at least once or twice already, but she is a speech behavior analyst.

She has a really interesting perspective and I'm really excited to chat with her about older students who are not yet speaking.

Rose (00:36)

Thanks so much for having me. It's great to see you. It's great to be back on the podcast.

Marisha (00:41)

Yeah, and I cannot wait for this conversation. I like, I know you have so many great resources. But before we dive into all of the tips and resources, I'm curious if you could, because I did a super, super short bio for you. But I'm curious, how did you end up learning so much about working with this population? And can you tell us a little bit of your story?

Rose (01:05)

Yeah, absolutely. I became a speech therapist. My first year I worked just in a school and I worked with general education students who working on speech sounds funny enough because now I specialize in autism. In my second year, I started working in a non -public program for autistic learners who typically had behavioral barriers to their learning and a lot of the students were older. And so that's really where my passion started in helping students who are traditionally harder to reach and are

older in their chronological age, but still don't have a way to communicate with the world. And that just started my whole, I say mission in life now with my platform at ABA Speech, but I have worked in public schools and non -public programs and my platform here at ABA Speech allows me to really specialize in helping all autistic learners find their voice, but especially those who, regardless of age, are still having a hard time finding a robust way to.

to start communicating. And so that's really what I have specialized in clinically and doing trainings. And so that is why I really love speaking about this topic and because I feel like there's not a lot of information out there. So I like to be somebody who is a source of support while there's.

Marisha (02:19)

That's amazing, I love it. And the topic for our podcast today is writing goals, but writing goals is obviously a very tiny part of the puzzle. And we want to make sure that we're doing a high quality assessment before we dive into writing goals. We don't just wanna take a list and be like, that looks good. So we wanna have a good rationale. And we also want to make sure that we're implementing evidence -based practice and

evidence -backed strategies and all of that when we're planning our treatment based on those goals. And that's a lot to tackle. And since you are a phenomenal resource, I thought I would just ask, if there's an SLP who's newer to working with this population, we're going to share some quick tips for goals, but what other resources would you recommend to help get them kind of up to speed?

Rose (03:14)

I think the assessment process is so important and what can be hard for students who are not yet speaking is it can be hard to give a standardized test and get a true snapshot of a learner's communication baseline. So the functional communication profile revised is a nice resource to get more of that data on how the student is communicating across a lot of different domains. I've also used the communication matrix.

which is a free or very affordable online option that allows you to get a better idea of conveying how the student is currently communicating. And I think that if you give assessments like that, and then also, just like Asha says in the practice portal, is observe, do an observation. Go into the classroom, go into gym or recess or lunch. Some of those unstructured times is where you can really see those nuggets of how is the student really communicating.

How are they applying their skills across the day? And then all of that information together is going to give you a really nice baseline of, okay, here is how the student's currently communicating and what is going to be most important so that student can communicate more effectively, can have a way to communicate with the world across environments. And that's gonna be so important as a student gets older with vocational opportunities and social opportunities and things like that. So that's kind of how I approach the assessment piece.

Marisha (04:37)

That's amazing. I love that as a quick overview. And the communication matrix is especially cool. For those of you who haven't used it, it's an online tool and it makes like a really nice visual. And it's really nice to kind of show parents our rationale and all of that. Yeah, so I love all of those. So functional communication profile revised and the communication matrix as to assessment.

options and then also observing throughout the students school day to get a better picture. And then so in terms of intervention and I think we did we actually chatted about this on our previous podcast. I'll have to link to it in the show notes but I'm curious like what resources would you recommend for an SLP who's

kind of wondering, like looking for ideas on where, like how to structure therapy or how to start approaching things.

Rose (05:40)

Yeah, I mean, we talk about that a lot in our courses of ABA Speech Connection, our CEU membership, or ASHA approved CE providers. And I try to always incorporate older students because once again, there's not a lot of great information. There's actually a really good Facebook group for middle school and high school speech therapists on, it's just on Facebook and there's, it's a really nice group of people. But I try to answer a lot of the questions in there and provide courses. And I really think that for students who are not yet speaking, who are middle school, high school and beyond,

a focus on how is a student communicating for functional communication, how are they communicating within a vocational setting because that becomes something with the transition piece that we need to think about. And the way that I frame social language skills, because that can be a touchy subject with people too, we want to make sure that we have a sense and it's not compliance -based by any stretch, but social skills can be really important in the workplace. And so the way that I kind of work on that, which we might've talked about last time a little bit,

is through leisure skills. So adapted and modified leisure skills. How can this person have work in their life that they enjoy and when they have a break time or when they go home, how can we help them have this larger life? Because what I've seen doing this 20 plus years and just having a lot of friends who have autistic kids of their own is that when somebody gets out of school and they're no longer receiving school services,

that person's life can get really small. And the families too, if they don't have access to the community, if they're not in a day program that they really enjoy, if they don't have employment, whether independent or with a job coach, a person's life can get really small. And so as a speech language pathologist, I'm always thinking, why is this important? Why am I working on this? I'm not saying get rid of the prepositions and things like that, but I kind of am. We have to really get serious about.

Why are we working on this? Why is this important for this person when they're 30, when they're 40, when they're 50? And that's how I really kind of have that two pronged approach of, okay, we're gonna work on things that are important functionally, important for leisure skills, and then also thinking about that vocation piece as well.

Marisha (07:47)

Yeah, I love that. So just to recap, focusing on functional, vocational, and then leisure skills. And then I'll link to your membership sounds amazing. Those courses, I think would be super helpful for someone navigating this world. And then I'll also link to our old podcast episode just for a little bit more context in terms of that. But that was super helpful.

So now we get to start chatting about the goal side of things. And I feel like you gave us a little bit of a preview when you were talking about treatment. But what are the most important considerations when writing goals for those older students who are not yet speaking?

Rose (08:36)

I think something that's really important, if you're providing any type of individual instruction, which some people may be getting individual instruction is thinking that I always like to use this line that the student will complete targeted skill, whatever it is in the larger school environment. I definitely think that we have to get out of the therapy room. There's still some clients I would see in the therapy room in middle school, high school, maybe a student who has selective mutism, but we're eventually going to generalize those skills to the larger.

School environment maybe a student who stutters but we're also going to practice strategies and then generalize it to the real world because We have to get really functional and there's a lot of research that says that if our treatment Looks closer to what the natural environment is then we're going to have a better chance that those skills are going to generalize Which at this age, it's very important I'll never forget I went to a talk once and the lady said she saw a student and the shirt said on the front I have autism and on the back it said don't waste my time

which I thought was really, really funny. But that's kind of how I think of things. I want to be really comfortable saying like, this is why this is important for this student. This is the scope and sequence of why this is important. And I had a group of students that I started working with in third grade and.

It was a small district. I actually worked with those students until they were about in 11th grade and I had other students on my caseload, but it was kind of nice. They were really differentiated group just to kind of see what is the scope and sequence. Why am I working on this now and how's that going to be helpful for when the student is in high school and goes to job supported employment? How is that going to be helpful when the students really just did a supported employment with a district job coach and things like that? So I think getting really firm on why these things are important is going to.

really set you up for your goal setting to be functional.

Marisha (10:22)

Yeah, I think that's really important. And I love how you said that, like highlighting the research that shows that if treatment looks more like the real world, then we're more likely to generalize, which is.

ultimately what we want. Like who it doesn't matter. I always talk about this when it comes to like following directions types of goals. Like it doesn't matter if they can follow five million step directions in the therapy room. Like what will they, what are they looking like on the playground or at work or any of that. So I love that. and then,

So do you think we could dive into like maybe an example or two for the different areas that you mentioned? So you talked about functional communication, vocational goals, leisure skills. Could we maybe just chat through what that might look like a little bit more specifically?

Rose (11:07)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I had one student who was working on a vocational skill of going down to after lunch, him and appear. It was myself and a parapro. We would walk down to the cafeteria and the students would push in the chairs. They each had kind of different jobs in the cafeteria. And this was just kind of getting them ready for, it's like pre -vocational for when they're going to go to a vocational site, which is what they did at the high school that I worked in.

And so what I did for those students is I came up with a task analysis, which is just breaking down the skill of pushing in the chairs at lunch. And so it just was a step by step. I'd say, okay, we're going to go do our job now. We're going to go push in the chairs, potentially show a visual on the students visual schedule. And then just circling, like, did the student walk down the hall nicely? You know, did they start pushing in a chair and then look to the other one and orient to it? There's actually a lot of different steps.

And so then I would write down how many steps were included in that whole protocol and then what level of prompting we were hoping to get to. So it wasn't going to be completely independent, but probably maybe with no more than two prompts or something like that. So I'd have the steps listed, I'd break them down. And then you can just Google task analysis and you just write down every little step. And then you can just circle a plus or a minus, a plus or a minus.

And then that way, I feel like that's really nice real world data that is going to translate to more of a vocational setting. So that was an example of one vocational skill that we had addressed at the high school setting.

Marisha (12:48)

Yeah, I love that. And then, so with the task analysis, do you notate like the level of prompting for each of the steps or is that more general?

Rose (12:59)

That's a good question. Yes. Yeah, I would. And it depends on who, you know, because you want these things to be worked on, not just by the speech language pathologists, right? I always say my most important job is not the actual therapy. It's building rapport with the entire team so that I'm really just kind of helping to support communication that happens when I'm nowhere in sight. That's really where the magic happens on school -based teams.

And so yeah, you could definitely put the level of prompting and that gets into a whole, probably a whole other show, but we don't want to verbally prompt something because we want to verbal prompting is really hard to take that prompt away. We don't want our students to be prompt dependent. And that's something that really happens a lot with all students who are receiving services. And so for that specific example of pushing in the chairs, I might do a gestural prompt and then just pointing to the chair that needs to be pushed in next and then try to fade.

And just to piggyback on that, something I'm doing with my podcast, Autism Outreach, is like a little summer series where I'm doing shorter solo shows. And one that I talk about is making friends with the school administrative assistant or secretary, whatever your district calls them, and head custodian. And that is how we became up with that vocational activity. It's just trying to be friendly with people in the building and be a detective for what vocational opportunities.

might exist for your students in your buildings. And that's a nice way to, too, advocate for what a speech -language pathologist does, because most people don't really know what our scope and practice is.

Marisha (14:28)

Yeah, I love that. And that's so just functional and applicable. Yeah, that's really awesome. And I feel like if they, so if we're writing the goal in the IEP, we would just reference the kind of like task analysis kind of rubric that you created and use that to score.

Rose (14:51)

Yeah, you can definitely use the word rubric, whatever makes sense for you. Task analysis might be a jargon type term, but just gives you a framework. And I wouldn't just put the one vocational task in there. I would probably leave it open ended and maybe put a total of five vocational tasks or whatever it is with the criterion being whatever you set for the student. And then over two or three consecutive sessions, whatever makes sense for you in your clinical or school based setting.

Marisha (15:18)

Yeah, I love that example. I think that'll be really helpful. And you gave, because some of these things can feel really challenging to measure, but I think using the task analysis and having kind of like a checklist that you're using that you can quantify, you can quantify like the level of prompts needed or whatever makes sense. I think that would be, that's really cool.

Rose (15:27)

Mm -hmm.

Marisha (15:41)

I love it. Okay. And then what about leisure skills? What could that?

Rose (15:46)

Yeah, so for leisure, I might go into the classroom and do a group, like a leisure group. And so we might start with a question of the day that has visuals, or maybe when I had a smart board, they had smart board markers. I used to love that. It's such a nice thing when you have that in a school. Question of the day, everybody comes up and answers. Then we do an adapted book with real life pictures about something the students are doing. Usually it was about a vocational unit. I have this whole vocational book that I've created, and I have one for unit.

housekeeping unit because I knew what my kids are going to be job sampling as they got older and then we would end the game or end the session with a modified leisure activity. And so the way that I typically write those goals and that's included in this goal bank that I think we're going to put in show notes is just to put a duration of time that the student is going to engage in a group and then I might just put how many times they're going to participate and that might just be examples of like.

comes to the board, answers the question. It might be more open -ended. It really depends on your district and how specific you need to get. But I might say within a 25 -minute group session, Quinn will participate 10 times with no more than one prompt over three consecutive sessions. So participate could mean a lot of things. It could mean coming to the board with a smart board marker and voting. It might mean raising their hand. If I say who's excited to...

I don't know, take a walk on the track today. It's just kind of that. I hate goals that get us into specific ways to communicate. I really hate when an advocate would want me to write a goal for commenting because some of my kids didn't care. They didn't want to comment. They didn't care about that. And I think the neurodiversity movement really makes you think, with the neurodiversity lens, why are we working on this? Why is this important?

And everybody that's listening is going to have a different idea about that. And people that are on the other side of the IP table are going to sway you and want you to work on things. And that's the hard part about being a public school employee is that you can urge advocate, share research, but ultimately it's a team decision. So that can be hard. So that's why I got into writing those goals like that, to demonstrate that progress of like, wow, the student number one is staying in the group for 25 minutes. Look, they never used to do that. Number two.

We've done all these modified leisure activities, which I have a lot of free video models on my YouTube, ABA speech, so modified UNO, modified Scrabble, all those different modified Connect4, all those different games that you can then, when you report on progress, be really specific with those activities and how many times the student is participating.

Marisha (18:23)

Yeah, I love that. And that it gives that flexibility for the student to participate in ways that feel authentic to them versus like, you must comment or you must ask this many questions. It's like, what if they don't have it?

Rose (18:33)

Yes.

I know. And I just hate contriving those really awkward and strange social situations. And those are sometimes I just have always worked in really affluent districts. So there's always lawyers involved and advocates. And sometimes you just, you know, get in these heated discussions about goals and, you know, where you talk for hours about one goal and their objectives. But I mean, sometimes it's hard because when you're school based, you can't always say, I don't want to do that. I don't believe in that goal that takes away from the students in the event as well.

and promotes masking. But you can definitely try to be professional and try to advocate for evidence -based practice.

Marisha (19:17)

Yeah, and I'm sure there are ways to kind of compromise along with that too.

Rose (19:23)

Yeah, I have your director present. Yeah, I think those are important.

Marisha (19:25)

Okay, awesome. And then should we do one more example?

Rose (19:33)

Sure, yeah.

Marisha (19:34)

to do a functional worm.

Rose (19:37)

Yeah, functional communication. You know, for functional communication, middle school, high school, it might be asking for help with the task. So I had students who were more in general classes, maybe supported, where I would go into, they have a study period and I would, in the session, we would work on saying like, I need help with this. And then I would go into their supported kind of study hall to see if they would ask the teacher for help because they needed help on an assignment. And so that was nice.

Or students who are using an AAC device, who are maybe completing a vocational task at a work setting and they don't understand how to do it, or maybe they need more work. These are things that we look at in vocational situations. And so seeing if a student could use those different phrases, how can we teach them in the session? But then also, I think our service delivery too for middle school, high school students, if you can, with your caseload, I know there's always environmental barriers, but.

That's why I really love being a high school therapist because I would go out to the local hospital and see the student working at the snack bar. I would go out to the supported floor at the Cleveland Clinic and see the students doing corporate work. And I really love seeing my clients in those real world situations. Because then when we would go to the meetings and we would talk with all the adult service providers, the meetings get very, very large when the students get older.

I had real world information to share about how the student was doing. And so that service delivery piece might look different too. You know, I had some students I would see twice a week. I had some students I would see quarterly at their job setting just to still be that communication support on the team. It really varied.

Marisha (21:16)

That's amazing. This makes me want to go work in a high school. Yeah, I've always loved that because it's so functional and real, like you're preparing them for where and I mean, like when we're working with school or like elementary students, we're still working on very functional skills that will allow them to participate in the classroom and with their peers. But there's just something really cool about.

Rose (21:19)

It's fine.

Marisha (21:44)

like preparing for a job and I love that. So this was so fun getting to chat. I always leave our conversations feeling really inspired. Do you have any last kind of tips or anything that you wanted to share that we didn't get to yet?

Rose (21:47)

Yeah.

Yeah, I would just say if you're transitioning to middle school and high school, I think it's really important to just try to build rapport with each teacher and try to build rapport with each student, potentially observe them first. I think that's really important. I always just put that as a data point on my data sheet that I've observed them because it's all about that ongoing communication. And I did work in a district where I had a really reasonable caseload, which I was always really lucky to have that. But I always did try to email each parent.

even though that about did me in, but I thought it was important because just the nature of where I worked parents were hyper involved. And I wanted to make sure that I was a source of support to say, hey, if you're not happy with something, if you are happy with something, if you have a question or if you just want to say hi, let me know. And I always tried to do that at the very start of the school year because when we work with humans, there's always going to be some problem that comes up. And so if you in the beginning of the school year, just reach out and extend that olive branch.

that is going to be very, very important and show that you're there to support the students.

Marisha (23:06)

Yeah, I totally agree. Well, this was so incredibly helpful. And I'll in the show notes, which will be linked to the episode. I'll share Rosa's Instagram, I'll share her course, like her membership, which includes lots of really epic courses that will go into even more detail, as well as some other resources that we mentioned during this episode.

and then yeah I think that's a wrap.

Rose (23:39)

Well, thanks for having me.

Marisha (23:41)

Thanks for joining us, Rose, and I hope everyone has a fabulous rest of their day.

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Today, Katja Piscitelli discusses how to navigate goals for Gestalt language processors!Takeaways from This Episode

Understanding the stages of natural language acquisition is crucial for writing goals that align with the child’s development.
Goals for Gestalt language processors should focus on spontaneous and self-generated language.
Resources such as Marge Blanc’s book, Meaningful Speech course, and the Communication Development Center website are valuable for learning more about natural language acquisition.
Each stage of natural language acquisition has specific goals, such as increasing the amount and variety of gestalts in stage one, mixing and matching gestalts in stage two, and introducing verbs and complex grammar in stage four.

Links and Additional Resources

Katja’s Instagram
Katja’s Website

How is that possible, you ask?

We’ve talked about so many activity options during this series… but there are even more literacy-based ideas and evidence-based resources waiting for you on the other side of SLP Now.

Join thousands of SLPs and get the support you needSign up for a risk-free two week trial → We won’t even ask for your credit card!

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TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabMarisha Mets (00:00)

So hello there and welcome to the SLP Now podcast. We have Katya Piscitelli with us today and she is going to help break down how we can start navigating goals for our Gestalt language processors. And before we do that, just a really quick intro to Katya. She works in Sacramento, California. She has an incredible

private practice called total spectrum speech. And she specializes in working with autistic clients and she uses the natural language acquisition framework. She's also presented in several different locations and has just become a really well, sought after resource for speech language pathologists. So I'm excited to have her here today. So welcome Katya.

Thanks, thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat. Yeah, me too. And so I gave a little bit of an intro, but I feel like it doesn't do you any justice. So I'm curious to hear just a little bit about your story. So how did you end up learning so much about natural language acquisition and just kind of a little bit of how you got to where you are? Yeah, I mean, I'm learning right along with you all, but

In 2020, I stumbled upon it. I was not taught about Gestalt language or natural language acquisition in school as most of us weren't. But right out of my ACF in 2020, I found it. Meaningful Speech started posting on Instagram and I happened to find her account in the very early days and

I always knew I wanted to support autistic students, but I felt like I was just spinning my wheels, not really getting anywhere. And it never felt quite intuitive the way I was taught. It always felt a bit icky and I never really knew why. in finding learning about Gushelt language processors and NLA and just child led therapy in general, it was...

everything that I had been missing. So I really dove into it and started making it my specialty. in, gosh, I think 2022, I started seeing private clients and focused only on supporting Gestalt processors. So I've been supporting solely GLPs for about three years now.

And yeah, I've really dove in and learned as much as I could, but yeah, definitely still learning every day and every client is so different as we all know. Yeah, what a great story. Thank you for sharing that. so I get a lot of questions about, okay, so how do I write goals for this or this or this? And I think natural language acquisition and all of that brings up even more of those questions.

And it's obviously a really tiny part of the puzzle. And we want to make sure that we're doing like a high quality assessment before we write those goals and that we're implementing evidence -backed strategies and all of that. And we don't have the time to dive into all of that to fully do the topic justice. So I'm curious if you have any favorite resources to help SLPs who are just wanting to learn more about the basics.

Yeah, when I got started learning about Gestalt, the only resources that we really had were Marge Blanc's book, Natural Language Acquisition on the Autism Spectrum, which is still the most amazing resource because it's all of this 15 years of longitudinal studies on Gestalt processors in one book and lots of amazing case studies. But we really just had that and Marge Blanc's courses on

Northern Speech Services, but now we have so many resources. So whether you're trying to invest in a course or just get some free information, there's a ton out there. And I have a lot of it pinned in my feed on Instagram under free resources, but my favorite

Courses are still Marge Blanc's courses as well as the Meaningful Speech course. And then there's a group called Natural Communication and they have a free introductory course to the natural language acquisition stages. They have some paid shorter courses as well. And then my favorite resource for parents and teachers and speech therapists is

CommunicationDevelopmentCenter .com, which is Marge's website. It goes really in depth into each of the natural language acquisition stages, has examples of therapy, lots of research and just resources linked there, so all for free. So it's a great, great place to start. That's awesome. So many resources. I was...

Your Instagram account has so many resources, like you said. So in the show notes, I'll add a link to your profile and some of my favorite posts, if that's okay. And then I'll also include some of the resources that you mentioned, including Marge Blanc's book, the meaningful speech course, and then some of Marge Blanc's courses as well, and Marge's website. So lots and lots of resources to help us get started.

And then, natural language acquisition and all of that is still potentially, because you graduated in 2020 and you didn't learn about it in grad school. So the vast majority of SLPs probably didn't have that in their training. And those of us who know about it have learned about it kind of after the fact. But can you give us like a brief description of what it is and kind of

just to make sure we're on the same starting point. Yeah. So Gestalt language processors, there's two ways to process language, analytic and Gestalt. Hopefully we, if you're looking for goals that align with these kids, hopefully you're at least understanding that difference a bit, but natural language acquisition or the stages that these kids naturally move through to go from.

delayed echolalia all the way to self -generated grammar. So there's four main stages with two extra stages, which is basically just more and more complex grammar in those two extra stages. But yeah, March Blanc noticed that most autistic kids that she was supporting with language were moving through these stages naturally, or this same sort of sequence naturally. They were going from delayed echolalia, stage one to

mitigating or mixing and matching these chunks of language in stage two. Then they started piecing out single words in stage three and then in stage four putting those single words together like all kids hopefully do to create grammar. So she just noticed that happening and put a name to it. And natural language acquisition is that name to describe that process that happens. So we can do therapy and goals that are supportive of moving kids.

through that process. Yeah. And I think maybe this is obvious, but can we chat a little bit about, so, because I think our first step is determining what kind of language processors our students are. But is there, I guess, like from your perspective, could it do harm or is it like potentially not best practice if we're writing goals for,

like traditional goals when the student might benefit from more of the natural language approach. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I definitely see quite a few kids that have obviously had a more analytic style approach. So maybe they would have done better with learning gestalts or these larger chunks of language, but they were really

taught and drilled single words because we assumed that they were learning the way many kids do, which is at the single word level to begin. And then they get kind of stuck in that place. So yeah, it can definitely slow progress or cause kids to get a bit stuck. Some kids will do fine with whatever input you give them, but typically kids who are really needing some language support, it's going to be much more supportive if we're

teaching them in the way that they are truly processing. Yeah, that makes sense. So then what are some important considerations when we are writing goals for those students? Yeah. So you really have to understand the stages and to really get comfortable writing these goals.

In terms of generally supporting Gestalt processors, I'm always looking to have the same sort of criteria in goals. Like it should be spontaneous and self -generated, not prompted. So typically I start the goal with child will spontaneously and

without prompting produce whatever the goal is because that's one of the biggest things we're looking for when supporting push -dot processors and movement through the stages is that the language they're producing is spontaneous. It's not something that we're prompting with a question or giving a direct model. And what else? What other criteria do I look for?

I think that's the biggest thing. Yeah. And then we can talk about what those goals look like, but I'll let you lead that. Yeah, that would be great. the first thing is that when we're writing these goals, we're thinking about writing them for what the student will spontaneously produce without prompting. then your next...

I assume the next step then would be to look at kind of what stage they're in and write goals according to that. Yeah.

Yeah, so generally our assessment is really looking at the language sample and figuring out which stage they're falling into most of the time. Because typically these kids are a bit all over the place and they might be 80 % in stage one, but a little bit in stage two and a tiny bit in stage three. And that's super typical, but we want to write goals and support them in the place they are the most and then try to move them to.

the next closest stage. Yeah. then, so, cause let's say that, cause when you're doing the assessment, you are looking at the utterances and you kind of like classify the utterances. let's say they're at like 20 % stage one, 60 % stage two, and then what? 20 % stage three.

So would you write some goals? Would you write most of your goals in stage? Cause they're pretty much doing stage two already. So your goals would probably be more stage three, right? And I know it's so hard to say with like this is you would be looking at the whole child and not just like those three pieces of data. But is that how you would think about it?

Yeah, so you said that there are 80 % stage one, 20 % stage two, 20 % stage three. 20 % of utterances are like at stage one. Okay, got it. 60 % stage two. So it adds up to 100, but. Okay, I flopped those. Yeah. So yes, when we're looking at goals, we're typically looking for them to be 50 % in the

earlier stage before we move to the next. So if they're in 60 % stage two, they've hit that 50 % criteria of stage two, so they're likely ready to start moving to stage three. that shows in the example you gave because they're in stage three 20 % of the time. typically what we hope to see is once a child is at 50 % stage two, give or take, they're going to start naturally moving to.

stage three. When it comes to moving to the next stage in any of the stages, it's not our choice to move them there. We really have to follow them there once they go there naturally. Yeah, so if a child was meeting that criteria, it looks like they would probably be ready for stage three. But I'm often kind of, I'm often writing goals for a couple stages at once. Sometimes they are,

showing readiness for the next stage and moving there, but there's still some things we need to fill in in the previous stage. For example, if they're in stage one, 70 % of the time in stage three, 30 % of the time, they're showing that they're ready, or sorry, stage two. If they're in stage one, most of the time in stage two, 30 % of the time, they're showing readiness that they can move to stage two and start mitigating.

So we can help them there. We can write a goal that they're gonna get to 50 % stage two and help them to mitigate more. But then we also wanna make sure that they're hitting all the criteria in stage one. And the things we're looking for in stage one are really amount and variety of gestalts. The amount is really dependent on the child, how many gestalts we're really looking for. So there's no set number, but we want them to have quite a few.

and we want them to have variety and that is often the biggest piece I'm looking at. So if a kid's moving to stage two, I might follow them there and write goals there, but also maybe they're missing some variety in stage one and I'm gonna give them gestalts for that as well. So maybe they are producing lots of mitigations, they're ready for stage two, but they're not producing protests and protesting gestalts. I might also be filling those in.

giving them more protesting gestalts as I'm also helping them to mix and match. So sometimes it's a little, it's a bit in both stages, wherever stages they're in and you're kind of making sure they're filling in the missing pieces before fully moving on. Yeah. Yeah, that does make sense. like if we, with this hypothetical kiddo that we've been talking about, so if like, let's go with the kiddo who's 70,

percent stage one and 30 % stage two, because I think that's easier to wrap our heads around than the numbers I gave. So we could write a goal where the child will spontaneously without producing or without prompting produce. And I guess this would be given a language sample, da -da -da -da. They'll produce 50 % of stage two utterances. Is that something that would like?

potentially be a goal? Yeah. then you said, actually, did you have something to add? No, go ahead. OK. But we're still working on the stage one because even if they're at 70%, there's still room for growth there. And we get to use our clinical judgment to decide which areas the student would benefit from. And you had given an example of protesting castles.

we could write a goal that the student will spontaneously without prompting produce like whatever type of stouts that we want them to produce. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe five new protesting phrases in that example. So when it comes to goals in each stage and stage one are my goals are usually focused on amount or variety of gestalt. So it might just be if they're, if they're picking up

our models rather slowly, I might just make a goal for amounts like this child's gonna produce 10 new Gestalt and it can be any Gestalt that they might pick up on and that's our overall goal because even 10 new phrases would be awesome. Or I look at communicative functions or variety. So maybe I'm just hoping to increase general variety. So child will produce more variety of

utterances to include communicative functions like commenting, protesting, suggesting, whatever, whatever communicative functions you think are maybe lacking. Or I might just focus on one specific communicative function that's missing, but that's usually what stage one looks like is either more gestalts or specific kind of gestalts that they might be missing. Yeah, that makes sense.

And then, so I feel like we've got some good ideas just for the general stages. And then we talked a little bit about stage two. Is there, could we go over just like some quick things that we might, like more specific goals that we might look at for stage two and three and maybe four? Yeah. Okay, cool. So.

Like I said, our overarching goal on stage one is more Gestalt and greater variety. And the idea is once they have that, once they have a lot of Gestalt and a big variety of Gestalt, they're gonna naturally move to stage two. And then our overall goal is that they're just going to mitigate, they're gonna mix and match these Gestalt more, they're gonna break them down. So generally stage two goals just look like a percentage that they'll be in stage two. if they're,

only in stage two, 10 % of the time, maybe I'm gonna try to move them to using stage three 30 % of the time. And that 50 % threshold is kind of the, where we're trying to get them because we assume once they're there, they're gonna naturally start to move to stage three. Not every kid is gonna start moving to stage three the second they're in 50 % stage two, but that is the overarching goal of stage two. So it just kind of generally.

looks like that, just a greater amount of mixing and matching. And then once you have that, they'll naturally move to stage three and stage three looks very different. It looks like pulling out single words and then making two and three word combinations. So in stage three, we're looking for three different types of words, nouns, descriptive words, and locative words.

And then we're looking for two or three word combos, including those, all of those. So your goals might just be around percentage again, like the child's going to be in stage three, 50 % of the time. Or you could look at some of those words or word combos specifically, like maybe child will produce noun plus noun combinations.

or they'll produce noun plus descriptor combinations, or they'll produce more isolated descriptor words. We really start with the isolated words and then move into the word combinations. So you could look at any piece of those noun locative words or descriptive words that they might not be using as often as the other pieces and really try to focus on those. Yeah. And then once they are...

doing that readily, they're there about 50 % of the time and they're using all of those different combinations, noun plus noun, noun plus descriptor and noun plus locative word. And they're moving into three word combinations. Then they're gonna start, hopefully, naturally moving to stage four and adding in verbs. And then our goals start to look more like typical grammar goals. So whatever.

grammar piece they're missing, starting with really basic grammar. So we're starting with, just as we would with any toddler, kind of toddler -like, really basic level grammar, three word combinations, maybe noun plus verb. And then from there, it gets more and more complex. ING verbs, past tense, and so on, until they're producing clauses and...

really complex grammar. So stage four goals look very different depending on where they are in that grammar acquisition.

journey, but yeah. That sounds great. That's a really helpful overview. think, cause I took some courses when I started learning about this too. And I think this will be just, I don't know. I wanted like a quick easy way to kind of wrap my head around, okay, what would this actually look like? So I think this will be really, really helpful in just like,

Okay, give me a quick, quick overview and then I'll dive into more detail. But I feel like this is a really nice framework and just starting to think about what it could look like. So thank you for breaking this down so nicely. Yeah, I'm glad. I think it's really helpful to understand kind of how each stage flows into the other to really frame our goals. If we know that once we hit the certain criteria and in each stage, it'll naturally

the child will naturally move to the next. It can help us understand why we're even writing that goal. So yeah, I hope it was helpful. Yeah. Yeah. And in the show notes, I'll have like a little recap of this as well so that if you are listening, hopefully you'll have like a good, easy reference to look back at too. And yeah, is there anything else that you wanted to share while we're chatting?

no, I'll just kind of refer again to communication development center. If you're wanting more info on the stages and supporting each one and they have, when we're supporting stage four, there's some grammar sheets that we follow that are created by Laura Lee. They were norms for analytic processors. So not really with Gestalt in mind, but we can use them to support.

the grammar development once you're in stage four. So if you're wanting those charts, you might hear them mentioned on Instagram or wherever the DSS and the DST, those are linked at that website as well for free. So yeah, it's a good place to go if you're wanting more resources, more info about grammar or any of the, any related info. Yeah, this is awesome. Thank you so much. Yeah.

And then like I said, I'll link to your Instagram and everything in the show notes so people can follow you and see all of your awesome content. And yeah, thank you for being so generous with your time. This was great. Yeah, thanks for having me. It was fun.

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Today, Jessie Ginsburg and Chris Wenger share strategies that speech-language pathologists can use to write neurodiversity-affirming goals!Takeaways from This Episode

Neurodiversity affirming goals should honor neurodiverse characteristics and support individuals in the areas where they need support, rather than trying to make them fit into a neurotypical mold.
It is important to learn from and listen to neurodiverse individuals to understand what makes a goal neurodiversity affirming.
Creating natural and authentic social opportunities allows individuals to develop social skills in a way that is comfortable and authentic to them.
Goals should prioritize connection and regulation, and it is important to ensure that the individual is regulated before working on specific goals.

Links and Additional Resources

Jesse’s Instagram
Chris’s Instagram
Reel: Neurodiversity Affirming Goal
Instagram: Sam Rowntree
Instagram: Lyric Rivera
Autistic Self Advocacy Network
Jesse’s Book

How is that possible, you ask?

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TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabMarisha (00:00)

Okay, hello there and welcome to the SLP Now podcast. I'm really excited to have two special guests today. We have Jesse Ginsburg and Chris Wenger, and we are going to be chatting about neurodiversity affirming goals. And so I'm, I cannot wait for this conversation. And before we dive into chatting about all things goals,

I thought it would be super helpful to get to know a little bit about Jesse and Chris. They are a dynamic duo with a wealth of knowledge and experiences. So we'll kick things off just letting them share a little bit about their story and kind of how we ended up getting into this conversation about neurodiversity.

Jessie & Chris (00:53)

Yes, thanks so much for having me back. So excited. I know we were talking about so much has changed since we chatted last and now I got to bring Chris along this time. But yep, we're both two SLPs. We are based in Los Angeles and it's kind of fun because not only are we parents together, four boys, but we have very different work settings and just very different experiences, but we both love working with autistic.

kids and that's really our passion area, but I am a clinic based SLP. I own a clinic in Los Angeles for the last over 10 years. And so I work with a lot of littler ones. And then I have a panic attack about the age eight when I call Chris and say what I do with this child. No, but he is a school based SLP working with older kids. So it's fun to come together and have different perspectives.

Yeah, it's so funny that Jesse says that because it's like how I am too when someone approaches me with like a really young child and says, hey, so what about this goal or what about this? And I am I'm like, well, let me let me find out. Let me call Jesse. Yeah, he'll get like his friends from high school who have a kid who need help or something. And then he's like, can you send a voice memo to this person I knew 20 years ago? Totally. That's a baby. And yeah. Yeah. So, you know, following that, that's my setting. It's been my.

The majority of my life has been working with teenagers. So over the years, I've really kind of learned what works, what doesn't work, what makes a neurodiversity affirming goal versus a traditional goal. What are next steps for the future? Like, you know, my whole journey has kind of shaped together to learn this stuff. So but it's all been specific to teens and young adults.

Marisha (02:47)

And I love how we all end up with our areas of specialty and like we can build those networks to help us help all kinds of kiddos. So yeah, I love those stories and this will be a really cool conversation because we'll get the perspective for different age ranges as well as different settings like private practice versus the schools. So I'm really excited to dive into all of this. And.

We've gotten a lot of different questions about neurodiverse, neurodiversity affirming goals and what those look like. And I'm really excited to dive into that. But I know that writing goals is actually a very tiny part of the puzzle. And so, because well, there's a lot more learning that we need to do beyond like, here's a goal bank, for example. So what are some of your?

favorite resources for SLPs are maybe getting started to help give them a good foundation to start thinking about those.

Jessie & Chris (03:49)

Yeah, I mean, I think that it's funny, I was kind of laughing in my head when you said that, that it's such a tiny piece, because it's like, you can't just give someone a neurodiversity affirming goal, and then expect that the therapy is going to be using a neurodiversity affirming approach. You really do need to understand what makes something neurodiversity affirming. And for us, I know our favorite way to learn has always been to learn from autistic people.

and follow autistic people on social media. We have a lot of autistic colleagues and friends that we've had really great conversations with. And that's just, I would say, the number one way that I've at least tried to consume information about how can we best support our autistic kids. Let's ask our autistic adults that we have in our lives and then try to go from there. Yeah. And to shadow that,

back into the goal writing, asking, you know, and connecting with resources with other autistic therapists, autistic voices, which goes right back into the goal writing process, including the client or the student in that goal writing process. That is your first stepping stone on a no diversity affirming goal. Who's the goal for?

Is the goal for the teacher is the goal for the therapist is the goal for the parent or is the goal for the child for the client? That's where we have to step. So that's like one of the very first things we question, like, who's this goal for? Who's it going to benefit? And that right there will help guide the process of writing the goal. But yeah, I always feel like that. Need for connecting with and getting input from that individual.

Because that's intrinsic motivation right there, right? That's like neurodiversity affirming approaches and strategies in general is how do we get away from that externalized motivators and what's intrinsically motivating for the individual? Because if they can have say in their goals, what works for them? What do they need? Then that's where you're going to get a lot more success.

Marisha (06:05)

Yeah, I love that. So Jesse's point was reaching out to or learning from other autistic individuals in the community. And then I love how you added Chris that like our our students and our clients are like they're the stakeholders there. So communicating with them too. And you gave some really good examples of like questions that we can ask our students to help guide that conversation. So I love that.

And then do you have, could we maybe shout out a couple of accounts as examples? Like if an SLP is like, ooh, I love that idea. Like, where can I start on Instagram?

Jessie & Chris (06:45)

I feel bad because I don't want to exclude anyone by not saying names of people. Do you have people you would want to list? my gosh. I mean, I could give you a couple of people who I've worked with directly who have been awesome. It's just there's so many people. Honestly, it's hard to... Maybe we can give you a list to add in your show notes or something. But some people we've worked with and interviewed, one autistic SLP, her name is Sam Roundtree. Her...

Marisha (07:05)

Let's.

Jessie & Chris (07:14)

handle for a long time was the Aussie Specie. She's been awesome, worked on a project with her. my god, I feel like there's just so many people we've interviewed. Lyric, whose handle is neurodivergent rebel and Lyric always posts these questions that say that say autistic asking autistics. So if you go to the post, it's all

Autistic responses, which is really really cool Yeah lived experience educator. Yeah, I like a chain They have like such great content that really focuses on getting away from neuro normativity and working with Our clients and our students through a neuro diversity affirming lens So yeah that handle is at lived experience educator I think like resources to like I really like to go on the website neuro classic comm

you know, Autistic Self Advocacy Network, ASAN is a great one. But yeah, just kind of exploring those and hearing input from from voices has really kind of helped out. Yeah. So there's a few right there. Yeah.

Marisha (08:21)

Yeah, and then I'd love that I'll share the accounts that you mentioned as well as some of those websites. And then you guys highlight people on your accounts as well. So I'll link to Chris and Jesse's Instagrams as well as just another starting point as well. And then, okay, so.

Jessie & Chris (08:39)

awesome.

Marisha (08:43)

Obviously, there's a lot more to learn about goal setting to really help us, but let's humor the people and give them a little bit of what they want in terms of goals. And then I saw, I think it was a collaborative reel that you posted.

between, maybe it was Jesse's, I'll link the real either way in the show notes, but you were sharing about neurodiversity affirming social groups. And one thing that you said, like instead of teaching social skills and making kids sit and forcing conversation, we can provide a safe place for kiddos to be themselves and allow them to move and allow conversation to flow naturally. So I thought that was a really cool.

illustration of kind of some of the thought process. So and I'll share that if people are wanting to look back at that. But what are some important considerations when we are and maybe you have different perspectives based on what age you're working with, but I'm curious what your thoughts are on like, what should we think about as we're writing those goals, in addition to kind of doing our background research and.

listening to the autistic voices and our clients going from there.

Jessie & Chris (10:01)

Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, Chris could definitely speak to this a lot more specifically, but I think the biggest thing to think about is, you know, our goal is not to just try to take a child and then fit them into the mold of what is quote normal, you know, and previously a lot of our goals would do that. It was, well, most of the time kids can have conversations for five minutes and they can take turns back and forth. So that means this child needs to be able to do that too.

But we want to make sure that our goals are also honoring autistic characteristics and, you know, autistic brains function differently than neurotypical brains and their sensory is going to be different. The way they regulate their emotions is likely going to be different. The way they socialize might be different. The way they communicate might be different. So really taking into consideration that our goal is to really support them in the areas where they

need support or feel they need support. We're not just trying to make them fit into a mold. Yeah. And that's like kind of more exactly on the if we're working on, you know, social engagement, social language, social emotional needs. Shouting what Jesse said is that's the first thing. Are we trying what's the what's the goal? Is it supporting the individual? Because if we're teaching them to act or imitate their typical peers,

then we're inadvertently going to create more stress. We're going to create more anxiety because the goal essentially is telling them, hey, look, your way of communicating or who you are is not OK. You have to you have to not be you anymore. You have to fake your whole identity and pretend to be somebody else. So we're going to create a goal for you to imitate what your typical peers are doing. And there's just a lot of harm in that because.

What ends up happening over time is you start to create this sense of an individual being more hyper vigilant where they're going into social situations like, well, did I initiate it the right way or did I not? Did I exchange back and forth conversation or not? Did I stay on topic the way I was forced to do or not? And then what ends up happening is they withdraw, become socially isolated. So inadvertently does the thing that we don't want to happen in the end.

So I think that's really something that we can we can focus on. So I guess at this point, what do we do? Well, we would create things, situations that are natural, where conversations can happen naturally, where they can meet peers who are like minded that share similar interests. Right. So like, I'll give you an example. We created a Lego club once a week.

after school and we weren't sure how that was going to kick off. This is just in the past six months. But we had a couple of students that had interest in that. And so we reached out to a teacher who is willing to host it once a week for an hour after school, student led, and it generated 16 students so far. But like up the bat, we have 16 students who were like

Wait a minute, there's a Lego club where I can go connect with other people who like to build Legos. No pressure to socialize. No pressure to have to fake who they are. Conversations happen naturally. Relationships happen authentically. We're not forcing people into conversations they don't want to be a part of. We're not taking away unstructured time for them to have to be forced into conversations. We're not forcing eye contact. We're not forcing...

neurotypical style engagement where one person has to put the Lego on and then the next person puts Lego on like things just happen naturally. That's the way life should be. Right. And so and so that's what we would want to do to create those natural conversations to happen to build those skills. And then another thing that Jesse will will shadow and share a lot more of because I learned this from her. But.

Whatever the goal is, if you're working with language, if you're working with vocabulary, you're working with social emotional needs, you're working with grammar, like whatever the goal is, you always have to ensure that the child's regulated. You're going to not get from point A to point B if you don't start there. And so, yeah, that sometimes can be dismissed or not really viewed as a necessity. So.

What might that look like in context? You have to do a makeup speech session. So your sessions are usually Mondays, you know, third period. But there was a holiday. So you're like, all right, well, I've got some time on Friday. Well, the students working on some makeup work in their study skills class or they're in an art project, they have a monotropic mind, they're focused. And then they get the phone call and their teacher says, hey, you have to go over to A100.

because it's speech time, you're going to have a child whose regulation is not going to be the same as it typically would. And so they come to speech and you're like, darn, they're not saying anything. I'm not getting any results. I'm not, you know, it's like, well, we have to think first and foremost, is this is this individual that I'm working with regulated? How do we get them there?

So so Jesse can kind of share a little bit more on that because that's her area. I learned that was good. He learned something from me. I learned a thing. As you were talking to put the dirty clothes in the laundry basket or else one hour massage punishment. I was thinking about you said something that made me think about how I used to teach. OK, am I the only one who did this? I used to have like popsicle sticks with paper.

glued to it and it would be comment question and then we would go back and forth. Did you ever do that? Probably not. You were ahead of your time. Was this in school? No, like with a student, like a seven, eight year old. Okay, let's have a conversation about a topic we choose. And then I remind them by holding up the thing if they need to ask a question or if they need to make a comment. And anyway, that's exactly kind of what I remember. Like,

having conversations about the popsicles that we ate. But yeah, I know what you're saying. But that's how I would teach conversation skills. It's like, OK, well, a conversation looks like I say something. You respond. You ask a question. I respond. And that's just maybe a neurotypical communication style. But if we are just focused on teaching autistic kids neurotypical communication styles, they're not going to actually go out there and

take those skills to be able to develop authentic friendships. And, you know, compared the popsicle sticks compared to I remember when I had these two girls in my office, they were like maybe six and seven sitting on these very chairs. So they were kind of getting some sensory like spinning around as they were talking to each other. And they spent 25 minutes talking about Pokemon and anime is Pokemon the different completely different or is it like a

No, that isn't. That's anime. Okay, so they were talking about anime for 25 minutes and I was like thinking like, man, I did my job. Like they didn't need anything. I didn't, it's like the way you know you're having a successful social group is when you're not needed. You know, and I think like oftentimes we sit back and we feel like, my God, well, I'm the therapist. I need to be interjecting. I need to be talking. I need to be teaching. But if you can...

create a scenario where you have people having an authentic conversation that they're genuinely interested in and you're not needed, that's an amazing thing.

Yeah, absolutely, I agree.

Marisha (18:08)

And you gave some good examples of like just kind of, and they even created their own context in that example. Like they figured out what they want to talk about and they were able to keep talking about it. And like with the Lego club, they're kind of self -selecting there of like, yeah, I love that Legos. I'm going to go to that.

So what would that look like, especially for like school -based SLPs? Like how would we reflect that in a student's IEP? Like what does that look like?

Jessie & Chris (18:38)

Yeah, I mean, regarding goals. So I'm going to give myself a shameless plug here because it goes with the topic. Before we start developing the goals, because there's I get this question like so often, what are neurodiversity affirming goals? Does anybody have a gold bank? But prior to the goal, we've got to have some information about what the need is first. Like what is going on in the environment?

I've got to get information about how things are going on in class with their peers. What does the student want? Like all of that information. So it really has to come down to a dynamic assessment. We really want to figure out, you know, in class, is this student when they get stuck on something, what's their way of communicating that they need some support? It doesn't always have to be through spoken language, but.

Are they reaching out to the teacher? Are they talking to their caregiver? Are they writing it down? If they're becoming dysregulated because let's say they had a substitute teacher come in, that was unexpected, which happens quite often. How do they handle their ability to co -regulate? Do they have a safe person in the building? Who is their trusted adult to go to? How are they advocating to?

get a sensory break or how are they working on co -regulating with somebody like we need to know this information. So the questions, this is always a life thing too. The questions we ask are going to determine the outcome of how we how the goal and the reports are written. Right. So it has to start there. The challenging part that we have as SLPs and OTs and PTs and everybody else on the IEP teams and in private practices.

the forms that we have to assess currently, like the standardized ones, ask the wrong questions because they're asking, how do we get this kid to be more neurotypical? So the system for 70 years now has only created more harm than good because now what you're doing is working against a child's neurology and then when they become dysregulated,

A functional behavior analysis comes in and an FBA is done. And then the behavior plans put on this kid when the reality is they don't have a behavior plan. They just had an unmet need and an unsolved problem because we were asking the wrong questions in the first place. So I created a dynamic assessment that asked the right questions, that asked the teachers, hey, I want to know.

What are accommodations that are working? How does this student self -advocate? What's it look like with the dynamics when the class has small groups put together? What's it look like when things, when the child or the student becomes dysregulated? And then we have a whole different set of questions that are asked to the students so we can get insight about what they're looking for in a friend so they're not feeling pressured to have to be forced into a social.

skills group, we ask the caregivers like, you know, what are some things that are working all strengths based, by the way. But that's where we have to start. And then once we get that information, then we can collaborate. We can work with the student and say, hey, now what is the need? Is the need for the student to advocate for a quieter space when there's test testing going on or.

Does the student need some support with noise canceling headphones during the rally and assemblies that are happening on Fridays? Does the student need a little bit of support about the perspectives of their typical peers without sacrificing their autonomy and giving them a variety of things? Does the student need a little bit of support on being aware that their autistic communication style might be a little different than their peers and it's totally OK? Like, what?

is that information and that will drive the goal. That's huge. Let me drop your mic. Mic drop. Yeah. With all of that being said, I want to say this, too. With all of that being said, we can add things in any of the goals where we come from a level of knowing when a student feels like they've been put into the fight, flight, freeze, fawn response, their nervous system.

Marisha (22:33)

Yes, I think that's the whole conversation right there.

Jessie & Chris (22:55)

happens, they've got anxiety, we know that sometimes that verbal speech might not happen in that moment and that's okay. So within the goal, we might put something to add to any of our goals when given access to total communication, right? And then that implies we're not forcing the child to use verbal behavior is what it's called or like spoken language, they must verbalize it. We're honoring the student and giving them

a variety of ways to advocate and to express what helps them out best. That helps in the schools, but it gives them the tools to help beyond the school walls. So if they have a dentist appointment in the future when they graduate or when they're in high school, whatever age they are, they might be thinking it would be really nice if I could wear my noise canceling headphones when I go to the dentist, because I hate that loud sound that squeals.

And I don't like the bright lights, so I'm wondering if I wear my tinted glasses and I have a certain schedule that works better for me. How can I advocate for those needs? Well, we've given them the resources and the tools like you don't have to call on the phone. But how can you use Yelp to reach out and to connect with them through, you know, written language or through text or through the scheduler? So there's a lot of benefits that these goals can serve on a large scale.

Marisha (24:22)

Yeah, that is incredibly functional.

Jessie & Chris (24:26)

Yeah, absolutely. And it's authentic to them. Like they're not, we're not creating goals that, you know, again, are creating more stress and anxiety. We're creating goals where they're like, yeah, that's what I see. I need help with too. So now they have buy -in into their own goals, which is great. And the parents are like, hey, that sounds like a good plan. I would love for my child to, you know, work on those things. And so then everybody gives each other a high five.

at the meetings. That's huge. Without actually the hands touching, germs and stuff. Air high fives at the IEP meeting.

Marisha (25:06)

That sounds like a really great way for everyone to win.

Jessie & Chris (25:09)

Or we can hold up popsicle sticks and be like, hey, great job. Hey, fantastic.

Marisha (25:12)

I love that. And I think so the first reel that I mentioned was one that Jesse recorded on her own, I think, but there was another one that you all did together, like a conversation about goals. I'll link that in the show notes too. But that's so because I was I see a couple.

kiddos, I don't carry a full caseload anymore, but I was working with an autistic kiddo and I had just updated his goals and I had put in a goal for like to have him after having some conversations with Jesse, I put in a goal to have him like self advocate for sensory supports. And then you did that real and that was the goal you're talking about was like, yeah.

Jessie & Chris (26:04)

my God, so funny. Yes. Rugrats audio. yeah.

Marisha (26:09)

Yeah, I love that one. That was super fun. But it was a really cool, because I still have so much to learn in terms of implementing all of this 100%. But just my experience with those types of goals, like you can really see a huge difference. Like the parents, they're like, of course, like that makes so much sense. And that's so helpful. And it's a goal that helps them at home. And...

in a bunch of settings. And then the kiddo loves it too, because it's really empowering for him to be able to communicate what he needs. So yeah, I've really enjoyed this conversation and getting even more ideas on how we can kind of start to implement that. And I'll definitely link to the dynamic assessment too, because that seems.

Jessie & Chris (26:58)

That would be awesome. Yeah. And I can kind of share where to find it. I wanted to add one more thing, too, because this question comes up, this whole conversation that we've had, there's always one last question that pops up because the majority of parents, when they hear this type of, or caregivers that hear this type of language and this new shift, they're like, yes, this, this, that sounds like so much what my child needs. But then you're going to get that.

really small, small group that isn't on board. And they're like, nope, social skills training right now. My child needs to be like their neurotypical peers, and there's no budging. We want this. Or you might be in a meeting, and there's an advocate that's like, hey, we know what? We want evidence -based programs that are about social skills training.

And I hear this question a lot. So my response is I always try to guide. I don't like try to say, no, don't do that. But I just try to guide with research out there. And I say, you know, I understand where you're coming from with the idea that if they have these social skills like their typical peers are going to be happier and, you know, things are just going to blossom. But the research and what we know is that teaching people in general to heavily mask, to be an authentic.

will lead to future mental health challenges and issues. And here's the research. So that way the parent has information to go, OK, well, you've given me some information so they can do some exploring and understand the harms in it. That's really how I approach that question, because we will, as SLPs, be presented with that question.

or those challenging moments where it's like, no, I hear your neurodiversity friends. I don't want it. I want to force this. And we have to, we do what's ethical, which is supporting the students we work with by not teaching them how to be inauthentic. So I wanted to share that because that's a valuable piece of information I've learned over the past couple of years on how to address that. Yeah. And I think like the underlying ideas.

It always for me at least comes down to a connection driven approach and how can we make this child feel safe and comfortable with us and feel like they can be themselves in front of us and in front of other people as well. And, you know, when we really sit down and think about it, how can I put, you know, connecting with this child, with the student at the forefront of what we do, it's like everything else comes.

more naturally, you know, and that's was the inspiration of my book I just wrote because that's what it's all about. It all comes down to how can we build a connection and that's when kids really learn and that's when kids feel safe and comfortable.

Marisha (29:53)

Love time.

Jessie & Chris (29:53)

Yeah, no, that's huge. I think that's at the forefront of it too. Ready, set, connect.

Marisha (30:02)

And we'll link to the book in the show notes as well. But like Chris said, it's called Ready Set Connect.

Jessie & Chris (30:10)

Yeah, I love it.

Marisha (30:11)

Love it. Well, is there any any other last thoughts before we wrap things up? I mean, you shared a huge wealth of knowledge and resources that I'm super proud of.

Jessie & Chris (30:23)

Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing is it is so setting specific when we're writing goals. And like, sometimes it's stressful for me just to listen. We're talking, he's like talking maybe about one of his students goals. And it's just, I feel like there are so many hoops you have to jump through in the schools, because he'll all tell him one of my goals. And he would be like, I could never use that goal for X reason, you know? And so,

I feel like writing neurodiversity affirming goals in a clinic at least. And I can't speak for every clinic because of course funding sources are different, but we do take insurance and we try to write goals that are the most, that are very easy, general goals that gives us the most flexibility possible. So back to Chris, he said adding when given, what did you say? When given,

access to total communication. Yeah, so having like a total communication goal, that's like our go -to goal for a child who comes in and is non -speaking or maybe minimally speaking or inconsistently speaking. And that gives us so much flexibility because we can work on anything now because our goal is total communication. You know, whereas if we have a child come in and we know their Gestalt Language Processor and we can identify what stage they're in, we write them a goal for that. And...

So we write our goals to give us a lot of flexibility over what we do and keep them really general so that it's not just that we're targeting specific activities or specific situations. So I think there's a lot of benefit to that. So if you have the ability to make your goals broader and more general, I've always found that to be easier. Yeah, I agree. And better. Yep. We're given access to total communication.

when working with activities where the child is regulated, like all of those things that right off the bat set up the student for success. I think that we are one step closer to meeting that goal and helping the kids. So we mentioned the assessment when it comes to goals within the schools. The reason why it can be sometimes challenging is how do you measure a self advocacy goal? How do you know the student is, you know,

asking for, you know, use of, you know, something that's calming for their sensory needs or requesting to co -regulate with the counselor or the mental health coach that's on campus or how do you know that they're advocating for the accommodations listed in their IEP. So I like to use a rubric -based system. I have a whole system and the assessment.

And so yeah, I'm gonna just share that word you can locate that because it's all kind of in the same place based on whatever is you're looking for if you're looking for beyond that and You're looking for a neurodiversity of activities I got all that. So here's how you do it. You go to my Instagram and Then you go to speech dude. So just type, you know, you find me at speech dude and then DM me the word bananas and there you go That's it. That's all you have to do. Just DM me the word bananas. I

And you're going to go bananas on some great neurodiversity affirming resources. That's how you do it. And then for Jessie, she's got her own stuff as well for where you could locate her book and all of those things. So you want to share? Yeah. The books at ReadySetConnectbook .com. And when you get it, you get the audio book for free. You also get a lot of other awesome stuff for free, like a free training, free event coming up that I'm going to be hosting. And.

Very easy to get anywhere. Yeah. Awesome.

Marisha (34:16)

ReadySetConnectbook .com. Awesome. And then, yeah, I'll link to all of that in the show notes as well. But thank you both for sharing such a wealth of resources. And it's, that bananas DM seems like it'll cover everyone's questions from the, because it sounds like you mentioned everything from dynamic assessment to actual activities. So.

Jessie & Chris (34:19)

Ready, set, connect.

Yeah, dynamic assessment to where you'll find the Gold Bank or something new that I haven't released yet, but a way for to locate providers and autistic therapists and clinical psychs and the right people. That's what the world needs. We need the right people. And so I got information there, too. Yeah, it'll be it's good stuff.

Marisha (35:10)

Amazing. And I know this was such a small, like this, I mean, it's been what 36 minutes or whatnot. This doesn't do the whole conversation justice, but I'm really grateful for you sharing. And then hopefully the listeners have some good resources to continue that conversation and continue growing as professionals. So thanks for doing this with me today.

Jessie & Chris (35:34)

Yeah Marcia, thanks so much for having us on. Thank you for having us. We love being here. Yeah, love the topic and we love being here. We appreciate it.

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Welcome to another episode of the SLP Now podcast! We’re starting a series where we do a deep dive on all things GOALS, and I’m bringing some of the best in our field to join me and share their expertise.

Today, Kelly Vess shares strategies that speech-language pathologists can use to write goals for preschoolers!Kelly’s career path includes working as a fitness instructor (as well as a preschool teacher and researcher!) and she does such a great job of explaining the ways that goal setting impacts our students’ intervention plans and outcomes.

One of the things Kelly and I talk about is how much treatment targets matter.
As SLPs navigating growing caseloads with (often) limited treatment time, we really need to be frugal with what time we do have.

As Kelly puts it, there’s no time for fluff or busy work because every minute counts–and according to the research, you’re going to get better gains if you have a more complex treatment target.

“Instead of saying if the child can do it… saying the child can do this, this is the next step. You need to focus on how can the child do this complex goal, and I think that takes believing in yourself as a speech pathologist, as well as believing in a child.”

That doesn’t mean you should set unattainable goals, because that’s not helpful for anyone! But you do want to think big picture when it comes to goal setting and treatment planning.

Kelly refers to this as treating the whole child, not the mouth. As she points out, working on grammatical morphemes won’t change a child’s life–and, the research indicates that they will naturally develop over time.

But if you work on narrative structure, you enhance a child’s ability to tell a story… and that will change their life.

(This is part of why literacy-based therapy is so powerful! )

Takeaways from This Episode

A comprehensive intervention plan is crucial for setting goals for preschoolers.
Focusing on more complex treatment targets can lead to faster progress.
Narratives and syntax are important areas to target for language development.
Believe in yourself and the child’s ability to make progress.

Links and Additional Resources

Kelly’s Instagram
Kelly’s Website
Kelly’s YouTube Channel
Do the Hard Things First: A Randomized Controlled Trial Testing the Effects of Exemplar Selection on Generalization Following Therapy for Grammatical Morphology by Van Horne, Fey, & Curran
Classroom-Based Oral Storytelling: Reading, Writing, and Social Benefits by Spencer & Pierce
The Efficacy of Treatment for Children With Developmental Speech and Language Delay/Disorder by Law, Garrett, & Nye

How is that possible, you ask?

We’ve talked about so many activity options during this series… but there are even more literacy-based ideas and evidence-based resources waiting for you on the other side of SLP Now.

Join thousands of SLPs and get the support you needSign up for a risk-free two week trial → We won’t even ask for your credit card!

Listen to The SLP Now Podcast on Apple ★ Spotify ★ Google ★ Stitcher ★ Castbox or wherever you listen to podcasts.

TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabMarisha (00:00)

Hello there and welcome to the SLP Now podcast. I'm really excited for today's interview. We have Kelly Vess joining us. She has over 20 years of experience as a preschool speech language pathologist, researcher, and clinical instructor. She's presented at ASHA and is just generally a very sought after speaker. And so I'm very, very excited to have her today. She's also an author and just

Kelly Vess (00:22)

Mm -hmm.

Marisha (00:29)

a wealth of knowledge and expertise and experience. She shares a lot of that on her Instagram, kellyvesslp. And she has amazing YouTube videos. so we'll link to all of her platforms because I know you're just going to want to learn more from her after we're done. our chat today, I reached out to Kelly because I really wanted to chat about preschool goals.

And so that's what she's here to chat about. So welcome, Kelly.

Kelly Vess (00:59)

Well, thank you for having me Marisha. This is such an important topic. I am kind of drooling to talk and discuss this topic. I think that when I think about the preschool goals, I think of it as kind of the intervention plan. If you go to a dietician or a personal trainer or a naturopath, they're only as good as their intervention plan.

And that's what we're talking about today. So I couldn't be more excited. This is a wonderful topic that you've selected. Thank you so much for having me.

Marisha (01:30)

Yeah, and it'll be a relatively short discussion. And so there's, we're just going to touch the very tip of the iceberg, but I'm really excited to, for SLPs who have some questions in this area, hopefully you'll walk away with some really good initial tips and then some additional resources, or like direction and where else to go. So we'll come up with our own intervention plans in a way. So.

Kelly, I read off a little bit of your bio, but I'm curious to hear from you and I'd love to hear a little bit of your story. Like how did you end up learning so much about preschool? Like how did you end up specializing in that area and what has that journey looked like for you?

Kelly Vess (02:11)

Yeah, thank you for asking because I think that this is why the goal, this is all based on the intervention plan, it's based on who you are. And I'm a researcher and in my undergraduate studies and my master's studies, I was a researcher throughout all of that. And what I learned as a researcher is that details matter. So your treatment target matters, which I know Marisha, you talk about a lot in narratives and complex syntax.

You're going to get better gains if you have a more complex treatment target. So the years of research that we did in my studies was showing that the target is so important. It's kind of like the food that you eat. The food that you eat is going to account for 80 % or more of how healthy you are. And the treatment target is no different. It's what you take in, your client takes in.

and how complex and how rich is that treatment target will have such an impact on the gains you're going to see in these children. So that background as a researcher is one piece, but another piece is I was a preschool teacher before, and now I'm completing my doctorate in early childhood education. So I'm all about treating the whole child and not treating the mouth. So that goes into how the goals are

And lastly, being a fitness instructor. And having that background as a fitness instructor really plays a role because you realize if you only have 30 to 45 minutes a week to create change, you're going to need to make that challenging. So challenging targets are going to create change, and speech pathologists really need to be frugal with the limited time they have.

So there's no time for fluff. There's no time for busy work. Every minute counts. So I think all of that, in over 20 years of being a speech pathologist in the schools, you also learn from being effective and being ineffective. So you have to do something different when you're doing something that's not working, and you have to do more of what is working. So then the goals change over time. But I think that that background

in being a researcher, in being an early childhood educator, not just treating a mouth, and in being a fitness instructor where it's like, what are you going to do if you only have 45 minutes a week and you need to create change in that amount of time? And then lastly, that experience of 20 years being in the field and failing and succeeding that really guides what that intervention plan is going to look like at the end of the day.

So the who is really important to what your intervention is going to look like, and that's the goals. So that's a great question.

Marisha (05:06)

so many amazing takeaways. The one thing that's many, but one thing that's really standing out to me is, so I just attended a course by Jennifer Taps Richards where she was teaching about the complexity approach. And she was so, and I haven't heard this in the context of like preschool goals. So I'm really excited to you chat more about this. But one thing that she said in her presentation was that implementing

Kelly Vess (05:08)

Okay.

Marisha (05:34)

complexity approach for her speech sound disorders increased her batting average as a speech language psychologist. So yeah, there's another approach where we might see progress with the other approaches, but there could be a way to make faster progress, which benefits students in multiple ways because they are then able to communicate effectively that much faster and all of that. So is that what you're talking about in?

Kelly Vess (05:41)

Mm -hmm.

Marisha (06:04)

kind of a way of increasing our batting average with strategically selected ones.

Kelly Vess (06:07)

Yes, Jennifer Taps, yeah, I see she was just on the SLP summit. She has led the way. She was leading the way in the 90s, telling all of the speech pathologists, hey, look at what I'm doing over here and her grassroots effort. She's kind of ahead of her time. And then people tried it out and they saw the amazing gains for themselves. So she is a pioneer in the field that you had speaking.

And I like how Lynn Williams describes it. You can take a chisel to the rock and work on simpler targets, or you can take a complex target and that'll take fireworks to that rock. It'll blow it up. There'll be a cascading impact. And I like the way she describes it, a waterfall impact in which you're working on an S blend and you get for free the P, B, T, D, N, those

Earlier developing sounds are going to naturally develop and I like what she says It doesn't develop like a geyser if you work on P and B, you're not gonna get the R You're not gonna get the S. You're not gonna get the F. It doesn't work that way So yeah, that is Jennifer taps is such an amazing pioneer in our field and spreading the word about this approach and through word of mouth school speech pathologists tried it out and they looked at the gains and they

This is working. And now the field is catching up and the research and the publications are saying, well, the more complex target is getting better gains. the clinicians kind of led the research. We're ahead of the research.

Marisha (07:48)

Yeah, I love that. And so I'm really excited to chat about what that might look like for other preschool targets, because I'm aware of a handful of different articles, but I'm just sitting at the edge of my seat. I want to learn about this ASAP. But before we dive into goals, because writing goals and selecting targets is actually a very tiny part of the puzzle.

Kelly Vess (07:50)

Mm -hmm.

Marisha (08:12)

There's so much that comes before that, like a high quality assessment. And we want to make sure that we're choosing evidence -based treatments. although we don't have time to dive into all of that, because we're going to do kind of a quick breeze through some of the target selection ideas.

Do you have any favorite like resources or suggestions for speech -language pathologists if they're listening to this and they're like, I need a little bit more of the backstory first.

Kelly Vess (08:47)

Yeah, great question. What we want to do is we want to front load the before we meet that child, we want to send that parent input form out. And that parent input form is going to most importantly tell us what does the child like? What are the child's favorite toys? What are the child's favorite movies? The favorite songs? Getting that input is going to be crucial among all other input. Another thing we're going to want to do is get a language sample from the parents phone.

So what I suggest is the meal time, because the meal at the table, a 10 minute language sample, a meal time, because in the past, I've had just a 10 minute language sample within play. And what's happened is I've seen the back of the child's head walk into every room like a real estate agent. I felt like a real estate agent seeing every room in the house. have no idea what the child's saying. I have no idea what the context is that the soundtrack.

could be dun -dun -dun -dun -dun -da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da -da. So it was pretty chaotic. It was very hard to transcribe. But what I found is a 10 -minute snack time or meal time language sample. And I get that from the parents' phone in advance. So that is what I like to get before I meet the child. So then after that, when I meet the child, I can bring my flowers, which means

I meet them, I have my bin of dinosaurs in my hand. This is a dinosaur party, their favorite toy. That's not a coincidence. So we really, yeah, we want to set up for success. And I also know which tests I want to use. If the child's using this, that, here, it, a lot, I want to look at their expressive vocabulary. So if the child is only answering questions when there's a visual reference, I'm going to want to look at the auditory processing.

So that video language sample tells me so much. So from home, that has been a real game changer. And the parent input form.

Marisha (10:51)

Yeah, I love that. Okay, so are you ready to chat about some goals? Okay, let's do that. So let's pretend I'm a super fresh, like SLP working with preschoolers for the first time. Like what would we chat about when we're looking at those

Kelly Vess (10:56)

of course, yeah. Let's talk about some of the things.

Thank you.

This is really great. So when we're looking at goals, I like to go back in time and I'm going to go back in time to John Rosen back in 1973. He worked with adults that had strokes and he developed dynamic tactile temporal cueing at 80 % accuracy level. Let me explain what that is. He developed a method in which you give all of the cues you have, every cue in your toolbox as a starting

And then you pull away the cues, the auditory goes first, the talking cue, and you pull away the cues, always ensuring at a moment to moment basis, the individual is at an 80 % accuracy rate. So we want to think about that in terms of the goals. Now, he did that for language for people with aphasia. Edith Strand, many years later, said, let's use this approach with children with apraxia.

So she used the dynamic tactile temporal cueing approach with apraxia. Then we have Trina Spencer and Douglas Peterson and their story champs, which is a highly effective intervention. And they said, let's use dynamic tactile temporal cueing with story champs for literacy. So they're all using a highly effective evidence -based approach on different populations.

And that approach is, I'm gonna give you multimodal cueing. I'm gonna give you the speech, I'm gonna give you the visual, I'm gonna give you the print, I'm gonna give you gestures, I'm gonna give you every cue I have, and then we're gonna do it together. We're gonna talk together in choral speech, and then I'm gonna stop talking. But I'm gonna do the visuals, the gesturals, the print, I'm gonna give you everything else.

and then I'm gonna pull a different tool away and I'm gonna pull a different, so it's that scaffolding as you've talked about a lot. And most scaffolds to least scaffolds at the end is where you're headed. And we always wanna make sure it's 80 % because if we're below that, we have frustration and we have habituation of errors. If we're above that, it's just too easy.

So that is the challenge point that the research across disciplines, that 80 % is a magic number, and that most to least prompting hierarchy is simply more effective than at least to most prompting hierarchy. So that is what we're going to do when we write those goals, whether they're speech goals, whether they're language goals, whether they're augmentative communication goals at the preschool level.

We're going to write them in. I'm gonna give you everything in my toolbox and I'm gonna take tools away, but I'm not gonna drop you. I'm gonna keep you supportive. And I like the word is dynamic, because it's moment to moment. So sometimes children need no cues. And the next minute they're like, I'm kind of distractable, I'm losing interest. They need every cue, right? So it's a dance. It's

Today's session, we're going to give you this level of cueing. It's this moment, it's this level of cueing.

So that is what we're looking at when we write those goals.

Marisha (14:30)

Awesome. then, so if we're looking at the different, so let's say you, we did our evaluation, like we worked with our kiddo, we got like the parent feedback, teacher feedback if applicable, which it would be for school -based SLPs. And then we got the language sample, we kind of did our assessments. And so I think that like the DTTC,

dynamic temporal tactile cueing approach makes a lot of sense in terms of approaching the intervention. But how do we decide which areas we're going to focus on? Because we could do, and maybe we can focus a little bit more on language and letters, but how do we select those targets and how do we get more specific with the goals that we're writing?

Kelly Vess (15:21)

I love that question because there's so much you can work on and their goals are not all created equally. If I work on grammatical morphemes, am I changing this child's life? No. And also the research indicates grammatical morphemes will naturally develop over time. But as you are always emphasizing, if I work on this child's ability to tell a story, am I changing this child's life? Yes.

So when we work on, as you know, I feel silly talking to you about your area of expertise, but when we work on storytelling, we're improving all aspects of communication. Where if you work on grammatical morphemes, you're kind of like, let's strengthen your grip, and we're gonna work on grip strength, and you're not changing this child's life. So not all goals are created equally, and I think if the child has a language impairment, well, first of I'm gonna go a little bit back in time in the research.

In 2004, James Law, he wrote a meta -analysis of speech therapy. And he kind of, I think it was the Wizard of Oz study, because he took the curtain and he pulled it back and he said, you know, I'm going to tell you what's working and what's not working. He said, speech therapists, they're improving articulation. They're improving expressive vocabulary. Are they improving language comprehension? He's like, they're not.

I looked at all the studies, you guys are really not doing a good job in this area. He's like, are you improving the child's ability to express themselves syntactically? What you focus on. It's mixed, not really. So what he showed us is he's like, you guys are really very ineffective in this area. And then we had Triner Spencer and Douglas Peterson come out with story choms and narrative interventions.

which Marisha I know is your middle name, Marisha Narratives Intervention Mets, is like, I'm here to change lives here. And what they showed is we improve language expression, language comprehension, all of these areas, stories telling, literacy skills, look what our intervention is doing, and they're saying, and it's doing for preschool age children.

It's working for school -aged children. It's working for children with cognitive impairments. It's working for children with autism. It's working with children who speaking other languages that are English language learners. So they showed that we can improve language comprehension, and they did it in replicated studies. And they said through storytelling, story -viewtelling, Marisha, I'm speaking your language here, and learning the elements of the story and through syntax.

the focus on syntax, which they call the proto story, the child's first story, right? So the research today does show that speech pathologists can improve language comprehension. It's not gonna be done by doing multi -step directions. It's not gonna be done by WH bingo. It's not gonna be done by grammar. I'm thinking of the grammatical cards, preposition work. It's going to be done.

through stories. that is one reason the stories are really important. But another reason the stories are really important is sadly, we know that children that have developmental language delays are much more likely to have peer rejection. They're much more likely to suffer from sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse. They're much more likely to have behavioral challenges. We're talking about exponentially more likely.

So these children, have stories to tell. And unfortunately, as you know, Marisha, they lack the ability to tell the stories. So they're very locked in. So if you want to change these children's lives, what are you going to do? It's like you're going to work on narratives. You're going to work on narrative development. If you want to change their lives in terms of improve their communication skills,

That's what you're gonna wanna do if you wanna change their lives and in terms of improving their emotional well -being and their social well -being, that's what you're going to wanna do. So I think that I really respect, I know that you did on SLP Summit, I saw the wonderful presentation you did on narratives last year and this year on syntax, which is exactly where you wanna be if you wanna change lives. So another study.

that came out in 2017 was, and this is syntax, which is another area that you focus on, which is Amanda Owen Van Horn and Mark Fay. Mark Fay, we've heard of his name because he's the king of, in our field of grammatical morphemes, he's studied it for years. They found in 2017, they had an article said, do the hard things first. And they found that if you focus on complex syntax,

you're going to get better gains and more themes than if you focus on more themes. So once again, it's support for the complexity approach when it comes to language. So instead of working on inged, plural, as you might find many things in teacher paid teachers to download and use for your lessons, that's like working on the grip and strengthening a child's grip to improve their overall health.

You're doing very little work with very little time that you have. Instead, what you're going to want to do is focus on narratives or syntax, and the research very much supports it. So that's where I would definitely put all of my eggs in that 30 to 45 minute basket that I have, which is a very small basket.

Marisha (21:12)

Yeah, it's unfortunately small, but we can do some pretty awesome work with that basket. Awesome. And so how would, so for SLP, cause this could be a pretty significant paradigm shift for some SLP. I'm trying to think of some of the types of questions that they might ask. So, cause especially with preschoolers, I feel like they might be thinking, well, that sounds too hard. Like how do I?

Kelly Vess (21:14)

Mm -hmm, yeah.

Yeah.

Marisha (21:40)

And I think using, like you were talking about the scaffolding and the DTTC and making sure that we have appropriate supports. But what would that look like in a goal? And maybe, I guess this is two part, like what would you say to the SLPs who are like, but isn't that too hard? And maybe we can walk through an example of what it would look like and how we make it not too hard for those preschoolers.

Kelly Vess (22:07)

I think this is a wonderful question because a lot of SLPs are like, where is the who, what, where, yes, no question, what, doing? Why aren't you working on that? I gave them the test. I said, who is that? They couldn't say farmer. I said, where is that? They didn't answer that question, right? So why are you working on how? So what I would do with a child that doesn't have who, what, where, yes, no, because of the cascading impact, I know that this is scary.

Marisha (22:16)

Bye.

Kelly Vess (22:36)

I'm going to work on how. And what happens is when I give them the test at the end of the year, the who, what, where, yes, no, ing, what are they doing questions naturally develop. Is that what you find as well? Marisha, you have a cascading impact in which this child you're working with narratives on, you're working at a higher level, the wh questions naturally developed.

So that is what is happening in my clinical experience and that is what is happening for Trina Spencer and Douglas Peterson. They're showing that we are getting this stuff for free. And that's what happened with Amanda, she has such a long name, Amanda Owen Van Horn and Mark Faiz research. They said, we're getting the small stuff for free. Do the hard stuff first, which is focusing on complex sentences. And you're gonna get the grammatical morphemes.

So you have to, it is a paradigm shift. And the way it works, I'm just going to give you an example of a goal, okay, of how I would write this. So for instance, the goal is that the child will respond to how questions with a minimal level of prompting. This would consist of a visual reference. So they see the picture there when you ask the question how, for instance, or something like that, okay? So where would start

On day one, and this is really important, I'm just gonna take a break for background, I only see, have 50 children in my caseload in a school, I only see the parents at the IEPs. I see grandma and grandpa drop the child off for speech, and nanny. So I need to use that time to tell the parent, okay, this is what we're gonna do. Here's a game plan and this is how we're gonna do it. This is my parent coaching time. This is the only time I have.

to coach the parent on how we're going to go through this. So for instance, I will take my bottle of water that I have at the table at the IEP, and I will explain this is how we're going to do it. In the beginning, I'm going to give them a maximum level of prompt. That means we're going to talk together in slow, choral speech on how to pour a cup of water. For instance, I'll give them an example of that. So I'll say, we'll say, first.

Get the bottle. And I'll touch my nose and I'll show them all at it. Next. And then we'll do it together slowly. Screw and charades and act it out. Screw off the cap. Then I'll say, then, and I'm speaking slowly in choral with the child. Then pour it in a cup. And I'll say, lastly, drink it. And I will tell them we are going to speak in choral echoed speech together.

I'm gonna charade, just like you're playing charades, every single step, and I'm gonna use the same terms. I'm gonna say first, next, then lastly, to develop that automaticity. So that becomes automatic for them. Every time I'm gonna use the same terms. And then I'll tell them the next thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna stop talking. Wherever I can, I'm going to use my gestures and they're gonna use the words. And I'm gonna say, you're the teacher now.

So this is just like they're doing in story champs. They fade out the verbal, they still provide the physical cues, they still provide the visual cues, they still provide the print even, but now you're the teacher, the child's the teacher, not you Marisha, the child's the teacher. So then after that, we're going to take out another cue. So, and then finally at the end of the year, the child just has the visual cues and you say, how do we get water? And they're telling the story from beginning to end.

So that is what it looks like it's a most level prompting to least and we're always at 80 % or four out of five times for the session. But I walk the parents through me opening the bottle of water and what's hard for me is taking the time to actually go through each of the goals and model it. Because I grew up in a family of six children and we learned that kids are to be seen and not heard.

and you take as little time as possible and keep your mouth closed, you know. so in here, it's like you have to take the stage and you have to take time and give yourself space and time so that the parent can do this at home. And I give examples. So if the child wants something from the fridge, a snack from the fridge, what are you going to do? We're going to make it a story. The child wants a toy. You're going to make it a story. How are we going to do this? So we have to take

advantage of the IEP time because parents, 90 % of them or more are dual income. They can't meet with you during the school day. You need to take advantage of that one meeting you have a year to get them on board with this is how we're going to do this. This is the method. So I hope that's helpful to your audience, but that's what it looks like when it's language based.

Marisha (27:52)

Yeah, I love that. for, because I think it's good to have like a level of skepticism and especially with that paradigm shift. It's like, but that's how I've always done it or that's how I learned in school and all of that. because I, in the show notes for this episode, I'll gather some of the research articles that Kelly has mentioned. And I'll see, I know there's

Kelly Vess (27:54)

Mm -hmm.

Thank you.

Marisha (28:18)

like a handful more that I could probably pull too. But just showing, because I think it helps to see examples of this in like the types of goals that we would be writing, like for narratives and for syntax and all of that. So yeah, we'll pull that together so that you have, because maybe you don't, you might not want to change this for your entire caseload right off the bat, but maybe just give it a try with one student and

Have that research to back you up and be like, okay, this is a good decision. This is a good thing to try. And then kind of go from there. Do you have any other feedback or suggestions?

Kelly Vess (28:57)

And I think that is a great plan. And I think that that is the way we have to think is I think oftentimes, and this is what I learned in graduate school 20 years ago, but many still practice this today, is they base their goals on what's next. So instead of, you create your goals, instead of saying, if the child can do it, being a gatekeeper and saying, the child can do this, this is the next step, that's how I'm gonna decide my goals.

You need to instead focus on how can the child do this complex goal. And I think that takes believing in yourself as a speech pathologist, as well as believing in a child. You need self -efficacy. You need to believe that your toolbox, you've got what it takes to build the Eiffel Tower, to put that sky -fold and take that child to the sky and then pull away your support. You need to believe in the child and believe in yourself.

But yeah, I think that that is the question every time you need to ask is not, can the child do this? But how can the child do this? And then I think that people will be amazed just like with Jennifer Tapps, which she did is she went out there and said, hey, here's some research from Judith Garrett, try it out. And people are like, my goodness. And now everyone's working on three element S blends.

they're ahead of the researchers and the researchers are like, yeah, they're right. This is working. The clinicians are ahead of the research. And I think the same thing here with Trina Spencer and Douglas Peterson's story champs, people are like, wow. And the work you're doing as well in narrative intervention, people are doing it and they're seeing these incredible gains that they weren't making using the old fashioned, I picked what was next, the plus one.

what they were doing in the testing and what they got is they got plus one results. Where when they did your approach, when they did the Story Champ approach, they were seeing plus 10 of results. They were seeing that spontaneous, the spontaneous gains.

Marisha (31:04)

And so we've talked about some examples of those more complex targets, like the how questions, like skipping the who, what, when, jumping to how, and then writing goals for narratives. And I'm curious, what would your syntax goals look like for your preschoolers? Can we maybe talk through one example there?

Kelly Vess (31:28)

That's a good question. With the syntax goals, I do think the complex sentence is so important. So what I do is I do focus on that how question. I always go there. And then at the end of it, I would like to say within a spontaneous language sample, I'd like to see the emergence of complex sentences in a spontaneous language sample. And that's the final goal. But of course, to get there, I do use the how questions to get there with the

of that. So that's a wonderful question. Thank you for asking that.

Marisha (32:02)

And then do you have any other like goals just since we're cause SLPs love it. So it was like, I always have to ask, like, there anything else that you would, and I know it's kind of hard because it's, it's always individualized and everything too. I'm just curious if you had any other favorites that are top of

Kelly Vess (32:06)

Yeah. Good. Yes.

I think this is, I know this is another area that you work on that I think is crucially important and Trina Spencer and Douglas Peterson have shown this is crucially important is the elements of the story. So when working on the elements of the story, the reason that's so important is because, well, first of all, this is where I think Trina Spencer and Douglas Peterson are very impressive. That used to be something that was worked on in third and fourth grade.

So in third and fourth grade, children were introduced to what is the setting, who is the character. These are the elements of the story, which I'm sure your listeners know, but what is the emotion, the action, the consequence. So that used to be third and fourth grade. And then Trina Spencer and Douglas Peterson said, if we teach this in a multimodal manner in which the children are using gestures, if they're saying in choral speech with us, if we have visual references for

if we have a symbol for it as well, a visual icon, then these preschoolers can learn this concept. And they showed this is highly effective in improving, once again, literacy skills, language comprehension, language expression. So that is another skill that is worthy of that little basket we have, putting our eggs in that 45 to 30 minute basket we have to create change.

And that is another goal. So the way I would typically write that is, once again, I would say that, for instance, this is an example. The child that currently is unable to tell a story that includes the six elements of story grammar, I'm going with six. Some could go through eight, some could go through four, depending on how complex you want it and the age you're working with. So for instance, I said the character, the setting, the problem, and emotion, action, and consequence. So I'm going to say

By next year, the child will be able to tell a story provided auditory cues. So this is where we'd say, what is the setting? Print cues, gestural cues, visual reference, and word retrieval cues. So this is giving all of this support to a preschooler so that they're actually able to tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end. So that would be an example in which we're focusing on the elements of the story.

And then what we're going to do is we're going to take away the auditory. So the next level of cueing is we're giving that with gestural cues. I'm not saying who is the character. Instead, I'm just tapping my head to say character. So we're going to get rid of auditory, just like we did with our language, just like we do with our speech. It's the dynamic, tactile, temporal cueing. We always want to get rid of the auditory.

is early and as soon as possible because it's the hardest to fade. The children become dependent upon it. So, and we always want to be like, you're the teacher now, I wasn't even talking. That pass of the baton is really important.

Marisha (35:15)

Yeah, I love that. And that was a really helpful example. think the examples that we went through hopefully will give SLP some good resources to start trying this out. And this was just like the tip of the iceberg discussion. I feel like we could chat for hours and hours about all of this. So yeah, but just to be mindful of time and all of that, we'll just start to wrap up. But I'm curious if

and SLP was really enjoying this conversation and on the edge of their seat like I was. What do you think would be the best place to learn more from you or connect with you? Because I know you've got Instagram, YouTube, your website, and I'll share links to all of them, but I just want to give you the opportunity to share what you would think.

Kelly Vess (36:04)

Thank you, Marisha. You're so kind. I think the preschool SLP, CaliVest SLP on YouTube is basically the best place to connect. But thank you so much for having me. is, and thank you for the amazing work you do. I know about your work and you're focusing on all of the life -changing areas and syntax and storytelling and doing such creative, amazing work in that realm. So I'm excited for all the lives you're changing. Thank you for having

Marisha (36:32)

Thank you so much for being so generous with your time. And I feel like I need to just turn it all of that right back on you. Because you've got like lots of amazing content out there and you're doing the exact same changing lots and lots of lives with all of this great work that you're doing. So thank you for continuing to show up and do that. And yeah, like I said,

We'll share the show notes with all of the resources, all the links we mentioned. And I hope everyone has a fabulous rest of their day.

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This article contains everything you need to know to write expressive language goals for speech students, and an expressive language goal bank! Expressive language is how our speech students can share their thoughts, feelings, needs, and ideas in and out of the classroom.

What is Expressive Language?According to ASHA, expressive language is our ability to communicate our thoughts and feelings through verbal or nonverbal communication. There are 5 expressive language domains, which can be grouped into the following 3 components: form, use, and content.

· Form – phonology, morphology, syntax

· Content – semantics

· Use – pragmatics

5 Expressive Language DomainsExpressive language can be broken down into the following 5 expressive language domains: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Below is a quick description of each of these expressive language domains (ASHA, n.d.)

· Phonology – the ability to use phonological patterns while communicating.

· Morphology – using the correct morphemes while communicating.

· Syntax – using the correct sentence structure while communicating.

· Semantics – using words in a meaningful way when communicating.

· Pragmatics – communicating socially

What’s the difference between Expressive and Receptive Language?Before diving into the expressive language goal examples, let’s look at the difference between expressive language and receptive language.

Expressive language is a person’s ability to produce language by using words and sentences to convey meaning.

Receptive language is the ability to comprehend language produced by others.

How to Write Expressive Language Goal Examples + Expressive Language IEP Goal BankIn this blog post, we are going to talk about how to write expressive language goals, and specifically focus on 3 of the expressive language domains:

⒈ Morphology speech goals

⒉ Syntax speech goals

⒊ Semantic speech goals

The expressive language goal examples listed below can be found on the SLP Now expressive language goal bank!

How to Write Expressive Language Morphology Goals + Morphology Goal ExamplesWhat is Morphology? ASHA states that morphology is “the system that governs the structure of words and the construction of word forms”. In order to have strong morphology skills, speech students should have an understanding of root words and how affixes and prefixes can alter the meaning.

3 Morphology Speech Goal Examples:Below are 3 IEP expressive language speech goal examples for increasing students’ morphology skills.

Morphology Goal Example 1:By the end of the IEP, given an image of an action being completed, Student will produce regular past tense verbs (-ed), given 1 verbal model, with 80% accuracy, across three consecutive sessions.

Morphology Goal Example 2:By the end of the IEP, given items or an image, student will produce irregular plural nouns at the word level independently, in the speech classroom, with 80% accuracy, across three consecutive sessions.

Morphology Goal Example 3:By the end of the IEP, given an image of a person/people completing an action, Student will produce present progressive (-ing) in sentences, given no more than 1 model, in 4/5 opportunities, across three consecutive sessions.

I find the chart below super helpful when determining which morphology expressive language speech goals my students’ will target. Below is a chart of grammatical morphemes in order of acquisition based on Brown (1973).

: This SLP Now Podcast episode has easy and applicable strategies you can use to target morphology goals!

How to Write Expressive Language Syntax Goals + Syntax Goal ExamplesWhat is syntax?Syntax is the system that governs the meanings of words and sentences, and the relationship among the elements within a sentence (ASHA, n.d.).

I like to think of how the word order impacts the overall meaning of the sentence. When children are learning expressive language, it is more typical to see phrases and sentences with the words in an incorrect order. However, as our speech students get older, we expect the word order to be correct.

3 Syntax Speech Goal IEP ExamplesWhen speech students have expressive language syntactic deficits, this might look like words out of order, full-word omissions, or using simplified sentences.

Syntax Goal Example 1:By the end of the IEP, Student will produce complex sentences using conjunctions (e.g., because, before), given 1 example, in 7/10 opportunities, in the speech room, across three consecutive sessions.

Syntax Goal Example 2:By the end of the IEP, given images, Student will produce complex sentences containing causal conjunctions (e.g. because, yet, so), independently, in 4/5 opportunities across three consecutive sessions.

Syntax Goal Example 3:By the end of the IEP, given two simple sentences, Student will combine the sentence using conjunctions (e.g., and, but, so), independently, in the speech classroom, with 80% accuracy, across three consecutive sessions.

How to Write Expressive Language Semantic Goals + Semantic Goal ExamplesWhat is Semantics? Semantics is the content of the student’s expressive language. ASHA states that semantics is “the system that governs the meanings of words and sentences”.

3 Semantic Speech Therapy Goal ExamplesIn order for our speech students to increase their semantic skills, they need to increase their vocabulary. By increasing our speech students’ expressive language vocabularies, we are giving them the tools they need to express themselves clearly and accurately.

Semantics Goal Example 1:By the end of the IEP, given an items or images, Student will expand their vocabularies by describing the item with 3 descriptors (e.g. category, function, appearance, parts, location), in 4/5 opportunities, in the speech classroom, across three consecutive sessions.

Semantics Goal Example 2:By the end of the IEP, given 2 items, Student will state 2 differences between the items, given no more than 1 verbal model, in 7/10 opportunities, in the speech classroom, across three consecutive sessions.

Semantics Goal Example 3:By the end of the IEP, given a vocabulary word, Student will provide a synonym for the vocabulary word, independently, with 80% accuracy, in the speech classroom, across three consecutive sessions.

Check out this blog post for more vocabulary/semantic speech therapy goal ideas!

How Do I Write Expressive Language Goals for Students Who Use AAC?When a speech student uses an AAC device, it does not change the importance of targeting expressive language skills. In fact, the goals in this article can all be used with our AAC users! The main difference is the language output, as well as the guided language stimulation, which is modeling language on the speech student’s device. Other than that, we still reference expressive language development norms when choosing expressive language targets!

How to Target Expressive Language During Speech Therapy SessionsNow that you’ve gotten your amazing expressive language goals for your speech students, it’s time to start thinking about how we are going to target the expressive language goals in therapy.

Lucky for you, SLP Now has thousands of ready-to-use materials to target expressive language goals!

Expressive Language Morphology Strategies and MaterialsSLP Now has hundreds of therapy plans and materials you can use to target morphology!

→ Here are evidence-backed strategies you can use to target expressive language morphology goals!

Expressive Language Syntax Strategies and MaterialsSLP Now has hundreds of therapy plans and materials you can use to target syntax!

→ Click here for evidence-based strategies for complex syntax intervention!

Expressive Language Semantics Strategies and MaterialsSLP Now has hundreds of therapy plans and materials you can use to target semantics!

→ This article dives into how to track & evaluate students’ progress in their expressive language goals!

Start your FREE trial today! Take a look through our 1000+ materials and data collection tools to use in your speech therapy sessions to target and track expressive language goals!

Expressive Language Goal ReferencesBerko Gleason, J. (2005). The development of language (6th ed.). Pearson Education.

Brown, R. (1973). A first language: The early stages. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Language in brief. (n.d.). ASHA. May, 2024, https://www.asha.org/practice-portal/clinical-topics/spoken-language-disorders/language-in-brief/

The post An SLP’s Guide to Writing Expressive Language Goals for School Age IEPs + Expressive Language Goal Bank appeared first on SLP Now® Blog.

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Welcome to another episode of the SLP Now podcast! We’re on the last of our six-week series about planning a month of literacy-based therapy, with units that will meet the needs of your entire school-aged caseload!

So far, we’ve used Dr. Ukrainetz’s five step literacy-based therapy framework to work through a month of therapy planning for five units: a play-based early language unit, a picture book, a fiction article, a non-fiction article, and a science experiment.

Today, we’re taking the final step on our therapy planning journey with a month of plans for a vocational unit!This unit is ideal for students who are working on functional communication skills, and using language in “real world” situations versus a classroom environment.

For these plans, we’re going to use a unit from the SLP Now membership that’s all about ordering fast food! We chose this unit because it’s something that students are very motivated by, and it’s a lot of fun to work with.

Now let’s dig in!

Not sure which unit best suits your caseload? No problem!

Take a quick two-minute quiz, and we’ll send you a personalized list of recommended units based on your specific caseload needs — plus resources to help you implement the activities we talk about in this series.

Click here to get your recommended therapy plans

Speech therapy plans for a vocational video unitWe use Dr. Ukraintez’s literacy-based therapy framework as a guide for our vocational units, but they’re set up a little bit differently than the text-based units. This one is broken down into four weeks of activities: planning and preparing, modeling videos and acting it out, reflection and troubleshooting, then discussion activities.

There’s a wide range of activity options to explore, and you can use these materials and activities to target a variety of goals—like syntax, vocabulary, narratives, sequencing, and more!

Remember: It’s up to you to use your clinical judgment when you’re planning sessions.

We create our therapy plans to cover a month of activities, but you can move through the steps at the pace that works best for your students’ needs. You are the expert of your caseload!

Week One: Planning and PreparingFind out what students need to know, and build knowledge to access the activity.

This step has a lot of overlap with step one of Dr. Ukraintez’s framework: Pre-story knowledge activation. It’s important to gather that background information so that you know how much your students understand about the subject matter before getting into skill practice.

You can prepare students by introducing the topic and giving an overview of the unit. Ask your students some questions to find out how much they know about ordering fast food, and talk through the content on the activity pages:

Having concrete data about your students’ background knowledge goes a long way towards setting them up for functional communication success. And, doing that groundwork now will make those future activities—like problem solving—a little easier.

If your students struggle with that foundational knowledge, you can fill the gaps with some of the activities we’ve used in our literacy-based units—like a virtual field trip!

Head to our Instagram and comment “FAST” on this post if you want a link to the virtual field trip for this unit, plus some other therapy plan goodies!

Week Two: Modeling and Acting it OutIt’s time to put it into action!

When we were creating the plans for this unit in the SLP Now membership, we hired secondary students to help us make the modeling video that’s included. We recorded them ordering fast food so we would have a really good example of pure modeling to work with.

Once the students have watched the pure model videos, they get to act out their own scenario. They can recreate the conversations from the videos using the supplied scripts, or create their own! Either way, this step gives them the opportunity to work on those functional communication skills in a super practical way.

All of the materials in this post are included with an SLP Now membership.

Already a member? Access your plans here

Not a member? Not a problem! Start your free trial today

Week Three: Reflection and TroubleshootingAsk questions about the activity

While you don’t need to use the worksheets in SLP Now for this step, we are big fans of them. This purpose of this section in the unit is to ask your students questions that are focused on reflection and application to build comprehension, and target some problem-solving skills, and the worksheets have some great ideas for questions. Of course, you can also write your own!

Whatever works best for you and your students is the right activity choice.

Week Four: Discussion ActivitiesLet’s talk about it together!

In this step, students have the chance to dive into the topic a little further. This helps to encourage generalization and discussion. It’s also a great time to add an extension activity!

You can support the students in creating a project that’s inspired by the unit they completed, like recording a video of them acting out the script to watch back later, or have the students write about their favorite fast food restaurant and why they love it so much.

The activities in this unit are language rich (as always!) so you can target a ton of language goals—but they’re also great for working on executive function skills, sequencing, perspective taking, and more! There are so many functional exchanges in the actual scenarios, and students can work on creating personal narratives in their reflection.

These plans you’ll also include a troubleshooting section to work on critical thinking and problem solving, plus plenty of opportunities to compare and contrast.

This vocational unit is full of great functional communication activities!

If you have any questions or are struggling to implement this unit with your students, send Marisha a DM on Instagram! She’d love to hear from you.

Bonus: Focused Skill ActivitiesIntroduce new skills and provide structured practice.

This step wasn’t mentioned on the podcast episode, but it is step five of Dr. Ukrainetz’s literacy-based framework—and hey, if the worksheets exist, you might as well use them!

If the ideas mentioned above aren’t providing the targeted skill practice that your students need, using worksheets or other focused activities are a great way to get the necessary exposures.

And that’s a wrap on our six-week series about plans to cover a month of therapy! This was so much fun for us to create, and we hope that you had just as much fun learning with us.

We love nerding out on the evidence with you, and, we love getting creative about therapy plans + working smarter! We’re so grateful to share those loves with an incredible community of SLPs… including you.

Next up—we’re going to shift gears from therapy planning to speech room organization because there’s nothing like a little spring cleaning before school’s out for the summer!!

Stay connected: Sign up for our weekly email!We send a digital love note to SLPs every Tuesday that’s chockfull of ideas for therapy plans, working smarter, and doing more of what matters — and we’d love to write to you too!

>> Click here to join the crew

Links and Additional Resources

Dr. Ukrainetz’s five step literacy-based therapy framework
183: A Month of Therapy Using an Early Language Picture Book
184: A Month of Therapy Using a Picture Book
185: A Month of Therapy Using a Fiction Article
186: A Month of Therapy Using a Nonfiction Article
187: A Month of Therapy Using a Science Experiment

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We’ve talked about so many activity options during this series… but there are even more literacy-based ideas and evidence-based resources waiting for you on the other side of SLP Now.

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Welcome to another episode of the SLP Now podcast! We’re on week four of our six-week series about planning a month of literacy-based therapy, with units that will meet the needs of your entire school-aged caseload!

For the last four weeks, we’ve used Dr. Ukrainetz’s five step literacy-based therapy framework to work through a month of therapy planning for three units: a play-based early language unit, a picture book, a fiction article, and a non-fiction article.

Today, we’re taking the next step on our therapy planning journey with a month of plans for a science experiment!This unit is ideal for or students who need a high quality contextualized activity, but may be resistant to using a text. It’s also great for students who are working on social language or problem solving skills because the activities mimic a classroom environment!

Like the literacy-based units we’ve talked about in the past, these activities are incredibly language rich. They can be used to target goals for vocabulary, grammar, syntax, following directions, asking questions, collaborating with peers, and more—even if you’re working with mixed groups.

Not sure where to start, or which unit best suits your caseload? No problem!

We make general recommendations about which age group to use each unit for, but every caseload is different! That’s why we also created a quick two-minute quiz to help you get started in the right place:

Tell us about your students’ age range and goals, then we’ll send you a list of recommended units + resources based on your caseload needs.

Many SLPs are resistant to the idea of doing science experiments in speech sessions because of the potential material costs or complexity. But we want to encourage you to give it a shot anyway, especially if you’re using the therapy plans inside SLP Now!

For all of our science experiment units, Marisha has done all of the recommended activities in her own speech room or classroom, and recorded herself completing them using simple + inexpensive materials to show how doable they are.

With a bit of confidence, you’ll find these easy—and fun!—to implement.

And if you aren’t able to round up the materials or do the live experiment, you can watch the video with your students, instead.

Now let’s talk about therapy plans for a science experiment: Making a RainbowLike the other units we’ve talked about in this series, our science experiment plans are meant to cover four weeks of activities.

However, the five steps we’re going to follow for a science experiment unit are a little different than literacy-based therapy because we aren’t using a text.

Our new unit checklist looks like this:1. Plan and Prepare
2. Watch and Do
3. Reflect and Troubleshoot
4. Discussion, and
5. Focused Skill Activities

Now let’s dive in to our science experiment unit!

Week one: Plan and prepareLike pre-story knowledge activation, this step is about figuring out what your students already know, and what kind of knowledge they need to build in order to access the activity.

You can start with a conversation about rainbows, or ask what they expect will happen during the experiment. If there are gaps in knowledge that you want to bridge before diving into the actual experiment, you can use a KWL chart or virtual field trip to help.

Inside the SLP Now membership, we have worksheets for this unit with questions with questions to guide the discussion. Check it out!

Week two: Do the experiment!This is like reading the book in a literacy-based framework, but it might take a little more time depending on the experiment you choose.

If you physically have the materials, doing the experiment is a great way to incorporate some of those goals related to social language, collaboration, problem-solving, or following directions. But if you don’t have the materials, that doesn’t have to stop you from using the unit! You can always use a video, whether you build a unit around a YouTube video or use one of the videos in SLP Now!

Week three: Reflect and TroubleshootThis is a great opportunity to ask questions about the experiment, reflect on the process, and discuss ways to apply the learnings to real life. If things didn’t go according to plan, you can practice some problem-solving and brainstorm ways to improve next time!

There’s a worksheet for that! Check out the SLP Now membership for ready-to-go worksheets with questions for reflection and application, to help build comprehension and problem-solving skills.

Week four: Discussion time!After reflecting on the experiment, it’s time to talk about it. This step gives students a chance to dive into the topic further, encouraging generalization and group discussion.

This is also when you could add in an extension activity, similar to post-story comprehension or creating parallel story. For example, students could draw or write out step-by-step instructions to summarize the experiment, or they could create a mock science television show using a tablet or smartphone camera.

Step five: Focused Skill ActivitiesAt this point, we’re ready to introduce new skills and provide some structured practice. You can target so many goals with this unit, and SLP Now has worksheets to help you do that — whether you’re working on affixes, present/past tense verbs, vocabulary, and more!

SLP Now has worksheets that you can download or use digitally — and there are suggested activities for each unit that are linked to the target you’re working on!

Hit the easy button and sign up for your free trial today!

Science experiments are a low-key way to get students engaged in language-rich activities, and with fully prepped experiments at your fingertips and activity pages, they require minimal work on your part… just fun!

We’ve got 10 complete science experiment units inside SLP Now, with even more on the way: Get your science on!

Just a heads up: That link will only work if you’re signed in to SLP Now.

Not a member yet? Let’s fix that today. You don’t even need a credit card to sign up for your 14-day free trial and let the experimenting begin!

That brings us to the end of our science experiment unit — and we’ll be back at it next week when we wrap up this series with our final episode… therapy plans for a vocational unit!

Links and Additional Resources

Literacy-based therapy bootcamp
A month of plans for an early language unit
A month of plans for a picture book
A month of plans for a fiction article
A month of plans for a non-fiction article
Get Spring therapy plan recommendations for your caseload

At SLP Now, we are hard workers… but we also like to work smarter.

That means we’re constantly improving our materials, therapy planning resources, and the ways we support SLPs like YOU — so you can skip the hard work part and just work smarter.

We analyzed the books, identified the targets, and created unit plan pages that suggest activities based on the skills you’re targeting and your students’ needs!

This is a one stop shop for all your literacy-based therapy needs, including resources for virtual field trips and visuals to help those concepts stick.

You can sign up for a two week trial that is risk-free and free-free → We won’t even ask for your credit card so there’s no worry about an unexpected subscription! All you have to do is click!

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For the last three weeks, we’ve used Dr. Ukrainetz’s five step literacy-based therapy framework to work through a month of therapy planning for three units: a play-based early language unit, a picture book, and a fiction article.

Today, we’re taking the next step on our therapy planning journey with a month of plans for non-fiction article, “Wild Calls in the Springtime Sky.”This unit is ideal for students in third grade and up, or if they have a good mastery of narrative language. It’s a great way to target more expository language!

Not sure where to start, or which unit best suits your caseload? No problem!

Click here to get your recommended therapy plans

Step one: Pre-story knowledge activationDr. Ukrainetz’s five step literacy-based framework is geared towards narrative texts, but Marisha considers that to be more of a guideline than a hard and fast rule. She has taken the principles from this framework and applied it to other texts, which is what this episode is all about!

Remember: there are several strategies Marisha likes to use for pre-story knowledge activation, but she encourages SLPs not to think of them as a guideline instead of a hard and fast rule.

Consider the options, then choose the best approach based on your student’s needs and goals.

Do an article walkThe first thing Marisha likes to do in step on is take a look at the article, which you can access for free with an educator’s account on ReadWorks.

Pull up the article with your students, look at the title, skim some of the paragraphs, and have a conversation about what they know so far. This step will help you assess the base knowledge your students have, and how much they’re able to produce independently.

Taking this step helps to reduce the cognitive load of the activity, which means the whole learning process becomes easier. You can also use that information to decide which activities are going to be the most helpful, and get some ideas for future steps.

If the students have a lot of prior knowledge and a really solid understanding of the article’s content, you might be able to skip some of other suggested activities for pre-story knowledge activation.

Fill out a KWL ChartIf your students need more support developing background knowledge about the topic, Marisha recommends using a KWL chart.

You can fill in each column of the KWL chart with your students, discussing their existing knowledge about the topic, what they’re curious to learn more about, and what they’ve discovered throughout the session. You can even create this chart while you’re doing the article walk!

In this case, the article is about birds migrating. You can ask your students questions like:

Do you know what migration is?
Do you know which birds migrate?
What are migration patterns?

We can use these questions to get more clarity about where knowledge gaps exist, so that we can bridge them over the course of the sessions and fill out the other columns of our chart!

Take a virtual field tripOne of the ways you can help students fill in the background knowledge they need is to do a virtual field trip.

Marisha is a big fan of using YouTube, but there are a ton of other resources out there. For example, there is a video in the PBS Learning Media Library that you can use for this unit. It’s all about migration, and includes examples of different types of birds and their migration patterns.

You can also pull materials from the curriculum, use Google images, library books, or a clip from a documentary. If your school is in an area that has a lot of birds, you may be able to make the virtual field trip a real life one by observing birds in the school yard.

The opportunities here are endless.

Pre-fill a summarizing graphic organizerThe last thing Marisha likes to do in step one is pre-fill a summarizing graphic organizer. Based on the article walk, KWL chart, and virtual field trip, she’ll ask students to infer the summary of the article, and fill in some of those details before we actually start reading.

This activity sets your students up for success by providing meaningful exposure to key elements of the article, and giving them a framework to work with.

Keep this first summarizing graphic organizer to compare with the second one they create later — based on what actually happens in the text. You can use these visuals to do some compare/contrast or syntax activities!

And that’s step one of the literacy-based framework!Remember, you don’t have to do all of these activities to move on to step two. Use your clinical judgment, and make choices based on your students needs and goals.

Step two: Read the articleThis is the shortest and simplest step in the whole framework: pull up the article and then read through it!

You can read the article aloud, your students can read it independently, you can do popcorn reading and have each student read a paragraph, or you can play an audio version. There are so many options here, so you can decide what makes the most sense and what is most engaging for your group.

Step three: Post-story comprehension.Like pre-story activation, there are a few different approaches to this step—and each activity is language rich, meaning you can use it to target any goal.

In SLP Now, we have pre-made units for more than 400 articles and books, including this one! In those units, you’ll find pre-made lists of literal and inferential questions, plus a summarizing graphic organizer.

Learn more about the SLP Now membership

One of Marisha’s favorite things about post-story comprehension is that there are different answers to each question; there is a field of choices for students to work with. You can use the information in the article, scaffolding the skills as students identify the main idea or key details.

Literal questionsIt’s common to use literal questions when students have a goal to work on answering WH questions, but you can also ask basic questions about the article and target other goals (like grammar or vocabulary) with the students’ responses.
Inferential questionsThis is a great activity for elementary students because they’re able to tap into their prior knowledge and reference the text to successfully answer these types of questions. They have an opportunity to build on what they already know, and integrate the new learning.
Fill out a summarizing grammar organizerPull out the summarizing graphic organizer and run through the elements, asking some WH questions. Filling out the summarizing graphic organizer is a language rich activity that you can revisit in multiple steps, and it’s a great bridge to steps four and five.

Step four: Structured skill practiceIn step four, we’re going to start some targeted skill practice—including another visit to the summarizing graphic organizer.

Getting students to practice summarizing the text gives them the opportunity to work on those grammar and vocabulary targets, integrating them into the summary.

As students work through this activity, you can assess their skill level and decide how much targeted skill practice to incorporate.

Because these activities are language rich, students will be producing sentences. Throughout the unit, you can recast and model target structures for grammar. Hopefully by the time you get to step four, they’ve had some meaningful exposure and are more prepared for embedded practice. But once again: use your clinical judgment to decide how much time you spend in each step of the framework.

Other activities you can implement with this unit include targeting prefixes and suffixes, or working on compound and complex sentences. To make that super easy, check out the worksheets we have in SLP Now—and remember that just because it says “vocabulary” doesn’t mean that’s the only goal you can target with this worksheets. They can also be used for carryover grammar goals, creating sentences, working on syntax…

Nothing multi-tasks like SLP Now materials!

Step five: Integrate the new skillsIf we’re using a narrative-based text, step five is usually when we would create a parallel story.

The structure of a non-fiction article is a little bit different though. Instead of using a story grammar organizer, we’ve been working with a summarizing graphic organizer. So, instead of creating a parallel story, we’re going to do an activity that requires more expository language and summarizing skills.

One of the ways Marisha likes to make that happen is by getting her students to create a newscast!

This gives them a great opportunity to extend their learning, and integrate the news skills in a fun and engaging way.

There are also options other than a newscast—like creating a short informational video, mini documentary, or newspaper article.

You can be super creative here! The goal is to summarize the information, not create something new.

Once you’ve decided on how your students are going to showcase their skills, they can practice summarizing the information. When everyone has hit mastery, you can “hit publish” and bring all that hard work to life.

There are so many options to choose from here, and the “right” one is the one that works for your students.

And that brings us to the end of our non-fiction article unit!

You can find the links to all of the resources mentioned below, and we’ll be back at it next week with our non-fiction article unit.

Happy SLPing!

LINKS MENTIONED AND RELATED RESOURCES

Wild Calls in the Springtime Sky on ReadWorks

183: A month of therapy plans using an early language picture book

184: A month of therapy plans using a picture book

185: A month of therapy plans using a fiction article

Get unit recommendations for your caseload
PBS Learning Media Library: Bird Migration
Try a 14-day trial of SLP Now for free

At SLP Now, we are hard workers… but we also like to work smarter.

That means we’re constantly improving our materials, therapy planning resources, and the ways we support SLPs like YOU — so you can skip the hard work part and just work smarter.

How is that possible, you ask?

We’re always ~~hard~~ chill at work building out our materials library and adding resources that will save you even more time, so you can spend it doing the things that matter most to you. (Not paperwork. )

You can absolutely implement literacy-based therapy without SLP Now — there are so many free resources out there! — but if you want to cut down the time spent planning and get support from a community of SLPs who are in the trenches with you, it might be the right time to try a membership!

You can sign up for a two week trial that is risk-free and free-free → We won’t even ask for your credit card so there’s no worry about an unexpected subscription!

We’ve talked about so many activity options during this series… but there are even more literacy-based ideas and evidence-based resources waiting for you on the other side of SLP Now.

Hit the easy button: Start your free trial today!SubscribeSubscribe to the SLP Now podcast and stay tuned for our next series. We’re kicking off September by helping you get your data collection, paperwork, and therapy planning processes in tip-top shape!
Listen to The SLP Now Podcast on Apple ★ Spotify ★ Google ★ Stitcher ★ Castbox or wherever you listen to podcasts.

00:19 This week we are diving into a month long unit for a nonfiction article. This is part of a six episode series where we are sharing month long therapy units for your entire school age caseload from preschool through 12th grade. And we've already had three other episodes, so check out the previous episodes for a early language book, a picture book, and a fiction article. And we have two more units on the way. So this particular unit is ideal for students who are in third grade and up, and this is also ideal if you're wanting to target more expository language. If your students have a good mastery of narrative language and or if the priority is just more nonfiction expository text, then these are the units for you.

01:14 And if you're having a hard time deciding which units are most appropriate for your caseload, check out the show notes@slpnow.com/186 again, slpnow.com/186. This is where you'll find a link to a two minute quiz where you plug in a couple details about your caseload, and then we send you a customized list of recommended units for your caseload. And then you can come back and listen to the relevant podcast episodes and walk into your sessions feeling super confident at the show notes. You'll also find tons of other resources related to this unit. So again, head to slpnow.com/186. Now let's dive into the actual unit. We are going to be reading Wild Calls in the Springtime Sky. This is a nonfiction article that is free on read works, so let's dive into the steps for the unit.

02:18 So step one is pre story knowledge activation. And again, this is using Doctor Ukrainetz's five-step literacy based therapy framework, and the framework is geared towards more narrative text. So take this with a grain of salt, but I found some really nice success using this framework, even with non narrative text. So I'm going to share how I do that in this episode. So for step one, the first thing we want to do is take a look at the article. So we'll pull up the article, look at the title, skim some of the paragraphs, and just have a little bit of a conversation about what we notice, what we know. And this will help me based on how much the students are able to produce around this activity.

03:10 I will then decide which activities are going to be most helpful if they have beautiful conversation around all of these topics, and they have great prior knowledge, then I may skip some of these activities, but some other options to support students if they are struggling with the article walk are to create a KWL chart. So this is, you can fold a piece of paper or just split a piece of paper into three columns. And the K stands for what they know, W stands for what they want to learn, and the L stands for what they learned. And you can do this as you're doing the article walk. Like, you can have them identify what the article is about. In this case, it's birds migrating. And then, okay, so what do you know about birds and their migration patterns?

04:02 Do we even know what migration is? So we write down what we know, and then we can figure out what we want to learn. And then as we go through the rest of the unit, we can fill in what we learned. So one activity idea to help students fill in that background knowledge is to do a virtual field trip. I love finding my virtual field trips on YouTube, but there are tons of other sources for these as well. An example that we found for this unit is a video from the PBS learning media library. And it's all about migration. And it's really cool because it has videos of a bunch of birds and their migration patterns, and it gives additional background information that can be a really nice supplement to the article.

04:49 You can also pull any materials from the curriculum, any other resources that you can come up with. If there are a lot of birds around your school, you might kind of take advantage of that. The opportunities are endless. Then the last thing that I like to do is I have a summarizing graphic organizer. And based on the article walk and our KWL chart and the virtual field trip, I will have students infer what the summary will look like for this article and fill in some of those details. And then that brings us to step two, where we simply read the article. And this is very short and sweet. We just read through it, and I decide, based on the needs of the group, if I'm going to read it, if we're going to listen to the recording, or if we popcorn read.

05:39 And every student it reads in a paragraph, for example. But this is the shortest part of the unit we just read. Then that brings us to step three, where we do some post story comprehension in SLP. Now, I have pre made units for over 400 articles and books, including this one. So for this unit, I have a list of literal questions, inferential questions, so I may dive into those. There's also a summarizing graphic organizer. And one of my favorite things about this activity is that it has a field of choices, and then the students scaffolds them, filling in this organizer if they have a hard time identifying like the main idea and key details and all of that. So it has a number of options, and then they get to decide, okay, is this a key detail or is this irrelevant?

06:35 Is this the main idea or not? And so they just have a field of choices to help them with that, if that's necessary. So that's what I would do for step three. Then in step four I would continue to work and I would likely target some other skills first. But at some point in the unit I would revisit that summarizing graphic organizer and have the students practice summarizing the text. And I like to do this a little bit later in the unit because then we would have had the opportunity to practice the grammar targets and vocabulary and all of that. And then we can integrate that into the summary, but some other things that we might do. I mentioned grammar, so if students still have those basic grammar goals, then I may do some structured practice.

07:27 And then of course throughout the whole unit, because all of these activities are language rich, students are going to be producing sentences throughout the entire unit. I will be recasting and modeling the target structures for grammar. So hopefully by the time we get to this step, they may need just a little bit of structured practice, but hopefully they're just ready to start embedding this skill after having all of that exposure throughout the entire unit. Also, another activity idea is to target prefixes and suffixes. So we have some worksheets specifically for prefixes and suffixes where we can work on that specific vocabulary target. But again, all the activities are language rich. And just because we're working it says prefixes, suffixes on the page, it doesn't mean that we can't target other goals.

08:22 So it's still a great opportunity for carryover of grammar or additional vocabulary goals, creating sentences, working on syntax, all of that good stuff. And then just one more activity idea. I could share hundreds because you can, like I said, you can target any goal using a literacy based text. But one other activity idea is to work on compound and complex sentences. We have some resources embedded in the unit to help you with. Students can identify compound and complex sentences in the text, or they can take a simple sentence from the text and create a compound or complex sentence depending on what type of conjunction they're working on. The opportunities are, again, endless here. And then for step five, if we're using a narrative based text.

09:17 This is typically when we create a parallel story, but I just like to take the opportunity to extend the student's learning and find a way for them to integrate all of their skills. So one of my favorite activities is to have the students record a newscast. So this is an opportunity and it motivates them to really master their summary, because a newscast is really a summary of an event or something that happens. So if they are able to, say, summarize the text, then they get to create a fun newscast. And then they can also make some other ideas for this article could be to record a mock nature show, and so they get to practice using some of the vocabulary and the skills that we've discussed throughout the entire unit and just integrate them in a new and creative way.

10:13 So that is the overview of the nonfiction unit. If you'd like to access all of the resources for this unit and 400 additional units, head to slpnow.com/unit and then you can sign up for a free trial, no credit card required. You can go to therapy plans tab, type in Wild Calls in the Springtime Sky, and have instant access to all of the resources that I've mentioned and more. And it's totally free to get started. And then again, if you want to check out any of the other resources that I mentioned throughout this episode, head to slpnow.com/186 to access the show notes and the list of all of the relevant resources. I hope this was super helpful, and I hope you have a great day and we'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to the SLP now podcast.

11:12 If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your SLP friends. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episodes sent directly to you.

11:21 See you next time.

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We’re back at it with another episode of the SLP Now podcast!

This week, we’re taking the next step in our six-episode learning journey all about planning a month-long literacy based therapy unit — with comprehensive plans for your entire school-aged caseload.

So far we’ve talked about planning for an early language unit using the book Lola Plants a Garden, and a picture book unit using Spring is Here!

Today, we’re talking about therapy plans for a fiction article: Miss Johnson’s Plant Experiment.This unit is specifically designed for older students who still benefit from narrative support. There is a lot of research showing us that targeting narratives through high school has a positive impact on learning!

Miss Johnson’s Plant Experiment is a fiction article about some students who conduct a plant experiment. We’re going to walk through this article using Dr. Ukrainetz’s five step literacy based framework, and talk about activities that you can use to target your students’ goals in each step.

The great thing about using the literacy based framework and text is that you can target literally any language goal. It offers a contextualized practice, which makes the activity more meaningful and helps to facilitate generalization — the ultimate goal!

What happens in speech shouldn’t stay in speech. The units in this series are structured using Dr. Ukrainetz’s literacy based therapy framework, and can be used to target multiple goals with mixed groups.

To brush up on those topics or learn more about the nitty gritty of structuring sessions, check out the links and resources below!

Marisha frequently get questions about the timing of sessions when it comes to planning literacy-based units — specifically how long the unit actually takes, and how much time is spent in each step.

The short answer is… it depends. When working with mixed groups and a school-aged caseload, Marisha recommends you plan for each unit to last a month, but the actual implementation and session timing requires your clinical judgment.

For the purpose of this episode we’re going to plan for a month of therapy, and we’ll get into how much time Marisha would spend on each of the steps as we go through them.

Step one: Pre-story knowledge activationThere are four strategies Marisha likes to use for pre-story knowledge activation, but she encourages SLPs not to think of them as a structured four steps—more like a menu of options to choose from based on your students’ needs and goals.

Do an article walk togetherStart with a quick review of the article, skimming through the paragraphs to see what your students already know about the topic.

It’s difficult to learn a new concept if you don’t understand the subject matter at all, so it’s important to make sure students have some foundational knowledge—like what a plant or an experiment is. This helps to reduce the cognitive load of the activity, making the whole learning process easier.

This initial exploration of the text is simple, but can be super powerful. It gives you the opportunity to gauge your students’ background knowledge, discuss what they already know about the topic, and sets the stage for the next steps in the session.

Fill out a KWL ChartIf your students need more support developing background knowledge about the topic, Marisha recommends using a KWL chart.

At SLP Now we love to work smarter, so we want to point out that this activity is language rich! Filling out a KWL chart helps to build background knowledge and targets various language goals like vocabulary, questioning, and grammar.

Take a virtual field tripThis is a great activity on its own, and, taking a virtual field trip is also helpful if you’re filling in a KWL chart!

Looking for a virtual field trip to pair with Miss Johnson’s Plant Experiment?

Try this one!

You can choose the “trip” based on your students’ needs, and it usually involves watching a video or sourcing some images to help provide more visual background knowledge for the test.

A virtual field doesn’t have to be fancy — you can use free resources like YouTube, Google image search, or reference books from the library.

Pre-fill a story grammar organizerThe final pre-story knowledge activation activity for this unit is to have students fill a story grammar organizer, which will be put to use again later in the unit.

After going through the previous activities, you can have students do some inferencing and guess what’s going to happen in the article. Based on the knowledge they have so far, they can fill in the organizer with their best guesses about the characters, setting, and the problem they’ll face.

After the article walk, KWL chart, and virtual field trip, your students should have some really good context to help them fill in the story grammar organizer. This activity sets your students up for success by giving them meaningful exposure to the story grammar elements and a framework to work with.

Keep this first story grammar organizer to compare with the second story grammar organizer they create later — based on what actually happens in the text. You can use these visuals to do some compare/contrast or syntax activities!

And that’s a wrap for step one of the literacy-based framework: an article walk, KWL chart, virtual field trip, and pre-filling a graphic organizer.

Remember, you don’t have to do all of these activities to complete step one. Use your clinical judgment, and make choices based on your students needs and goals.

All of these activities are language rich, so you can target any goal — even with mixed groups! There are so many ways to embed practice for grammar skills, vocabulary targets, questions, describing activities, and more.

Step two: Read the articleThis is the easiest step in the whole framework, and it’s pretty straight forward. Pull up the article and then read through it!

With this age group, you have a few reading options to consider. Your students may be able to read the article independently, or you can do popcorn reading and have each student read a paragraph. Maybe it makes sense to play an audio version, or for you to read the whole article. You can decide what makes the most sense and what is most engaging for your group.

This step is by far the shortest in the whole unit, and will likely take you about five minutes. Don’t worry about adding any extra activities here — just focus on reading the article and keeping the students engaged.

Step three: Post-story comprehension.Like pre-story activation, there are a few different approaches to this step—and each activity is language rich, meaning you can use it to target any goal.

Literal questionsIt’s common to use literal questions when students have a goal to work on answering WH, but that’s not the end of their application. You can ask basic questions about the article, and target other goals like grammar or vocabulary with the students’ responses.
Inferential questionsThis is a great activity for elementary students because they’re able to tap into their prior knowledge and reference the text to successfully answer these types of questions. They have an opportunity to build on what they already know, and integrate the new learning.
Fill out a story grammar organizerPull out the story grammar organizer and run through the elements, asking some WH questions:
Who was the story about?
When did the story happen?
Where did it happen?
What was the problem?
Why was that important?

Filling out the story grammar organizer is a language rich activity that you can revisit in multiple steps, and it’s a great bridge to steps four and five.

Step four: Structured skill practiceThere are an unlimited number of activities you can use for structured skill practice, and you may spend several sessions on this step. The timing of the sessions and choice of activities depends on your students’ goals and needs — so use your clinical judgement!

One of the activities you can work on is cause and effect questions, because a lot of students have goals in this area. You can generate your own cause and effect questions, or hit the easy button and use the pre-written questions within the SLP Now membership!

You could also do some compare and contrast activities using vocabulary from the article with the story grammar organizers from steps one and three, or identify some fact and opinion statements from the article.

Regardless of the path you choose, this is a language rich activity and can be used to target a wide variety of goals, even in a mixed group.

Within the SLP Now membership, we have materials that identify two tier vocabulary words, multiple meaning word activities, and evidence-backed vocabulary activities. You can target prefixes and suffixes, and we’re in the process of adding syntax activities for all of them.

Start your two week trial membership today!

Of course, there are some limitations within this framework: Marisha admits that she doesn’t love targeting articulation within this unit structure. In a mixed group, she prefers to target articulation separately using a speedy speech model — but that’s not always possible.

In that case there are articulation activities that you can embed in a literacy based unit, like the bundles in SLP Now! We’ve created materials specific to each text, so if you search for Miss Johnson’s Plant Experiment, you’ll find a link to the articulation bundle with specific targets for that article.

The best part about these material bundles is that you can use the articulation targets for your students working on those specific goals, but you can also use them for grammar and vocabulary targets — whatever other goals you’re working on! #WinWinWin

Step five: Create a parallel story.Throughout this unit, we’ve been revisiting the story grammar organizer again and again. First, we pre-filled the organizer based on the information the students already know. Then, in step three we started filling it out based on what actually happened in the text.

We get another opportunity for exposure in step four, and now in step five, we’re going to work with the structure of the story grammar organizer one more time as the group creates a parallel story.

Fill in the story grammar organizerThis time, we’re going to fill the graphic organizer based on the students’ new story, which means the first step is to choose what the story is about!

You can draw inspiration from conversations that happened during the unit: maybe pre-story knowledge activation revealed that a student has done a plant experiment for their class, and we can draw on that for our parallel story. Or, maybe no one has done an experiment but based on what you learned from the article, the students can make up their own plant experiment story.

There are lots of options here, and the best choice is usually the one students are most excited about!

Practice retelling the storyOnce your students fill in the graphic organizer with their version of the story, everyone in the group will practice retelling the story — even if they don’t have a narrative goal! Remember, these are language rich activities, and story retell is a great opportunity to embed the vocabulary (and other goals!) they’ve been working on throughout the unit.
Publish the storyWhen everyone has practiced retelling the story and hit mastery, we hit publish!

“Publishing” the story can include acting it out — maybe recording a little video — and students can take turns narrating that final story. You can also grab a stack of paper, bind it, and have them illustrate it, or create a digital version using a resource like Google Slides.

This is the part students get most excited about, because they’re so proud of the end result! It’s especially motivating if they’re able to take the end product home and show it off.

There are so many options to choose from here, and the “right” one is the one that works for your students.

And that brings us to the end of our fiction article unit!

You can find the links to all of the resources mentioned below, and we’ll be back at it next week with our non-fiction article unit.

Happy SLPing!

Links and Additional Resources

Therapy planning and materials

Spring therapy materials quiz
Virtual field trip for Miss Johnson’s Plant Experiment

Literacy-based therapy

Five tips for working with mixed groups
Pre-story knowledge and reading
Post-story comprehension
Focused skill activities
Create a parallel story

Research articles

Gurney, D., Gersten, R., Dimino, J., & Carnine, D. (1990). Story grammar: Effective literature instruction for high school students with learning disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 23(6), 335–342.

At SLP Now, we are hard workers… but we also like to work smarter.That means we’re constantly improving our materials, therapy planning resources, and the ways we support SLPs like YOU — so you can skip the hard work part and just work smarter.

How is that possible, you ask?

You can sign up for a two week trial that is risk-free and free-free → We won’t even ask for your credit card so there’s no worry about an unexpected subscription!

We’ve talked about so many activity options during this series… but there are even more literacy-based ideas and evidence-based resources waiting for you on the other side of SLP Now.

Not sure where to start, or which unit best suits your caseload? No problem!

Click here to get your recommended therapy plans

Listen to The SLP Now Podcast on Apple ★ Spotify ★ Google ★ Stitcher ★ Castbox or wherever you listen to podcasts.

TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew Tab00:00 Hello there, and welcome to the SLP now podcast, where we share practical therapy tips and ideas for busy speech language pathologists. Grab your favorite beverage and sit back as we dive into this week's episode. This week we are diving into another month long therapy unit. We are doing a series of six episodes where we break down month long units for your entire school age caseload from preschool through 12th grade. And this week we are diving into a fiction article. This unit is ideal for older students who still benefit from narrative support, and there is tons of research supporting targeting narratives even through high school. There's been some really cool studies, and I will share a couple of resources in the show notes so you can learn a little bit more.

00:58 And then if you're not quite sure which unit type is ideal for your caseload as you're listening to these episodes, check out the show notes and those are@slpnow.com 185 again slpnow.com 185 and you will find a link to a two minute quiz that once you take that we will send you a recommended list of units for your specific caseload. And like I said, there will be resources about targeting narratives and tons of other resources as I mentioned them throughout this episode. So hopefully that is super helpful. And now we get to dive into the actual unit. We are going to be reading Miss Johnson's plant experiment. It is a fiction article that is available for free on read works and I will share the link to that resource in the show notes as well.

01:58 And again, they are@slpnow.com 185 and it is an article about some students who conduct a plant experiment. And we'll walk through the five steps of the literacy based therapy framework. Doctor Ukraine it's framework and I will share different activity ideas for each of the five steps. And the cool thing about this framework is that you can target any goal, literally any goal, using this text. And the cool thing about this is that it's very contextualized practice and it's very meaningful for students and that can really facilitate generalization and all the things I could talk about literacy based therapy for hours and hours. So in the show notes, I'll just share some quick resources that will be helpful. Anyway, let's dive into step one, which is pre story knowledge activation.

02:59 There are four things that I like to do, like a menu of options that I generally choose from. And this list is not comprehensive, but they're just some of my favorites. So the first step is to do an article walk where we'll pull up the article. They typically have a little photo at the top and then the title, and then we might skim a couple of the paragraphs. And then I will just ask the students what they know about the topic and kind of ask a couple questions and see how much background knowledge they have. If they really struggle with the article walk, then I will take a step back. And I really like to use a KWL chart.

03:43 So this is where you split a piece of paper into like, you draw three columns on a piece of paper, and the k stands for what they know, w stands for what they want to learn, and l stands for what they learned. So as we're going through, we can kind of fill in the k column about what they already know. So what do they know about plants? What do they know about plant experiments? What do they want to know about plants and plant experiments? And then as we go through the next steps, we can fill in the l column about what they learned. And this is a great way to build that background knowledge, which will be critical as we dive into the different language skills as we go through.

04:29 It'll help with their grammar, it'll help with being able to make inferences, all of that good stuff. So that's what we've got for the KWL chart. So one thing that we might do to help fill in that chart is to do a virtual field trip. I will include an example of a virtual field trip that you might use for this unit in the show notes. But I like to pick out a virtual field trip based on my students needs and just to take a quick step back. A virtual field trip is typically just a YouTube video. There are some other resources that you can use for those quote unquote virtual field trips, but it's just a video that gives students a little bit more background knowledge.

05:15 You could also pull like research articles or not research articles, but you could pull non fiction picture books. Or you can do a Google search and find some educational resources there as well. But I really like the YouTube video because it helps they get to experience it a little bit more than they might just by looking at some pictures. So I really enjoy those. And then the last activity that I like to do is to have students pre fill story grammar organizer. So after doing those different activities, I will have them guess what is going to happen in the article. So they'll fill in like who the characters are, what the setting is, what they think the problem will be, and it's really an inferencing activity.

06:01 But after doing that article walk using the KWL chart, filling them with a virtual field trip, they'll have some really good context to help them with that activity. And I like this because it gives them increased exposure to the story grammar elements and it helps give them a little bit of a framework before we dive in. And especially with older students, we'll keep this first story grammar organizer and compare it to the actual story grammar organizer for the actual story, like what actually happens. And there's some really nice compare and contrast. This is great for some different syntax activities. Oh my goodness, so many good things. That is step one. So just to recap, we do an article walk, a KWL chart, the virtual field trip, and then we pre fill the story grammar organizer and use your clinical judgment.

06:52 You don't have to do all these activities. And you may need to do multiple virtual field trips depending on the student's needs. And remember, all of these activities are language rich, so we can target any goal throughout all of these activities. And sometimes that might just look like modeling and recasting the grammar and vocabulary targets, but other times they're responding to questions, they're using vocabulary words. There's so many opportunities to embed practice for those skills. So that is step one. And if you're curious about kind of more of the nitty gritty details of how each session is structured and how do you know which tips like, especially if you have a mixed group with a bunch of students and a bunch of goals, how do you know what to target?

07:44 I will share some resources in the show notes as well on how I structure a session and how I decide what to focus on and kind of how I organize that. Like if you have a group of three students and they all have four different goals, how in the world would you target those twelve goals in the context? I get that would be overwhelming. So check out the show notes for the link to some session structure resources to help you with that. And now we get to dive into step two, which is reading. That's the easiest step in the whole framework. You would just pull up the article and then read through it. And at this level, students may be able to read these independently.

08:28 Maybe you want to do popcorn reading where each student reads a paragraph, or maybe it just makes sense for you to read the whole paragraph or the whole article. You can decide what makes the most sense and what is most engaging for your group. And in this step, you just read through the article. This is by far the shortest step in the whole unit. It will likely take you about five minutes. You don't want to add a bunch of extra stuff here. Just focus on reading the article and just making sure that students are engaged during the reading, but you don't need to add anything else. So then that brings us to step three, which is post story comprehension. And there are three main areas that I will focus on for step three. The first one is literal questions.

09:19 And again, I'm going to emphasize this again, every activity that I list is language rich and you can use it to target any goal. So yes, we may have students in our group who have a goal to work on answering WH questions about a story, but we may not. But this is still a helpful activity because we can use it to when they're responding to these questions, we are able to target those grammar, vocabulary, articulation, any of those types of goals we can still use. So literal questions are just basic questions about the story. Then we can also ask inferential questions. I really like this activity for this age group too, because we did do that prior knowledge and so that'll give them, they're able to reference the text and use the prior knowledge that they've built to successfully answer these types of questions.

10:16 So I love this combination in the structure of the unit. I think it works out really well. Another idea for a comprehension activity is story grammar. So you can pull out that story grammar organizer and just run through the elements and ask wh questions. Who was the story about? When did the story happen? Where did it happen? What was the problem? Run through those questions and I often revisit the story grammar story retell in step four and step five of the unit. So this is a great kind of bridge activity to lead them to that. And again, we can target all of our students goals throughout this activity as well. Then that brings us to step four, which is the structured skill practice. And there are an unlimited number of activities that we could use in this step.

11:11 We can spend several sessions diving into all of the student skills. So I am just going to share a couple ideas. And then one cool thing about the SLP now membership is that we have a bunch of activities linked. We have a page for every therapy plan. We have over 400 therapy plans. We've been working really hard. And then we have a unit plan page that lists activities. So it will list all of the different things you could do for step one, step two, step three, step four. And then we also have activities linked. And there's a mix of just click and go like Google Slides types of materials, some of them are PDF's, some of them are interactive materials. There are lots and lots of options for you to have easy access to those activities.

12:05 But for the skill section, we've analyzed all of the books and identified all of the targets. So like all the articulation words, all of the prefixes, suffixes, all the grammar structures, all the syntax stuff. And we're constantly building this out and adding more resources to save you tons of time, because implementing literacy based therapy really isn't very difficult. But it can make a world of a difference to have easy access to all of the activities to target your student specific goals. It just makes it so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time, and it cuts down your planning time significantly. So you can absolutely implement this on your own.

12:50 But if you are looking for a little bit of support, head to slpnow.com unit and you can sign up for a totally free trial, no credit card required, and you can go to therapy plans tab. Type in Miss Johnson's plan experiment, and then you will have access to the unit plan, all the targets, all of the materials, and you'll have everything that you need to implement this right away without any prep. So like I said, we'll dive into a couple activity ideas, but know that there are way more ideas and resources waiting for you. Some ideas are working on cause and effect questions, so this can a lot of our students might have goals around this, and so there are some pre written cause and effect questions. I'm sure you could generate your own cause and effect questions.

13:43 We also have some compare and contrast activities, so we in terms of vocabulary. So we've selected some vocabulary from the article and created some compare and contrast activities. And then you can also compare and contrast your story grammar organizers from step one and step three. So that's a great activity. We've also identified some fact and opinion statements from the article, and that can be a really fun activity for students working on those types of goals. But again, it's also a very language rich activity, so you can still pull this activity and target your students other goals as well. We've identified tier two vocabulary words and have multiple meaning word activities and evidence backed vocabulary activities to help you work through those. We've identified the prefixes and suffixes and have really cool activities to help you target those.

14:39 We're working on adding syntax activities for all of them. So if you need support with embedded clauses and all of that good stuff, you'll have some ready to go resources for that as well. And then I don't always love when I have to target articulation in a mixed group. I really prefer to target articulation separately, using like, a speedy speech model or something like that. But we know that's not always possible. And so we have articulation activities, like little articulation bundles that are specific for every article and book. And so you can, if you go to Miss Johnson's plant experiment, you can find the articulation bundle there, and it has article specific targets.

15:28 And again, you can use these articulation targets for your students working on those articulation goals, but you can also use them for grammar and vocabulary targets or whatever other goals you're working on. And then that brings us to step five, which is creating a parallel story. So throughout the unit, we've been revisiting the story grammar organizer, and in step three, we kind of started filling it out. And then in step four is when we would have continued to practice that. And then in step five, we would revisit the story grammar organizer for the article, and then we would work as a group to create our own story. So the first thing I would do is have them fill in the graphic organizer for their new story, and they get to choose what the story is about.

16:19 If throughout the unit, a lot of stuff will come up. And so maybe they did a plant experiment in their class, or maybe they want to do a plant experiment, and they can make up a story about what that would be like. So there's lots of options there. And then once we fill in the organizer with their version of the story, then everyone in the group will practice retelling the story, even if they don't have a narrative goal. This is a really great opportunity to embed all of their vocabulary and just all of the goals that we've been working on throughout the entire unit. Everyone works on retelling the story until they hit mastery, and then we publish it. And publishing the story can include acting it out and maybe recording a little video.

17:09 And then students can take turns narrating that final story, or we can grab a stack of paper and kind of bind it and have them illustrate it, or we can do a digital version using like, Google Slides or anything like that. I did a whole podcast episode just on parallel stories, so I will share that in the show notes as well. So that wraps up the ideas for our fiction article again. Head to SLP now.com 185 to check out all of the resources that I mentioned, and we'll see you next week. Thanks for listening to the SLP now podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your SLP friends. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episodes sent directly to you. See you next time.

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Welcome to another episode of the SLP Now podcast!

We’re getting ready to dive into the second of a six-week series about literacy-based therapy plans that you can use across your entire school-aged caseload.

Over the next several weeks, we’re going to explore various units that are designed to engage and support your students across multiple age groups and skill levels.

Whether you’re an experienced speech-language pathologist or new to the field, we hope that these episodes will provide valuable insights and practical strategies that you can put to work right away.

Last week we talked about early language unit, which is perfect for preschool and kindergarten students. This week we’re diving into a picture book unit, which is great for that K through grade 2 range.

Throughout the unit, we’re going to touch on a handful of goals including articulation, basic concepts, grammar, syntax, vocabulary, phonological awareness, and comprehension — but you can use this unit to target literally any goal that you are working on with your students.

All of the activities in this unit are language rich, and they provide the perfect context for therapy.

Now let’s dive in!

If you’re listening to these episodes, and you’re wondering which units are ideal for your caseload, we have the perfect resource for you: a two minute quiz! Answer a couple questions about your caseload, and we will send you a list of recommended units plus resources to help you implement. Stop wondering, start planning >> Take the next step to easier therapy here!Literacy-based therapy plans for a spring picture bookFor this week’s unit, we’re going to be reading the book Spring is Here, which is a super cute story about a mole and a bear.

The Mole wakes up because he’s done hibernating and Spring is here, but the bear is still asleep. The Mole really wants his friend to wake up, and he does a bunch of problem solving to get the bear to wake up. And that’s the story!

Marisha likes to structure my units using Dr. Ukrainetz’s literacy based therapy framework. If you’re not familiar with that or you need a refresher, check out our literacy-based therapy boot camp series on the podcast!When it comes to planning literacy-based units, Marisha always get questions about the timing of sessions, specifically how long the unit actually takes and how much time is spent in each step. The answer is… it really depends on the group.

When Marisha is working with mixed groups and has a school-aged caseload, she usually plans for each unit to last a month—and we’ll get into how much time she would spend on each of the steps as we go through them.

Step One: Pre Story Knowledge Activation.The amount of time you spend on step one really depends on the student’s level of background knowledge walking into the unit.

Sometimes it might just take one session—or even a little bit less than a full session. Other times we might have to spend a couple of sessions filling in that background knowledge. There are four activities Marisha likes to use to assess and fill in that information:

1. Do a book walk.If you have the actual book, you can show your students the cover, look at a couple pages, and observe what they’re able to tell you about what they see.

If they’re able to put together beautiful sentences, describe all the things, demonstrate a lot of knowledge about hibernation and how the seasons changes—then you might be able to skip some of the activities we’re going to talk about.

2. Create a KWL chart.This activity is really helpful if you want to take an inventory of what your students know about a topic, what they want to learn, and, what they end up learning. Marisha likes to fill this chart out with her students, taking their goals into account as they decide what they want to learn.

A KWL chart is split into three segments: in the first column, we write what we know about the topic, in the second column we write what we want to know, and in the third column we write what we learned.Creating a KWL is a language rich activity, and it’s the perfect context for working on our students’ goals. Whether they’re targeting vocabulary, answering questions, or using grammatical structures, this activity allows us to target all of those goals in a really beautiful and meaningful way.

3. Take a virtual field trip.For Spring is Here, Marisha likes to use this video to do a virtual field trip that explains the seasons. That concept is a little bit tricky for some students, so that virtual field trip is a really great activity to embed here.

It’s helpful to find some content is about spring and what we might see in this season, or talks a little bit about hibernation. The goal is to find an activity that illustrates some of those vocabulary concepts, or helps students understand why the bear is sleeping and why the environment looks the way that it does.

Virtual field trips like this one are really great for targeting a lot of the common concepts that students may struggle with when reading this book, which helps with overall comprehension.

4. Fill in the story grammar elements with a graphic organizer.Marisha almost always uses a prefilled graphic organizer as part of step one because the visuals are such a great way to integrate what the students are learning. She’ll ask them to infer the story grammar elements like the characters or the problem they’re facing, and incorporate the targets the students are working on.

This gives the students exposure to the grammar elements, and it’s a great way to tie in the pre-story knowledge activation from the book walk, KWL chart, and virtual field trip. In one activity, we’re able to embed vocabulary, create sentences, work on concepts, and more!

Check out the graphic organizer in the SLP Now materials library!

And that’s step one! Let’s move on to…

Step two: Read the bookThis step doesn’t have to take long because picture books can usually be read in just a few minutes. You can read the actual physical book if you own a copy or can borrow it from the library. Alternatively, you can find a free read-aloud version on YouTube!

Pro tip: Unlock ad-free YouTube by [ insert hack here ]Told you step two was short and sweet! Now let’s get into…

Step three: Post story comprehension.After we finish reading the book, it’s time to check-in and see how the story landed with our students.

One of Marisha’s favorite ways to do this is with question cards! Whether the students have specific goals for literal and/or inferential questions, she likes to use little cards that have questions and options for visual answer choices. #ScaffoldingFTW

Whether or not Marisha uses the answer choices as part of the activity it depends on the skill level of the student and if that support is necessary. Either way, the question cards are more than just a comprehension activity because they’re also language rich! As you ask questions and the students respond, you can incorporate those vocabulary and grammar goals that they’re targeting.

After we’ve gotten through our literal and inferential questions, it’s time to review the story grammar. That means we get to pull out our pre-filled graphic organizer!

In the SLP Now membership, we’ve created little icons that can be used with the organizer, and every book in our materials library has corresponding icons. They’re super cute, and students have a lot of fun putting them together while working through comprehension questions, like what happened? Who was in the story? When did it happen? Where did it happen?

Students have a ton of opportunities for meaningful exposures in this step, and there are so many ways you can scaffold the support to meet them where they’re at.

Check out the question cards in the SLP Now Materials library!

As the students continue to work on that narrative structure, we can move on to…

Step four: Focus skill activities, or skill practiceIn the last episode of this series we spent a lot of time talking about activities for step four because our early language book, Lola Plants a Garden, was a very play-based unit.

It’s hard to believe, but there may be even more skills to target and activity ideas to implement for Spring is Here — so buckle up!

Marisha references SLP Now a lot because it’s her go-to resource for easy-peasy therapy planning and low-prep materials — but the goal is that you can implement the strategies and activities from these episodes with whatever you have at your fingertips. You can do so much with a pen and paper!And, if you want to try SLP Now, why not start a free 14-day trial?Take our super quick caseload quiz to get recommendations for your students age group and needs, then head to your member portal and download the materials.You’ll find everything you need to make some literacy-based therapy magic happen, including a list of age appropriate activities, corresponding targets, and links to related resources… and it’s all in one place. No more searching and material prep!You’re just a few clicks away from your easiest therapy planning yet — start here!Targeting Multiple Goals in Mixed GroupsArticulation, describing, and grammar goalsOne of the ways to target articulation goals during a group session is to identify the highest frequency words and incorporate them into the activities.

In SLP Now, you can search for books that specifically target articulation, and within the unit you’ll find activity packs that include targets from the book! For example, the activity pack for Spring is Here includes S blends, vocalic Rs, and some SH words on the articulation cards.

Working smarter means getting more life out of the materials you prep, which is exactly what we’re going to do with the articulation cards. These visuals are so versatile!

If there are students working on describing goals, you can use the pictures from the articulation cards; if someone is working on syntax or grammar, we can create sentences using the cards. The opportunities really are endless, and the materials can be used in so many ways! #WorkSmarter

Basic concepts, modeling, and recastingLet’s say we’re working on some basic concepts. We’ve consulted the research, identified the basic concepts in the book, and structured the activities based on our research findings. (Evidence-based or bust, baby!)

For example, some of the basic concepts in Spring is Here are direct instruction activities like “open” and “close”. In SLP Now, we have some slide decks that you can you to teach those basic concepts in a structured way—while also targeting skills like creating sentences, describing, and vocabulary!

Just because it’s a basic concepts activity doesn’t mean we can’t use it to target a number of goals!

One of Marisha’s favorite visuals in the SLP Now membership is the sentence pack with icons. You can print the icons out or use them digitally to help students build sentences, because they are a super helpful support—especially if students are persistently producing errors after multiple models and recastings. They really benefit from the visual activity to practice that skill, and of course, it’s language rich.

There are so many options available for focused skill practice here!

And then the last step…

Step five: Create a parallel storyAt this point, Marisha likes to grab a fresh story grammar organizer, and she reviews the initial story grammar organizer with her students. Then, they get to make their own story!

You can use the book as inspiration, but the events that unfold are up to you and your kiddos.

Marisha likes to give the students a few ideas, asking questions that get their imagination going — like maybe there is a time that they struggled to wake up? Maybe they did something fun during the springtime? Maybe there is a hibernating animal that they’re interested in? The point is to get them invested in the story they’re about to tell, and use those details to fill in the fresh story grammar organizer!

To fill out the organizer, we practice retelling the story. Sometimes that means recording an audio note, other times that may look like acting it out. The goal is that the students are able to retell the story independently — without support from you or the visuals.

Remember: it’s totally fine if the story is really simple! The purpose of the activity is to go through the steps of outlining the story and practice the retell, then, when they get really good at it… we go to the presses and publish!

Whether it’s a physical book put together with staples and a stack of paper or a digital version created with PowerPoint or Google Slides, this is the part of the unit that students love. It is so much fun to bring their story to life in a more permanent way, and they’re always super proud to share their creation outside of the speech room… which is exactly what we want.

What happens in speech shouldn’t stay in speech.And that brings us to the end of this unit!

You can find the links to all of the resources mentioned below, and we’ll be back at it next week when we dive into a fiction article!

Happy SLPing!

Links and Additional Resources

175: Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp: Step 1 (Pre-Story Knowledge) and Step 2 (Reading)

183: A Month of Therapy Using an Early Language Picture Book

Spring Is Here Virtual Field Trip
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00:59 We have a two minute quiz that once you take that, we will send you a list of recommended units for your caseload so you don't have to keep wondering. And it'll be a nice little email with all of the resources all bundled together. And you can find the link to that quiz in the show notes@slpnow.com. And the show notes will also include any other links that I share during this episode today. So again, you can find that@slpnow.com 184 now, throughout this unit, we are going touch on a handful of goals. So we'll talk about articulation, basic concepts, grammar, syntax, vocabulary, phonological awareness, comprehension. So we'll focus primarily on those goals. But you can use this unit to target any goal, literally any goal that you are working on with your students.

01:59 All of the activities in this unit are language rich and they are the perfect context for therapy. So now let's dive into the actual unit. So we are going to be reading the book. Spring is here. It's a super cute story about a mole and a bear. The mole wakes up because he's done hibernating and spring is here, but the bear is still asleep and the mole really wants his friend to wake up and he does a bunch of problem solving to get the bear to wake up. So that's the story. Now let's dive into the steps of the unit. So step one, and just to take a step back first, I like to structure my units using Doctor Ukraine, it's literacy based therapy framework.

02:47 If you're not familiar with that or you need a refresher, head to the show notes and I'll link some resources there to get you up to speed. But I will do my best to explain all of the steps as we go through. So hopefully you can still follow. There will be additional resources@slpnow.com 184 okay, so that brings us to step one. Prestory knowledge activation. There are four different things that I like to do in this step of the unit, and I always get questions about the timing of all of, like, how long does this unit actually take? How much time do you spend in each step? And the answer is, it really depends on the group.

03:30 But I find that with a school age caseload where I'm working with groups, I tend to spend about a month on a unit, and this tends to match up. So if I see students once a week for 30 minutes, it ends up taking about a month. If I see students a couple times a week for those 30 minutes sessions or whatever the length is, it also ends up taking about a month, because with how I do my scheduling, the students who are being seen more frequently have more needs. And so we just need more time to get through the unit. So that's how long the entire unit ends up taking. And then we'll talk about how much time we would spend on each of the steps as we go through them.

04:13 But for step one, this really depends on the student's level of background knowledge walking into the unit. So sometimes it might just take a session or a little bit less than a session, but other times we might have to spend a couple sessions filling in that background knowledge. So there we go. In terms of what we would actually do, the first thing that I like to do is a book walk. So if I have the actual book, I'll show them a cover, maybe look at a couple pages and just kind of observe what they're able to tell me about what they see.

04:49 And if they are able to put together beautiful sentences and describe all the things, and they demonstrate a lot of knowledge about hibernation and spring and all the season changes, then I might skip some of the activities that I'm going to tell you about. But if they struggle with this activity, which more often than not is what happens, then I will use a KWL chart to help kind of take an inventory of what we actually do know and what we want to learn about the topic. So a KWL chart is just basically a piece of paper split into three segments. And then the first column, we write what we know about the topic. In the second column, we write what we want to know, and then in the third column, we write what we learned.

05:40 And so I usually try to match that up with what we want to learn. But again, this is a language rich activity, so it's not just a fluff activity. It is the perfect context for working on our students goals. Whether they are working on vocabulary or answering questions or using grammatical structures, as we're discussing and writing questions, answering questions, we're able to target all of those goals in a really beautiful and meaningful way. And then another activity that we can use is a virtual field trip. So we're able to fill in a lot of the KWL chart as we're doing the virtual field trip. So for spring is here, and I would choose a virtual field trip based on the needs of my group. But one field trip that I came across that I really liked was about it kind of explains the seasons.

06:33 And that time concept is a little bit tricky for some kiddos. So I think that's a really great activity to embed here. But then the video continues to dive into spring, what we see in spring. It talks a little bit about hibernation, and so it helps illustrate some of those vocabulary concepts, and it also helps us understand, okay, like why is the bear sleeping? And why do things look the way that they do? It's just, I really like that video to target a lot of the common concepts that my students struggle with when we're reading this book. Then the fourth activity that I like to do, I will almost always do a book walk, and I will almost always pre fill the graphic organizer.

07:17 And then the KWL chart and the virtual field trip are maybe kind of dependent on the needs of the group. So the fourth thing that I like to do, again, is that graphic organizer. So I will print off or I will pull up a digital version of my story grammar organizer. And based on what we discussed, I will have students infer the characters in the story, the problem in the story, and all of those story grammar elements. This is a really great activity for a number of reasons, because, one, it gives them exposure to the story grammar elements. It is a great way to tie in all of the pre story knowledge learning that we did across the three previous activities. And it's just, again, a great language activity. We are creating sentences, we're embedding vocabulary concepts, all of that good stuff.

08:11 So that is step one. And the four activities that I like to use here are book walk, KJBL chart, virtual field trip, and then pre fill that story grammar organizer. And then that brings us to step two, which is to read the book. And the book can be read in just a few minutes. Like, I found a YouTube video, and the video is three minutes long. And that is a tip. If you are not able to purchase the actual book or your library doesn't have it in stock or whatever the case might be, you can access the book on YouTube. I do have a little trick to access YouTube without ads, so I will add that to the show notes as well. So that brings us to step three, post story comprehension.

08:57 So after we finish reading the book, whether or not the students have specific goals for literal and or inferential questions, for the literal questions, I have little question cards that have questions and then visual answer choices. And so I may or may not use the answer choices if it's not necessary for the students. But I find that's a really nice way to scaffold this. So we'll run through the questions, and again, it's a language rich activity. It is not just a comprehension activity because I ask the questions and then the students respond. So we can use this to target vocabulary, grammar, all of the things. And then the second thing that I like to do, well, I guess literal questions is one, inferential questions is another.

09:46 The units in SLP now include lists of inferential questions, but where slps, we can come up with list of questions too. Then the third thing is story grammar. So I've created story grammar organizers that include pre little icons for spring is here, and for every book that we have in our library, it has a little icon for the characters and the setting and all of that. And then that can be a way to scaffold this activity. And it's a great comprehension activity because who was in the story? That's a question. When did it happen? Where did it happen? What was the problem? Those are all wh questions, and it's just a really nice, meaningful activity to work on comprehension.

10:33 And then we can shape that into if the students are working on narratives, then we can continue to target that in step four, which is focus skill activities or skill practice. So in the last video, I spent a lot of time talking about activities for step four, and I feel like there are even more skills and activity ideas for spring is here because the early language book was a lot more play based, but here we go. I'm going to try and keep this as succinct as possible while still giving you really nice, concrete examples. And I keep mentioning SLP now, and you can absolutely implement this on your own if you go to the show notes. I have linked a bunch of the resources that I've mentioned throughout this episode, and I really hope that you have what you need to implement.

11:28 And if you want a little bit more support inside SLP now, we have the unit plan that lists all of these activities with related resources. And for step four, we also have a tab under, like, there's a page for the unit that lists all of the targets. And for each target, we have linked activities to help you teach those skills and do some really structured practice with them. And then you have access to all of the different materials in one spot without having to do any prep. So I think that is a huge time saver. I needed this when I was managing my caseload in the triple digits. And if you are wanting some support and you're like, okay, I don't want to put this together myself, just give me the resources. You can try it completely free, like no credit card required.

12:20 And we have this unit plus 400 more. So if you had to slp now.com unit, you can find information about the free trial and sign up. Go to therapy plans tab. Type in spring is here. And then you'll have access to all of the activities. But I'll walk you through some now, and I'll just pick a handful of them. Okay, so one of the goals that I mentioned was articulation. So I prefer to target articulation separately, but sometimes we just have those mixed groups. And it is what it is. We have gone through all of the books and identified the highest frequency words and articulation targets. And then we have made book specific articulation activities.

13:07 And so for each of our books, you can go through and you can find, like, for spring is here, we have an articulation activity pack, and it includes a bunch of different targets. This one had, like, a lot of s blends and vocalic r and sh. And so we have book specific lists and articulation cards. So it is a language retractivity still, even though it's articulation. And so we can use those cards for our articulation kiddos. But if someone else is working on describing, we can describe the pictures. If someone is working on syntax or grammar, we can work on creating sentences using those cards. These opportunities are endless. And then let's say we're working on some basic concepts. So we've identified the basic concepts in the book as well. And there, this is based on a research article.

14:00 Like, we structured these activities based on how the research told us to or what the research indicated. And we have some direct instruction activities, like, for example, open and close is one of the common concepts in the book. And then we have a slide deck that you can use to teach that basic concept in a very structured and evidence backed way. So that can be some of your very structured teaching, but you can still, again, you know what I'm going to say, it's a language rich activity, and as we're going through that, our students can work on, like creating sentences and describing the vocabulary and all of those things. So just because it says it's a basic concept activity doesn't mean we can't use it to target a number of goals.

14:47 We also have a printable sentence pack with icons, but we also have digital ones. If you don't have the time to prep and print. So you can, in the unit plan, you can literally just click to open up the sentence pack, and then you can use that. There's little icons that students can use to build sentences. This is really helpful if students are, because I like to model and recast the grammar targets and the vocabulary too. But if students aren't picking that up, I find that they really benefit from a visual activity to practice that skill. So, like with students who I've modeled and recasted irregular past tense verbs a million times, but they continue to produce errors with that, I find that having those icons makes a world of a difference. So that's an example of how you can do that.

15:41 And again, it's language rich. We can target a bunch of goals using that. Then we have describing activities which you can use for categories, object functions, synonyms, antonyms, as well as grammar, all of those things. We also have a smart deck which includes more drill based practice for describing categories, plural nouns, past tense verbs, and phonological awareness. If you're trying to sprinkle that into your sessions. So lots and lots of options there, and we can spend a huge chunk of the unit in step four. And then the last step five, is to create a parallel story. So I grab a fresh story grammar organizer, and I'll pull up our initial story grammar organizer. If the students are like, oh, like, I wish the story was more like the one that we made in step one versus the actual story, then we can do that.

16:38 But I grabbed the story grammar organizers that we made in the previous steps, and then we grab a fresh one. And then I ask the students, I explained that they get to make their own story, and we get to choose how we structure it, and we're just going to take this story as inspiration. So they then get to fill in the story grammar organizer with their own story. Maybe there was a time that they couldn't wake up, or maybe they have a favorite story from the springtime, or maybe they did something really fun at school that's related to the spring, or maybe they want to pick another hibernating animal.

17:12 Whatever they're interested in, they get to make the story and then just use the previous organizers as so the first thing they need to do is fill out that organizer and then we practice retelling the story so they can record themselves telling the story or we can act it out. And they eventually have to be able to act it out independently, without my help or without referencing the organizer. But it ends up being a really simple story. But we go through the steps of outlining it, practicing the retell, and once they get really good at that, then we publish it. And we can do this by just like grabbing a stack of paper and stapling it together and making a little book. We can make a digital book on using like PowerPoint or Google Slides, whatever makes the most sense.

18:05 Sometimes we will just record us acting out the story and the students will take turns narrating it, or each student will narrate their own story. You can decide what combination of these makes the most sense for your group, but yeah, that brings us to the end of the unit. So again, if you want to access any of the resources that I shared during this episode, head to slpnow.com 184 and I can't wait to see you next week where we'll dive into a fiction article. Thanks for listening to the SLP now podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your SLP friends. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episodes sent directly to you. See you next time.

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Welcome to another episode of the SLP Now podcast! This week, we’re kicking off a six-week series about literacy-based therapy plans that you can use across your entire school-aged caseload.

Over the next several weeks, we’ll explore various units designed to engage and support students across multiple age groups and skill levels. Whether you’re an experienced speech-language pathologist or new to the field, we hope that these episodes will provide valuable insights and practical strategies for your caseload.

Today, we’re going to start with an early language book!These resources offer simpler stories tailored to young learners who may be developing foundational language skills. Our goal is to create a play-based approach that fosters engagement and facilitates language acquisition in a fun and interactive way.

For our early language unit, we’re going to use a very Spring appropriate book called Lola Plants a Garden. We’ll walk through each step of Dr. Ukrainetz’s literacy-based therapy framework, providing you with actionable guidance and plenty of ideas to implement in your sessions.

Let’s get started!

Step 1: Pre-Story Knowledge ActivationBefore we dive right into the book, it’s essential to take stock of your students’ prior knowledge and familiarize them with key concepts related to the story. This step sets the stage for comprehension and engagement throughout the unit, and it gives students the knowledge they need to be successful.

One of my favorite activities is to do a book walk, where you can familiarize the students with the book before you start reading.If you have the physical book in your hand, you can show students the cover and then flip through a few pages to identify any familiar objects and actions. For example, do they recognize flowers or understand the concept of planting a garden?

Depending on your students’ language abilities, you can adjust the level of support and scaffolding provided during this activity.It can also be really helpful to incorporate virtual field trips or hands-on play-based experiences to enrich students’ understanding and vocabulary. Whether you’re watching videos of children gardening on YouTube or actively exploring nature, there are so many ways you can introduce the book and its main themes while setting students up for success with the rest of the unit.

When working with younger students it might be helpful to do more play-based activities, especially if they need a little more information to engage with the content. In that case, you could find a song on YouTube about flowers or gardening, and incorporate movement or act things out to help ingrain those vocabulary concepts and give your students lots of exposure.

You could also bring in pictures of flowers and do different activities around describing them, or asking questions about the flowers and modeling utterances. If your students learn with tactical activities or sensory play, you can even bring in a little plastic or felt garden kit. There are so many options!

Throughout this step, the goal is to model vocabulary, basic concepts, and grammar targets while also encouraging students to express their thoughts and observations—and recasting their productions as needed.

The opportunities for language-rich activities are endless, and by building a strong foundation of pre-story knowledge, you pave the way for deeper comprehension and meaningful interactions during the reading and beyond.

Which brings us to step two of Dr. Ukrainetz’s framework:

Step 2: Read the BookOnce students are familiar with the story’s context, it’s time to read the book!

Whether you have access to the physical book or take advantage of online resources like YouTube videos, ensure that all students can follow along and actively engage with the text.

One of the great things about using a YouTube version of the books is the ability to share the links with parents, teachers, or other members of the students’ support team. There is a lot of research demonstrating that multiple readings improve comprehension, and the YouTube links mean our students can get exposures to the book outside of the speech room.

Reading aloud offers so many benefits including exposure to new vocabulary, comprehension practice, and auditory processing skills.

As you read, be sure to pause to discuss illustrations, predict what might happen next, and encourage students to make connections to their own experiences.

And, for students with visual impairments or other accessibility needs, consider providing alternative formats such as tactile books or digital versions with audio descriptions. The goal is to make the reading experience inclusive and enjoyable for all learners.

Step 3: Post-Story ComprehensionAfter completing the book, we’re going to take some time to assess students’ comprehension and reinforce key concepts through targeted questioning and discussion. This step gives us valuable insights into students’ understanding of the story, and helps to reinforce their learning.

Using question cards or prompts tailored to different comprehension levels, you can use step three to guide students in recalling details, summarizing the plot, and making inferences about characters’ motivations and actions.

By offering multiple-choice answers or visual supports, you can scaffold the task and accommodate diverse learning needs—which makes this perfect for working with mixed groups.

You can encourage students to share their thoughts and opinions, fostering critical thinking and communication skills. Through meaningful dialogue and reflection, students have the opportunity to deepen their engagement with the text and develop confidence in expressing themselves.

Step 4: Focused Skill ActivitiesNow that our students have a solid understanding of the story, it’s time to dig into focused skill practice and start targeting specific language goals. This step allows you to customize activities and interventions based on students’ individual needs and areas of growth.

For Marisha, step four tends to be the longest section of the unit because that’s when we are really digging into our students’ goals. It’s not uncommon for her to spend several sessions on focused skill activities.

Because we’re working with early language skills here, it’s helpful to incorporate a variety of play-based activities, like vocabulary games or role-playing scenarios, to keep students involved and engaged.

In SLP Now, we have a whole list of receptive and expressive language skills—and we have them leveled—plus a handful of play-based ideas to help you target those goals at all the different levels.

Let’s walk through a few examples:

You can use vocabulary cards or actual tangible props and supports to reinforce word recognition and categorization skills
Get creative and play hide-and-seek! Move items around the room to make the activity more engaging for your students
To target basic vocabulary, like body parts, you can put a flower (from Lola’s garden of course!) on your head, shoulders, or even under your feet
You can also work on responding to questions or describing goals by using different types of flowers and asking which one is small or which one is yellow—or ask your students to describe the size and color of each flower if you’re offering various levels of support

The possibilities really are endless!

Of course, it’s important to consider the pacing and structure of your sessions, making sure you have enough time for direct instruction, guided practice, and independent exploration.

By providing multiple opportunities for repetition and reinforcement, you support your students’ skill acquisition and generalization across contexts.

Step 5: Parallel StoryLet’s wrap up the unit with Marisha’s favorite step: creating a parallel story! This activity encourages creativity, language production, and narrative development as students reimagine the story through their own perspectives.

You can provide students with prompts or visual aids to help them generate ideas and organize their thoughts. Encourage collaborative storytelling and teamwork to foster a supportive and inclusive learning environment.

Whether students choose to write, draw, or act out their parallel stories, emphasize the importance of narrative structure and the key components of storytelling—like setting, characters, and plot progression.

Honestly, students have so much fun with this step. They get really involved with choosing images, and are super proud when they have a finished project to take home and show off.

The very best part? You get to do your favorite thing: celebrate each student’s unique contributions and creativity, highlighting their strengths and achievements.

And that wraps up our early language literacy-based unit, Lola Plants a Garden!

Remember: the framework outlined here is meant to serve as a flexible guide for to help you put together effective therapy plans that will carry you through an entire month. By incorporating elements of play, exploration, and meaningful interaction, you can create engaging and impactful learning experiences for your students.

While our favorite therapy planning resource is SLP Now, know that you can absolutely implement this without investing in our membership!Our goal is to offer you ideas to consider, and we hope that you have access to the resources you need to make this literacy-based magic happen without making any purchases. YouTube and a solid Google image search can be your best friend.

Whether you’re working with early language learners or students with more advanced communication skills, the principles of literacy-based therapy remain consistent. So keep experimenting, adapting, and refining your approach to meet the diverse needs of the students on your caseload, and don’t hesitate to seek out additional resources and support along the way.

We hope this unit inspires you to embrace the power of storytelling and play in your speech-language therapy sessions with early learners.

Stay tuned for future episodes in this series, where we explore more evidence-based units and strategies to to help you target your students’ goals—across all the ages on your caseload.

You’ve got this, SLP!

Links and Additional Resources#174: Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp: How to Pick a Book

175: Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp: Step 1 (Pre-Story Knowledge) and Step 2 (Reading)

176: Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp: Step 3 (Post-Story Comprehension)

177: Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp: Step 4 (Focused Skill Activities)

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TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew Tab 00:00 Hello there, and welcome to the SLP Now Podcast, where we share practical therapy tips and ideas for busy speech language pathologists. Grab your favorite beverage and sit back as we dive into this week's episode.

This week we are diving into a month of therapy plans for an early language book, and this is the beginning of a six week series where we will dive into units that you can use across your whole school age caseload.

00:40 So I'm really excited. We're going to be doing picture book, nonfiction article, fiction article, even vocational units, science experiments, all of that good stuff. So stay tuned for the rest of the series. And like I said, we are starting off today with an early language book, and early language books include simpler stories that students really love. And this unit type is ideal for students who might not be ready to sit through a longer story, who are working on more foundational language skills, and who benefit from more of a play based approach. And if you'd like a list of recommended units for your caseload. If you're not sure, should I choose early language or should I wait to hear about the picture book? If you're not sure, check out the show notes at slpnow.com/183. Again, that's slpnow.com/183.

01:42 There's also a link in the description for this episode, but you'll find all of the show notes. So any resources or links that I mentioned throughout this episode, you'll be able to find them again at slpnow.com/183. But you will also find a link to a two minute quiz. Super short and sweet. If you take that quiz, we will send you a list of recommended units for your caseload.

02:11 And like I said, if you go to the show notes, you'll find tons of other resources for this unit as well. But without further ado, let's dive in. We are going to be reading, and we won't actually read it in this episode, but this hypothetical unit is for Lola Plants a Garden, which is a story about a girl who plants a garden. It's a very simple read. It can be read in about two to three minutes, so it's really great.

02:41 For those preschoolers or kindergartners who don't quite have the attention span to sit through a slightly longer book. And it doesn't include a complete story grammar episode. So it does not include a complete story grammar episode. But the story includes really nice illustrations and it's a great context to target basic vocabulary, basic concepts. There are lots of actions in the book, plus a number of characters.

03:11 So it's really great for those grammar goals because you'll have lots of great pictures to use to target those goals because there's all those actions. It's really great for verbs, irregular, past tense verbs. There are a lot of those in the book. There's a mom and her daughter, and then she has three friends that come over, and two of them are boys. So there's a mix of characters that you can work on, too. So I listed some of the goals that we can target throughout the unit, like basic vocabulary, basic concepts. This is really great for those early kind of MLU goals as well, answering questions, describing, any of those grammar goals.

03:54 It's just a really great context for a number of goals, following simple directions, early prepositions as well, which falls under basic concepts, and then just naming basic items, which goes under basic vocabulary. So lots of our early language goals, I'll be focusing on the goals that I just listed.

04:14 But you can use this book to target any goal.

04:18 And of course, it helps if the book is appropriate for your caseload. So we'll start there. But if you decide that this book is appropriate, then you can use it to target any goal. You can do social language. There's some nice emotions in here as well, so tons of opportunities.

04:35 So let's dive into the actual unit. So I use Dr. Ukrainetz's five step literacy based therapy framework for all of my units, and so we are going to walk through those five steps. If you need a refresher on the five steps, I'll include a link in the show notes, and then you can get a little bit more context there. But hopefully I'll do a good job explaining it so it still makes sense. So the first step in the framework is pre story knowledge activation.

05:07 So what I would do in this.

05:09 Step is I would do a book walk. So a book walk includes, if you have the actual book, you would look.

05:16 At the COVID and maybe look at.

05:18 A couple of pages just to get a feel for if the students have anything to say, especially if they're not quite combining a lot of words, are they able to name or label any of the items? Or if they are putting together longer utterances, what can they tell us? Do they know what flowers are?

05:39 Do they know any of those actions?

05:42 And depending on how much the students are able to express, I will spend more or less time in step one. But one activity that I really like to do, even if they are able to give me some words and kind of demonstrate some understanding of the topic, I think a virtual field trip is a really fun way to it's a.

06:04 Language rich activity, so we can use.

06:07 That as again, another context to target their goals, but then it helps build the knowledge to set them up for success for the rest of the unit. So an example of a virtual field trip that you might use. There are a lot of YouTube videos.

06:25 About kiddos, like giving tours of their.

06:28 Gardens or planting gardens. And so in the show notes I'll include an example of a virtual field.

06:34 Trip that you could use, but that.

06:36 Is a really fun thing to watch. The kiddos love doing that, and it's also a language rich activity and this is going to be true of every single thing that I tell you throughout this episode. All of the activities are language rich.

06:54 So we can use any of these activities to target any goal.

07:00 So as we're doing the book walk, we can use that as an opportunity to model vocabulary concepts, grammar targets and whatever else comes up. And then the same thing goes for.

07:12 The virtual field trip. And as the students start producing more.

07:17 Targets, we can use recast.

07:19 So all of that has lots of.

07:22 Great evidence around those approaches and we can use them for all of those activities. And if students are working on answering questions, we can have them respond to questions while we're doing that. So opportunities are endless.

07:35 Another thing, because I'm working with younger.

07:39 Students in this series, I might do some more play based activities, especially if.

07:45 They need a little bit more information.

07:48 I might find a song on YouTube about flowers or gardening and incorporating movement and acting things out to help ingrain those vocabulary concepts and give them lots of exposure. I might bring in pictures of flowers and do different activities around that, like describing them or asking questions about the.

08:13 Flowers and modeling utterances and all of that you can bring in.

08:20 If you happen to have a gardening kit, you could do some sensory play around that. I have just a little plastic garden kit, I guess, that has a couple of fake plant pots and a couple of fake flowers and plants, and we're able to put those together so I.

08:37 Can share a link to that as well.

08:40 But there's lots and lots of options on things that we can do, and.

08:43 This might be we can decide whether we want to use it in step.

08:48 One or if it would be a better activity to save for step four.

08:53 Which we'll get to really soon, but I'll share more specific ideas, but just.

08:59 Throwing some ideas out there then. Early language units look a little bit different than the other ones, so I'm excited for you to hear the picture.

09:08 Books and fiction articles and all that, too. And then step two is read.

09:14 So this is when we read the book. And if you don't have access to. If you aren't able to get the book from the library or you're not.

09:22 Able to purchase it, these books are.

09:25 Available on YouTube, and there's like a three minute video of someone reading the book, so you can use that. And I love the YouTube version of.

09:35 The books as well because I can.

09:38 Share it with the parents and the teacher because there's a lot of research.

09:42 Around multiple readings of a book and.

09:45 Sharing the YouTube video. It's really easy for parents to just play that video before bed or when they're doing homework or whatever it might look like.

09:56 So that's a really great opportunity there, too.

10:01 Then step three is post story comprehension.

10:06 So this is where we have the.

10:09 Opportunity to ask some questions about the book to target comprehension. Even if the students don't have comprehension goals, it's a great opportunity to practice that skill.

10:20 And in SLP Now, I was really excited about these when we made them because I always had a hard time finding this. So a lot of times, students have a hard time responding. A lot of activities have a mix of who, what, when, where, why, and the complexity of the questions is all over the board, and it's really hard to target that with students who are just getting all of the words confused and all of that.

10:48 So I wanted a simpler kind of hierarchy of activities. And so we have separate who questions, what questions, when questions, where questions in the materials for this unit. And so there's a page or a section for each of those, and then the questions have multiple choice answers. So it makes it really accessible and really easy to scaffold for a wide range of students.

11:16 So I've used this with all types of students, and it's been a really fun activity. And you can minimize the field of choices if you need to. You can even just give them one of the choices and see if they can label the answers. There's so many options there. So you can use this activity to easily target even those, like any of the goals that we listed before.

11:39 So that would be step three. And then for step four is our focus skill practice.

11:46 And this is the longest section of the unit where we really get to dive into all of the students goals.

11:54 So I'll share a handful of ideas of what this could look like. And that reminds me, too. I always get questions about the timing of the unit. So for this hypothetical group that I'm sharing, we might spend one session on pre story knowledge activation, where we do the book walk, we do the virtual field trip, and maybe we do some play based activities to get familiar with.

12:18 What gardening looks like and all of that.

12:22 Then in the next session, and this is assuming we have, like it's school based SLP, maybe a group of about three students. Then the next session, we would read the book and then do the comprehension activities. And that would probably take me about a session as well. And you can listen to the other episodes. I'll put it in the show notes too, about how I structure each individual session within a unit.

12:51 But just a quick recap.

12:52 I like to start off with a quick probe, and then that takes just a couple of minutes. And then based on the probe, I'll do some initial teaching.

13:01 And then we'll dive into the more contextualized activities, which includes the reading and the comprehension in this case. And then we wrap up the session, I wrap up my documentation and move on to the next group. But yeah, if you have more questions about that, I'll share that in the show notes as well.

13:19 Then for step four, again, like I said, we'll spend several sessions here and I'll share some different ideas. So for this unit in SLP now, we have a list of receptive and expressive language skills, and we have them leveled. And then we have a handful of play based ideas to help you target those goals for all of those different levels.

13:45 And it's broken down again, like I said, by receptive and expressive language. So for some of these, you might be working on understanding words for common items. So we'll start with a receptive language, but then we have little vocabulary cards that we can use. Those are included in the unit. Or if you have access to some of the items in the story, that could be a really fun activity to by just working on identifying those words.

14:15 And if we can make it play, and especially if we have real items, that would be really cool. But we can do like hide and seek type of game. Or if we have a playhouse, or even if we're just playing with a table, even if we're just playing with pictures, we can make it super fun. And then if the students are working on basic vocabulary, like body parts, we can put the flower on our head or on our shoulders or under our foot, and that applies to following directions too. And then we can have them point to the different items that we have.

14:51 Or if we're working on responding to questions by pointing, or if we are working on more of those describing goals, we can have different types of flowers, and we can ask them which one is small, which one is yellow, and it's a great way to work on those concepts. And so I feel like I'm throwing a bunch of activities out there, but the possibilities are endless.

15:14 And in the unit, in SLP Now, we have some basic activities and visuals that you can use to make this a little bit easier.

15:22 And like I said, we also have that play based guide. So if you are running, if you feel like you're not having that inspiration, you have lots of quick activities that you can run to, but hopefully that gives you some good ideas. And then that brings us to step five, which is a parallel story.

15:41 And because Lola Plants a Garden was kind of more a sequence of events, of she decided she wanted to plant a garden. She read a book and picked out the seeds, and then she planted them, and then she had to wait a long time. So it was just a sequence of events.

15:57 So the students could just as a way to practice all of the vocabulary and all of the goals that we targeted throughout the unit, the students can pick their own flower to plant and whether they're planting a real seed. That would be super fun, but we don't always have the resources to do that and purchase all of those things.

16:18 So we could pick a couple of pictures of flowers and then make a little book where they choose which flower they want. They have a picture of planting the seed, and then they have a picture of them waiting, and so they can.

16:34 Tell a story with them as the character, and they can bring that home. And if I can use real photos, I think that's super fun. If we act out the story or we can just illustrate it really quickly. There's tons of options there, and the students in the groups kind of, they get really into it, and they share ideas about how they want to do it. So definitely listen to your kiddos and kind of follow their lead if they come up with ideas, but if not, hopefully you have some good inspiration. So that brings us to the end of our unit, and step five can.

17:11 Also take a handful of sessions, and it’s a really great way to integrate all of the skills that we've worked on throughout the entire unit.

17:20 And I hope that you have enough resources here to implement this on your own without having to make any purchases. Just using YouTube, Google images, you have everything that you need. And then I started SLP Now because I was managing a caseload in the triple digits, and I was majorly struggling with my therapy planning. And so I've built out month long units with activities linked, and we've analyzed the books for all of the targets, and everything is in one place. So if you are feeling overwhelmed and you want a little bit of support implementing this, I would love to help you. And we offer a free trial. So if you're wanting to use this unit with your group and you're like, okay, let's see if this actually helps. Head to slpnow.com/unit and you'll get to see a little bit of information about the free trial. But then you can sign up, you can go to therapy plants page, type in Lola Plants a Garden, and then just check out the unit and download some of the resources and give it a try. It's totally free. We won't ask for your credit card or anything like that, but yeah, let me know if you have any questions at all.

18:37 And then again, if you're wanting to see the resources that I've mentioned, head to slpnow.com and we'll see you next week.

18:48 Thanks for listening to the SLP Now podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your SLP friends. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episodes sent directly to you.

19:00 See you next time!

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After covering paperwork, data collection, and progress reports, it’s time to wrap up our March podcast series and dive into one of Marisha’s very favorite topics…

How to Use Probe Data!Before getting into the nitty gritty of this topic, it’s important that we make sure we’re on the same page when we say “probe data”:

A probe is a quick assessment that you administer in a session.You can do a probe at any point, but Marisha tends to collect probe data at the beginning of the session. She also does the probe without offering any support so that she can get a clear assessment of how the student is able to perform on any given skill.

For example, if the student is working on articulation goals and targeting a specific sound, Marisha may administer a probe that involves giving the student five pictures with initial key words, then ask them to produce the words. She’ll take some notes about how the student performs, and then use that data during the session.

It’s worth noting that while doing the probe, Marisha holds off on offering support and feedback in the moment. This keeps the probes short and sweet so she can collect a couple of quick data points to inform her decision making over the course of the session — without taking up too much of the session time, or taking so long that the student gets bored or frustrated.

Remember: Use your clinical judgement. It’s a very important tool for SLPs!We’ve talked about collecting probe data a few times on the SLP Now podcast, so if you want a refresher about the collection process be sure to check out this episode: SLP Data Collection 101 – Why Collect Probes.

In today’s episode, we’re going to focus on how to use the probe data you collect, how it can help you in your session, and how it can help you better support your students.

Administer a quick probe at the beginning of the session to set yourself—and your students—up for success.

Let’s bring this to life with the articulation example mentioned above, using a student who is trying to produce a /k/ sound.When assessing probe data, Marisha tends to split student performance into three categories.

If the probe is five questions, and the student is unable to produce the /k/ sound independently four or five times, it means the student is at less than 30% accuracy. We need to take a step back and teach the skill so that the student can consistently produce the sound.

Remember: It’s important to do more than one probe because it’s possible that the student was able to produce the sound by luck or chance instead of actual skill mastery. And if a student does actually score that low, they’re unable to produce any initial key or they only produce one key, then you need to do some shaping and teaching.

The same applies if you’re addressing categories or producing plural nouns; regardless of the skill, collecting probe data allows you to get a snapshot of where the student is—and the support they need to achieve their goals.

We have a ton of previous episodes of the SLP Now Podcast about specific supports you can use to target different skills, so make sure you check out the archives to brush up on those skills!

If the student demonstrates some mastery of the skill—like they’re able to produce two or three initial key words, or they score 30 to 70% accuracy—it tells you that the student is starting to progress towards mastery of the skill, but they still need a little bit of support.

It may be helpful to review the skill again, but you likely don’t have to spend the entire session teaching because they’ve demonstrated a grasp of it. In this case, it’s reasonable to assume that with a little bit of review, they’ll be ready and able to practice this in context.

Then finally, the third subgroup: if the student is able to produce four or five out of five initial key words, then they’re starting to demonstrate mastery of that skill.

As the student approaches mastery, you want to give them as many opportunities as possible to practice that skill independently. That means you’ll spend less time teaching and trying to break the skill down—otherwise the student is likely to get bored!

Remember: If we’re not in that zone of proximal development—the space between what a student is capable of doing unsupported, and what they cannot do even with support—we risk hindering their progress because we aren’t giving them the opportunity to practice the skill independently and demonstrate that mastery.

On the other hand, if we know that the student is at a lower accuracy, then we’re able to go in with the right level of support right off the bat and avoid that frustration.

Collecting probe data helps us find the sweet spot of where the student needs to start a session, which is why Marisha really likes to administer those probes at the beginning. It gives her valuable information about how to best support the student, which minimizes the student’s frustration if there isn’t enough support — or boredom if there is too much!

Of course, it’s important to consider the data within the session and continue adjusting as needed—but having this really quick data point at the beginning of the session really helps to set you up for success.

Even if you’re working with mixed groups, it’s super simple to collect probes efficiently… especially if you use SLP Now like we do!We’re big fans of working smarter around here, whether it’s implementing routines to free up mental bandwidth, or using tools like SLP Now to make paperwork and data collection easy peasy.

Because Marisha’s students are familiar with her speech routine and know what to expect, it’s easy to move through probes quickly—especially if they have an activity to keep busy, like reviewing their goal cards!

During a session, Marisha rotates between the students in the group. She administers probes, jots down some data based on her observations, then uses the data to come up with a game plan for the session.

If they’re doing a literacy-based unit with one student at 0% accuracy, and another student at 80% accuracy with a different goal, they might start off the session with a quick review of the first student’s goal, followed by some teaching to give them the extra support they need.

Even if the teaching component isn’t directly related to a goal on every students’ IEP, it can be a really beneficial activity for everyone in the group because it’s a language rich with plenty of opportunities for generalization and pure modeling.

Then, Marisha will get into the more contextualized activity so the students can practice their skills independently or use them during the teaching activity.

For example: If one student has a goal to name items and categories, and another student has a goal to produce grammatically correct sentences, Marisha will break down categories for the first student, and give the second student an opportunity to produce sentences in the context of the same activity.

And of course, she loves having easy to grab visuals prepped and ready to go so that she can scaffold and offer support when needed.

That’s it for our overview of how to use probe data, especially when you’re working with mixed groups, and why it’s so beneficial to collect data at the beginning of the session.

Stay tuned for our next episode, because we’re going to switch gears from data collection to therapy planning—so you can see exactly how to target multiple goals in one session with literacy-based therapy.

Links and Additional Resources#174: Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp: How to Pick a Book

175: Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp: Step 1 (Pre-Story Knowledge) and Step 2 (Reading)

176: Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp: Step 3 (Post-Story Comprehension)

177: Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp: Step 4 (Focused Skill Activities)

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TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew Tab00:00 Hello there, and welcome to the SLP Now podcast, where we share practical therapy tips and ideas for busy speech language pathologists. Grab your favorite beverage and sit back as we dive into this week's episode.

00:19 Hello there, and welcome to the SLP Now podcast. I'm really excited to dive into one of my very favorite topics, and that is how to use probe data. And so just a quick refresher and just the terminology, making sure we're on the same page. A probe is a quick assessment that you administer in a session. I personally do this at the beginning of the session, but it's without any support, and it's just seeing how the student is able to perform on any given skill. So, for example, at the beginning of a session, if a student is working on articulation goals and they're working on the k sound, I might administer a probe where I give the student five pictures with initial k words, and I ask them to produce those words, and I don't give any support.

01:20 I just jot down how the student performs, and that gives me some really helpful data to use within the session. So two of the factors here are that I don't give the student support. I just want to see how they do independently, and I also don't give any feedback. And that's why I like to keep the probes short and sweet, very quick and to the point. Just get a couple of quick data points, enough of a sample to help me make some decision making, but not too much where it takes up a huge chunk of the session. The student gets bored, frustrated, et cetera. So that's what that looks like. And we've talked about this a lot throughout the podcast, but today I wanted to just talk a little bit about how to use that data and how it can help you in your session and how it can help you better support your students. So, like I said, I like to administer that quick probe right at the beginning of the session, and it gives me information that I can use to set myself and the student up for success within the session. So if we go back to that initial k example, if the student really struggles, and you'll come up with your own kind of guidelines over time, and you'll use your clinical judgment, it might vary based on the student, based on the goal. There's all sorts of factors that you can use, but I'm just going to give you some rough examples. So for the purposes of this illustration, I split student performance kind of into three categories. So if the student misses, like, if we're doing five questions.

03:06 If the student misses four or five of these questions, or maybe between zero to 20 or zero to 30% accuracy, if you have more stimulus items, then I know that I need to take a step back and teach the skill because the student is not producing k independently, and maybe the one that they produce was just by luck and not a true representation of actual mastery, and maybe they're beginning to master the skill and that happened to be a facilitative context, and we can use that information as well. So if the student scores that low, like if they aren't able to produce any initial k, or if they produce one initial K, I know that I need to take a major step back and we're going to do some shaping and teaching.

03:58 And if instead of articulation, I was looking at naming items in categories or producing regular plural nouns, the same applies regardless of the skill. I'm just going to take a step back and make sure that I do some teaching and do some really structured practice in just meeting the student where they're at. And we have lots of previous episodes about specific supports that you can use for different types of goals. So I would reference those when it comes to figuring out how to teach those skills and break things down. Then if the student demonstrates some mastery of the skill, so maybe if they're able to produce two or three initial k words, or if they score 40 to 60 or 30% to 70% accuracy. Again, these are very rough numbers, and it kind of depends on how many items you give the student.

04:54 But that's telling me that the student is starting to master the skill, but they need a little bit of support. They're not quite at mastery, and we need to continue, maybe review the skill.
 05:09 And back up a little bit, but.
 05:13 We don't need to spend the whole session teaching. They're already demonstrating some of that mastery. So it's reasonable to assume that with a little bit of quick review, they'll be ready to practice this in context. And then the third kind of subgroup is if the student is able to produce four out of five or all five initial k words, then they're starting to demonstrate mastery of that skill. And I want to give the student as many opportunities as possible to practice that skill independently. If I spend a ton of time teaching and trying to break things down, the student already has demonstrated mastery of it, then they'll be really bored. And we're also not in that zone of proximal development. We're hindering that student's progress because we're not giving them the opportunity to practice the skill independently and really demonstrate that mastery and context.

06:15 And on the other hand, if we know that the student is at a lower accuracy, then we're able to go in with the right level of support right off the bat and avoid that frustration. So it really helps us find the sweet spot for where the student needs to start in a session. So this is why I really like to administer those probes right at the beginning of the session. It tells me how I can best support the student. It helps me minimize frustration by making sure that I'm providing enough support, and it also minimizes boredom by helping me make sure that I'm not providing too much support. And of course, I'm going to consider the data within the session to continue adjusting. But having this really quick data point at the beginning of the session really helps set me up for success.

07:11 And I just alternate between. If I have a group of three students, I'll pull up the probes super efficiently.

07:20 SLP Now makes that really easy, but then I'll just rotate between the students. They know the routine, they know what the expectations are. The probes move very quickly and they have a quick activity to keep them busy. That activity, more often than not, is reviewing all of their goals. So they have goal cards that they'll go through. But, yeah, so I'll just alternate between or rotate between the three students, or however many students are in the group, and then I collect the data and use that to come up with a game plan for the session. So if one student is at 0% accuracy and then another student is at 80% accuracy with a different goal, and we're doing a literacy based unit, we might start off the session with a quick review of the other student's goal and do some teaching.

08:16 And these are all, they'll all be language rich activities. So there's still opportunities for generalization, and there's also opportunities for peer modeling.

08:26 Even if that it's not a goal.

08:30 On every student's IEP, it can still be a really beneficial activity. So I may spend some time teaching that one goal, and then when we get to the more contextualized activity for the day, then this other student will have the opportunity to really practice their skill independently, and they can even use it independently during the teaching activity. So if one student has the goal to name items in categories, student A's goal is to name items in categories, and student B has a goal to produce grammatically correct sentences. When I'm teaching the categories and breaking that down for the student. Student B still has the opportunity to produce sentences because it's language rich and there are going to be opportunities to target all of these skills throughout a variety of activities.

09:31 And yeah, I like to have visuals ready to go so that it is easy to scaffold and support when needed, and it's easy to keep track of which goal we're focusing on within any activity. So yeah, that is an overview of how I use probe data, especially in terms of mixed groups and the rationale for collecting data at the beginning of the session, how I analyze the students performance and what decisions I make in the session based on that. So hopefully that was helpful.

10:05 Overview thanks for listening to the SLP now podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your SLP friends. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episodes sent directly to you.

10:19 See you next time!

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This blog post discusses how to write goals for childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) for speech language pathologists.

What is Childhood Apraxia of Speech?Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) is a motor speech disorder that falls under the umbrella of speech sound disorders.

Childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) occurs when motor movement and planning is impaired, which results in errored speech sound production. When a child has apraxia of speech, it impacts the precision and consistency in their speech, and is not due to muscles working incorrectly (ASHA, 2007b).

What are the Characteristics of Childhood Apraxia of Speech?According to ASHA, the following 3 characteristics are typically agreed upon across studies as being connected to childhood apraxia of speech:

Inconsistent errors on consonants and vowels in repeated production of syllables/words
Lengthened/disrupted coarticulatory transitions between sounds and syllables
Inappropriate prosody

Other characteristics noted are articulatory groping, increasing difficulty with longer/complex words, and vowel errors.

How is Childhood Apraxia of Speech different from a Phonological Disorder?Determining if a child has childhood apraxia of speech or a phonological disorder can be tricky, because a student can show characteristics of both. However, there are a few ways to distinguish between the two.

Characteristics often seen in Childhood Apraxia of Speech· Restricted sound repertoire

· Poor differentiation of vowels

· Few/simple syllable shapes

· Atypical error patterns (e.g. initial consonant deletion, voicing errors, epenthesis)

Characteristics often seen in Phonological Disorders· Consistent patterns of error (think fronting, stopping, etc.)

· Intact prosody

· Vowels intact

There is evidence to support that many children with childhood apraxia of speech will have co-occurring problems. This means a thorough evaluation is necessary for our speech students with CAS or suspected of having CAS (Lewis et al., 2004).

How to Write IEP Goals for Speech Students with Childhood Apraxia of SpeechTo start, let’s discuss goals we shouldn’t target when it comes to childhood apraxia of speech. It is not recommended to target nonspeech exercises, for example, tongue strengthening exercises (McCauley, Strand, Lof, Schooling, & Frymark, 2009). Remember, apraxia is a motor movement-based disorder and is not due to muscle weakness.

When thinking about childhood apraxia of speech goals for IEPs and plans of care, consider the following 3 areas (Stoeckel, 2018):

The student’s inventory, such as single syllables, varied syllable shapes, syllable sequences, and sound development.
Identify functional vocabulary needs and compare to the student’s inventory.
Be aware of typical speech sound development.

Like all speech IEP goals, the IEP goals you write for childhood apraxia of speech should be specific to the speech student. Pay attention to the types of cueing that create success for your speech student.

Need a refresher on goal writing? Click here to learn more about how to write SMART goals.

3 Goal Examples for Childhood Apraxia of SpeechChildhood Apraxia of Speech Goal Example 1: Producing syllable shapes.Given a direct model, Student will produce CVC and CVCV syllable shapes using existing and emerging sound inventory, given visual and tactile prompts, with 70% accuracy.

Example: If a student has /m/ in their inventory, but not CVC or CVCV syllable shapes, “mom” or “mommy” could be a functional target for this goal. Don’t forget to consider vowel inventory when selecting targets!

Childhood Apraxia of Speech Goal Example 2: Increase syllable shape repertoire.Given visual, verbal, and tactile models, Student will increase syllable shape repertoire by producing 5 new CV and CVC words using acquired consonants and vowels with 80% accuracy across three consecutive sessions.

Example: If a student has /m, p, d/ in their inventory, targets could include “ma”, “mom”, “dad”, “pa”, “pop”, etc.

Childhood Apraxia of Speech Goal Example 3: Combine existing syllable shapes.Student will combine 2 existing syllable shapes that include existing sound inventory, provided no more than 1 visual and verbal model, in 8/10 opportunities across three consecutive sessions.

Example: If a student can say “my” and “mom”, prompt the student to produce “my mom.”

Need more examples of IEP Goals for your students? Check out our comprehensive SLP Goal Bank!

How to Target Childhood Apraxia of Speech Goals with Speech Therapy StudentsTreating speech students with childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) can feel overwhelming, so it is important to remember that there is a ton of research to help us feel more confident! SLP Now has research-backed materials that help guide your treatment of childhood apraxia of speech.

Dynamic AssessmentBy completing a dynamic assessment for apraxia of speech with your speech student, you’ll figure out which stimulus set to start with during speech therapy.

During the dynamic assessment, you will have the student attempt a variety of syllable shapes to see which movements are difficult for them to produce. Examples of syllable shapes include CV, VC, CVC, and multisyllabic words. Remember, apraxia is a motor-based speech disorder, so the focus is on the breakdown on the speech student’s motor planning.

Choose Your Initial Stimulus Set for CASOnce you’ve completed a dynamic assessment with your speech student, you can now select a stimulus set to target with your speech student with childhood apraxia of speech.

For speech students with severe CAS, choose a small stimulus set, and provide frequent feedback for accurate productions.

It is very important to include words that are important to the client and their family!

Determine the Treatment MethodBelow are treatment methods to consider when treating a student with childhood apraxia of speech:

→ Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing DTTC (Developed by Edythe Strand)

→ ReSt/TEMPO (Developed by Speech Pathology in the Sydney School of Health Sciences at the University of Sydney headed by Professor Tricia McCabe)

→ Integrated Phonological Awareness Training (Moriarty & Gillon, 2006)

→ The NDP3 program (Williams & Stephens, 2004)

Click here for a more in-depth walkthrough of how to treat childhood apraxia of speech during your speech therapy sessions.

This is a guest blog post from Rachel, a virtual school-based speech-language pathologist, discussing how to write childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) goals for speech therapists!

Childhood Apraxia of Speech References American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (2007b). Childhood apraxia of speech [Technical report]. Retrieved from www.asha.org/policy/

Lewis, B. A., Freebairn, L. A., Hansen, A. J., Iyengar, S. K., & Taylor, H. G. (2004). School-age follow-up of children with childhood apraxia of speech. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 35, 122–140.

McCauley, R. J., Strand, E. A., Lof, G. L., Schooling, T., & Frymark, T. (2009). Evidence-based systematic review: Effects of nonspeech oral motor exercises on speech. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 18, 343–360.Stoeckel, Ruth. (2018). Building and Expanding Your CAS Toolkit. ASHA. https://learningcenter.asha.org/diweb/home

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Welcome to the final installment of our Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp series.So far we’ve covered choosing a book, pre-story knowledge/reading, post-story comprehension, and targeted skill activities.

Today we’re going to talk about parallel stories — which just might be Marisha’s favorite part of the whole literacy-based therapy framework.

The sprinkles on this literacy-based cupcake is the fact that Marisha isn’t the only one who likes this step. Her students really enjoy parallel stories too!

She has had multiple experiences of working with students who were a little bit resistant to participating in therapy because it can be hard! Working on skills that are challenging can feel discouraging at times.

But once her students were able to create their own stories — and final products related to those stories — they started having fun with the activities and were hooked!

Parallel stories are an incredible way to integrate all of the skills that we’ve targeted throughout our literacy-based units.The goal of this activity is to pull the vocabulary, sentence structures, and plot elements from the story you’ve been using for the unit, and then use them to create something new.

This is a lot like story generation, but we have a jumping off point to draw inspiration from thanks to the previous story. We can use those building blocks to integrate the skills that we’ve targeted in a fresh — and fun — way.

One of Marisha’s favorite visuals to use for parallel stories is a graphic organizer because it’s super helpful for piecing together the story grammar elements:

Visuals like this give students a framework to follow, so that language learning tasks are less demanding, more meaningful, and more authentic.

The end result is that students’ comprehension improves because they can make more sense of the information they’re taking in.

When they start to gain confidence with the framework and generate their own stories, you can choose to put the organizer away, or keep it out for easy reference; it’s about using your clinical judgment and finding that sweet spot of support, depending on the students’ needs.

In this episode of the SLP Now podcast, Marisha walks listeners through an example of a parallel story. She uses the story “Snowman at Night” as an example, but replaces the snowmen with cacti. Listen in to get all the details!

When retelling the story, we get to use our grammar, vocabulary, and complex syntax — we’re pulling in all of those targets, and doing it in a meaningful way.

With parallel stories we get to take this one step further, and get even more meaningful practice because of the additional student buy-in; they love it! Plus, you can extend the activity (and increase the fun!) beyond filling in a graphic organizer.

While working on the parallel story, we can create an actual product to tell the story — whether it’s a miniature book or a slide show on the computer.

For some students, you can take some pieces of paper, fold them over into a book, and then transcribe the notes from the graphic organizer and put them into text format. When that’s complete, they can take a little bit of time to illustrate the book.

Remember: the point isn’t to spend a ton of time drawing unless it works out with the overall framework of the group and the sessions… but this is not art class. It may be easier and quicker to pull up images that you can print and glue — do whatever is simplest!

The goal is to spend time talking and using language, not master our drawing skills.

Of course, there are some alternative options because writing can be a big barrier. You can switch it up and have students create a video! Have them tell you the story so you can transcribe it, and then reenact the story — and record it — so that they have a “movie” to share at the end.

No matter which activity we do, the goal for this activity is to create something that the student can take away from their session, and share.

The most meaningful practice they can get happens outside of the speech room, and in the context of their real lives. Our job is to help them develop their language skills — so they can tell (and retell!) a story they’re proud of.

And that’s a wrap in the Literacy-Based Bootcamp series here on the podcast! Stay tuned for next week’s episode, when we chat about how to build your paperwork system.

Links and Additional Resources#174: Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp: How to Pick a Book

175: Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp: Step 1 (Pre-Story Knowledge) and Step 2 (Reading)

176: Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp: Step 3 (Post-Story Comprehension)

177: Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp: Step 4 (Focused Skill Activities)

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TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabMarisha
00:00
Hello there, and welcome to the SLP now podcast, where we share practical therapy tips and ideas for busy speech language pathologists. Grab your favorite beverage and sit back as we dive into this week's episode.

Marisha
00:19
Hey there. Welcome to day five of the literacy based therapy challenge. And this is a little bit of a sad day because it means the challenge is starting to wrap up. But I really think that parallel stories are one of my favorite parts of the unit. Students absolutely love them. They've made a huge difference. I can think of several students who were just a little bit resistant to participating in therapy because it was a little hard for them. They were working on skills that they knew were challenging, but once they got to create their own stories and create final products related to their stories, they were hooked. And they have a lot of fun with these activities, and I do, too. And it's also just a really incredible way to integrate all of the skills that we've targeted throughout the unit.

Marisha
01:09
It is pretty incredible. Super powerful. I love it. So I'll tell you what a parallel story is. The goal of this activity is to pull the vocabulary, the sentence structures, the plot elements, and pull that from the story and then create something new. So it is basically like story generation, but we have a jumping off point. So we have the previous story, we get some inspiration from that, and then we integrate, like I said, the skills that we've targeted. So what I really like to do is I like to use the story grammar organizer that we've used throughout the framework, and we'll pull up the one that we created for the actual story. So, for example, if we're doing snowmen at night, we would fill in the characters and all of that from snowmen at night.

Marisha
01:58
Then we would take another graphic organizer and pull what we did with. Maybe we would create our own idea. So, I'm in Arizona. We have a lot of cacti. So maybe we would do a story about cacti at night. So we would look at this graphic organizer for snowmen at night, and we would kind of pull over the elements so the character would be different. So instead of snowmen, we have cacti, and then the setting would be different. Well, different, but not. So instead of in the snow at night, it would be in the desert at night. And then we would just keep going through and see, okay, this is what the story had, and pull over what makes sense, and then just make adjustments based on what doesn't fit for the specific character.

Marisha
02:44
But this is just a really cool way to integrate all of those different skills. So when were retelling the actual story, were using our grammar, vocabulary, all of our complex syntax, all of that good stuff. We're pulling in all of those targets, and were doing that in a very meaningful way. But this gets to take it one step further. We get more meaningful practice, and with the student buy in, they love it. So some ideas for things that I like to do to extend this. So after we fill in the graphic organizer, they have to do that work first. Then we can write the story or retell the story.

Marisha
03:25
So for some students, I just take some pieces of paper, fold them over into a book, and we'll transcribe or move over our notes from the graphic organizer and put it into text format, and then they can take a little bit of time to illustrate the book. And we do not spend a ton of time on drawing unless it ends up working out with just the overall framework of the group and the sessions. But it's not art class for the most part. So maybe we'll just pull images and print them and glue them on whatever is quick and easy in terms of that part, I want to spend our time talking and using language and not being artists necessarily, so that's what we do. But there are some other alternative options.

Marisha
04:09
So writing can be a big barrier, and it's a great activity to support. But sometimes I like to switch it up and have students create a video. So I might have them tell me the sentences of the story, and I might transcribe it for them or whatnot. But then we'll focus on using our language in creating a video kind of activity where we reenact the story, and that's a lot of fun, and students love getting to share that. And then the best part of the unit is just being able to take that final product, whether it's a book, a digital book, a printed book, a video, animation, I'll share some links to my favorite resources in the comments.

Marisha
04:51
But no matter what we do, the goal is for this to be something that the student can take home, that they can share in the classroom or with their parents, with their friends, and continue to practice their language skills and being able to retell a story that they're very proud of. So that wraps up our unit, and we'll have a little bit of follow up resources coming your way. But thank you guys so much for joining us for this challenge. I hope it was super helpful, and we'll see you soon.

Marisha
05:22
Thanks for listening to the SLP now podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your SLP friends. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episodes sent directly to you.

Marisha
05:34

See you next time.

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Now that we’ve covered choosing a book, pre-story knowledge, reading, and post-story comprehension, it’s time to get into focused skill activities!

Before we dive into the practice, it’s really important to lay the groundwork for a successful session:Make sure the students are aware of their goals — and that we have their buy-in.

We can have the most beautiful therapy materials, the most amazing visuals, and work with the latest and greatest in evidence-based strategies… and the session can still be a flop if we don’t have student buy-in and motivation.

It’s incredibly valuable to do a check-in and help them connect to why they want to practice the skill: What are their goals? What matters to them? What can motivate them, and help them see the value in what we’re working on?

Marisha’s recommendation is to create goal cards with your students. You can do printed or digital versions, and the point is to make little cards where they write their goals in their own words.

We do our best to connect the goal they’re working on to their longer term goals, like what they want to be when they grow up, because it makes the activity even more meaningful. Click here to download a free goal card template!

Since using goal cards, Marisha has noticed a huge improvement in her therapy sessions when it comes to behavioral issues. Students are less likely to resist the hard work—because speech isn’t easy!—and do what it takes to make progress towards their goals.

After doing the goal check-in, it’s time to dive into our framework!

Focused Skill ActivitiesOnce your students know what they’re working on, you can start teaching the skills. Visuals can be incredibly helpful when it comes to breaking down the skills and making them easier to understand.

Marisha is a fan of the visuals inside the SLP Now membership, but they are definitely not the only ones out there! You can even draw your own visuals—and no, you do not have to be an artist to create an effective visual!

This process looks different for every skill, and Marisha walks through a couple quick examples in this episode.

Looking for more specific ways to target goals?

Inside the SLP Now membership, you get access to all of the courses in The Academy — and they’re included in the free trial! There, you’ll find videos with really specific strategies to help you target specific skills beyond the examples in this post. If you haven’t had a chance to try SLP Now, now is a great time.

Marisha’s top tip for practicing focused skills is to pick language-rich activities that allow you to target multiple goals.For comprehension activities, you can ask students questions—and guess what? You’re also targeting the grammar goals of another student by (ideally ) producing grammatically correct sentences!

We can tag team that activity by using it to target comprehension for one student, and grammar for another student.

And, if another student is working on vocabulary, we can also throw in some questions that include their vocabulary word—or encourage them to use their vocabulary words as they’re responding. Win-win-win!

There really are so many ways to combine these activities and make the most of the time you have with your students.

A good rule of thumb: If it’s language-rich, we can target any goal. If you need additional support using language-rich activities to target multiple goals, check out the SLP Now Academy.

When you sign up for an SLP Now membership (or trial!) you unlock access to all the courses in the Academy, as well as thousands of low/no prep therapy materials organized to help you plan your best therapy in minutes.

Start your free trial of SLP Now

And stay tuned for next week’s episode when we talk about the final step in this framework: parallel stories.

Links and Additional Resources#174: Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp: How to Pick a Book

175: Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp: Step 1 (Pre-Story Knowledge) and Step 2 (Reading)

176: Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp: Step 3 (Post-Story Comprehension)

Click here to download a free goal card template!
SLP Now Academy.

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Marisha
00:20
We are making some serious headway on this challenge. We're already on step four of the literacy based therapy framework, and I've been loving all of your ideas. You guys are rocking it. This is amazing. So we are diving into some focus skill activities today, and we'll be able to use the same kind of approach that we talked about yesterday on the comprehension goals. So if our students have a comprehension goal, and if they don't, the activity that we talked about yesterday is still very language rich, and we can still embed their practice in a meaningful way. And we'll have a little bonus video coming out next week with all of the details on that because I know that can be a little bit overwhelming. But let's just focus in on today on those focus skill activities.

Marisha
01:10
And the first thing that we want to do is just to make sure that students are aware of their goals and that they have buy in, because we can have the most beautiful therapy materials, the most amazing visuals, the best evidence based strategies, and it can still be a flop if we don't have that student buy in and motivation. So we really want to check in with them. What are their goals? What matters to them? What can we use to motivate them and to help them see the value in what we're working on. So that is huge. I personally really like having goal cards. You can do printed versions or you can do this digitally if you're still in the virtual therapy world. But they're just little cards where they write their goals in their own words.

Marisha
01:55
And we do our best to connect it to their longer term goals. Like, what do they want to be when they grow up? And it's made a huge difference in my therapy in addressing behavior issues and just getting students to buy in and to do all the hard work, because this definitely isn't easy. Then the next step is to actually go in and start targeting those skills. So once they know what they're working on, we can dive in and we can use a number of visuals from inside. I really like the ones inside the SLP now membership, but there are absolutely not required before SLP now. I just wrote out and drew my visuals, and I am not an artist, so if I can do it, you can too.

Marisha
02:42
But just something simple, just to break down a skill and make sure that we're really taking the time to teach something. And I mentioned the academy bootcamp courses before, but inside of the SLP now membership, you get access to all of our courses and they're also included in the free trial. So if you haven't already, go check those out if you want some really specific strategies for any specific skills. I do want to keep these videos nice and short, so I'll just stick to the basics. But that is an awesome resource if you are wanting more strategies to use. And so I would just take the time to teach those skills. Once we know what we're working on, we've done that introduction, then we dive into our framework.

Marisha
03:28
So this looks different for every skill, but I'll just give like one or two quick examples and then you can check out the academy or the video coming next week for more details as well. But just for example, I like to pick very language rich activities that allow me to target multiple goals. So for example, with the comprehension activities yesterday, yeah, if I'm asking them questions, it might look like I'm only targeting comprehension. But the sneaky part is that if a student is so one student has a comprehension goal, the other student has a grammar goal. Guess what? When you answer a question, you are producing grammatically correct sentences. At least ideally we are. So we can tag team that activity and use it to target comprehension for one student, and then use it to target grammar for another student.

Marisha
04:22
And then if another student is working on vocabulary, we can throw in some questions that include their vocabulary word, or we can encourage them to use their vocabulary words as they're responding. There's so many ways to combine these activities. As long as it's language rich, we can target any goal. So hopefully that gives you a good starting point. But if you need additional support, like I said, check out the academy. Stay tuned for the video next week. And that's a wrap on day four.

Marisha
04:52
Thanks for listening to the SLP now podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your SLP friends. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episodes sent directly to you. See you next time.

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We’re on Step 3 in our Literacy-Based Therapy Bootcamp series:Post-Story Comprehension!Have you heard the first two episodes in this series? Part one is here, and part two is here.

In today’s episode of the podcast, Marisha shares three different strategies she uses to embed comprehension activities into her literacy-based units. She talks about her approach to assessments — plus examples of scaffolding support based on the data collected — so that you know exactly how to put this information to work in your practice.

First up: Marisha likes to start her sessions with a quick probe. Taking an assessment without offering support allows her to determine the student’s baseline levels independently, so she can choose appropriate activities and offer the right kind of support.

In the episode, Marisha shares examples of how she would change her approach if a student got 0% accuracy on a probe for “who” questions vs a student who gets 90% on inferential questions — so make sure you listen in to get all the details!

Remember: the level of the probe difficulty might not completely match up with the level of difficulty of the questions related to the book. It’s up to us to use our clinical judgment.

By combining internal evidence (like the data from the probe) with external evidence (like literature) and clinical expertise (because your experience matters!) we can arrive at an informed decision about the level of support to offer.

For a student who doesn’t need a tremendous amount of support, one strategy Marisha likes to use is to pull her list of questions from the book unit and present them to the student. If they struggle, she can offer support and prompts by asking more specific questions.

If they’re still struggling, another strategy is to refer back to the book or article and help then find the evidence they need to answer the question. If that doesn’t help them to connect the dots, she’ll back things up a little more and start to use some visual supports.

In the episode, Marisha shares an example of this strategy using the unit “Just A Duck” — which you can find in the SLP Now membership materials library!

Make sure you listen in to get all the details, and get your hands on these plans (plus many more) when you sign up for a free trial of SLP Now. **

For the unit, “Just A Duck”, Marisha likes to use the leveled question cards from SLP Now. The cards have “who” questions with answers in the form of people or characters, and mixed choice questions which have different options — like location, person, or time — and require a more thorough comprehension of the text to answer.

By starting the session with an activity-related probe, Marisha is armed with the information she needs to determine the best course of action for the session — whether to start the session with a simple list of questions or offer additional support, and how to scaffold that support as needed.

That’s all for post-story comprehension!

See you next time when we talk about step 4: Focused Skill Activities.

Episode SummaryIn this episode, Marisha talks about:

Starting the session with a probe. This helps her collect data that informs the course of treatment and the type of support to offer.

Using your clinical judgment as an SLP. Combining internal and external evidence with clinical experiences helps you make an informed choice.

Examples of scaffolding support. Marisha shares a few ideas of how she would scale support during the session depending on probe data.

Listen to The SLP Now Podcast on Apple ★ Spotify ★ Google ★ Stitcher ★ Castbox or wherever you listen to podcasts.

TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabMarisha Mets
00:00
Hello there, and welcome to the SLP now podcast, where we share practical therapy tips and ideas for busy speech language pathologists. Grab your favorite beverage and sit back as we dive into this week's episode.

Marisha Mets
00:19
Hey there, and welcome to day three of the literacy based therapy challenge. Today we are talking about different comprehension activities that we can embed in our unit as we're reading through a book or an article or whichever text we choose for our students. So we're going to talk about three different strategies that we can use, and I have a variety of activities that I like to pull in as needed, and I like to start my sessions with a quick probe. It's just an assessment where I don't offer any support just to see what students baseline levels are. So if they have a comprehension goal before diving into these activities, I would pull the probe for their specific goal. So whether it's answering who questions, what questions?

Marisha Mets
01:10
Answering inferential questions, whatever it may be, I'll take a quick probe and see where students are at baseline, like, what are they doing independently? And that helps me determine which strategies will likely be most helpful for the student. And granted, the level of the probe difficulty might not completely match up with the level of difficulty of the questions related to the book, so we'll use some clinical judgment there. But, for example, if a student achieves 0% accuracy on their probe for who questions before we dive into those comprehension activities, I'm going to take a step back and teach what who questions are. We're going to do some very structured activities.

Marisha Mets
01:53
But on the other hand, if a student is working on inferential questions and they get 90% accuracy on the probe, I'm not going to offer a whole lot of support as we go in, and then I would just adjust the level of support depending on their accuracy. And this isn't a hard and fast rule. This is where our clinical judgment really comes in. But I like them being able to combine my internal evidence so the data that I get from the probe, plus the external evidence of what I know works well in the literature, and then just combining that with clinical expertise and all of that good stuff to make a really fun activity.

Marisha Mets
02:35
So one thing that we can do, if the student doesn't need a tremendous amount of support, I like to just pull my list of questions from the book unit, and I'll just verbally present the questions. If they struggle, I can scaffold by asking more specific questions. That's one potential strategy. Another strategy, if they're still struggling, we can refer back to the book or the article to help them find the evidence that they need to answer that question. And then if they're still struggling, I might back things up a little bit and use some visual supports. So, for the student, for example, the student working on who questions, I might just. In the unit for just a duck, for example, we have leveled questions.

Marisha Mets
03:25
So after I go through and teach them what who means, and we do some simple practice, maybe we ask some questions about, like who is wearing red, who is sitting, who is standing, and we'll just practice, get some errorless learning down with just understanding the who question that who is a person? And then the next step would be to give them some question cards. So in the unit, we have leveled question cards and we just have a set of who questions. And then there are who questions that only have who answers. So there's only people that they can choose from or characters that they can choose from. But then another level includes mixed answer choices. So one would be a person, one would be a location, one would be a time, for example. It would have mixed choices.

Marisha Mets
04:14
So then they really have to understand what who means to be able to answer that question. So that's just an example of how I might scaffold that and use the results of the probe to determine which level of support would be most appropriate, and also how I can scale that up and scale that back. So if a student does achieve 0% accuracy on the probe, but I do that initial teaching, and they're achieving 100% accuracy with the visual choices, I might just back things up. Maybe I can just ask them pictures about a page in the book, or maybe I can just ask them verbal questions and scale back that support and have it be a very dynamic process to determine what is the most effective.

Marisha Mets
05:00
So that's what we've got for day three of the framework, and I cannot wait to dive into all of the skill based activities tomorrow.

Marisha Mets
05:10
Thanks for listening to the SLP now podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your SLP friends. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episodes sent directly to you.

Marisha Mets
05:22
See you next time.

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Paperwork System for SLPs In this episode of The SLP Now Podcast, Marisha delves into the often-dreaded subject of paperwork. As a self-proclaimed organization enthusiast, she’s excited to share her insights, tips, and resources with you. Time Management Magic: Marisha emphasizes the importance of managing your time effectively […]

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Data collection can be a real beast for SLPs. In this episode of the SLP Now podcast, Marisha shares her best five practices to help you tame that beast — and build a data collection system that works for you.

From setting up intuitive routines to collecting probes to putting the data to work, Marisha’s tips will make data collection easy breezy SLPeasy! 💅

Marisha’s Top 5 Data Collection Tips for SLPs:1. Develop a Data Collection Routine: By working through the same process in each session, you can find ways to collect the data you need in a really organic and efficient way.

For example, if you are doing a pull-out session, this could mean a quick check-in with students while walking to the speech room or while they get settled in for a session. You can also do things like place their goal cards by the door, so that you can grab them as you walk in and dive right in!

2. Determine How to Use The Data: Marisha recommends making data collection happen at the beginning of the session because it informs her clinical decision making and expectations. It allows her to structure the therapy session around the student’s need, and make better decisions about next steps. In the case of a student targeting an articulation goal, that intial data collection can help you decide if the student needs more teaching or practice — you can tailor the session to meet them where they’re at.

3. Gather Your Probes: The routine Marisha talks about would be difficult to implement without a way to quickly measure your students’ goals. She recommends doing an audit of their goals to make sure you have a way to measure them.

There are so many options for collecting data, and Marisha offers a buffet to consider in this episode! That’s why it’s beneficial to review the goals, and choose probes that make the most sense for the goal you’re targeting.

4. Organize Your Probes: There are so many ways to organize your probes, and Marisha has tried them all! From fancy binder systems with numbered tabs to the digital system she set up in SLP Now, Marisha has tried it all.

In SLP Now, the probes are attached to the goals in the goal bank. When you’re going into a session, the probe you need is just a click (or two) away!

5. Practice Your Routine: Practice makes progress! To really integrate data collection into your session seamlessly takes some time, and that’s okay — you can start slowly, building that routine one step at a time.

Approach your data collection routine with a growth mindset, and scaffold those skills the way you do with your students! It will get easier the more you practice, and soon you won’t have to give data collection a second thought.

✨ Remember: There is no single perfect way to structure a therapy session, and that’s a good thing! It means that you can get creative and be strategic about how you shape your systems and processes. ✨

This episode will give you some ideas to get started, or maybe optimize some of the practices you’ve already got in the works!

And most importantly, have fun! 🙃SubscribeSubscribe to the SLP Now podcast and stay tuned for our next series. We’re kicking off September by helping you get your data collection, paperwork, and therapy planning processes in tip-top shape! 💪

Listen to The SLP Now Podcast on Apple ★ Spotify ★ Google ★ Stitcher ★ Castbox or wherever you listen to podcasts.

TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabMarisha: Hello there, and welcome to The SLP Now Podcast, where we share practical therapy tips and ideas for busy speech language pathologists. Grab your favorite beverage and sit back as we dive into this week's episode.

Hey there, it's Marisha, and I'm really excited to talk about five tips to streamline your data collection. We will run through the five tips, so let's go ahead and dive right in. The first tip is to develop a routine around your data collection. An example of what that could look like, let's say we're doing pullout therapy, so the students walk in the door and maybe as we're walking to the speech room, we might be doing a quick check-in, or we do that as the students are arriving if they're transitioning independently, and we'll just check in with them to see how they're doing, establish that rapport, all of that. And then I always have goal cards right by the door, and so students also grab their goal cards as they walk into the room. And if I'm seeing students in the classroom, I'll just make sure that I have their goal cards in a folder or just an easy-to-access place where they know where to grab them.

So then every student has a set of goal cards and the students learn that that's just how we start a speech therapy session. They walk in, they grab their cards, they sit down and they start going through their goals. We'll have another episode on this, but their goal cards would include their goal, and this will look different based on the age of the students and the types of goals that they're working on, but they would be able to see what their goal was. It might include why it's important to them, whatever we decide is most relevant, and so they would just be walking through their goal cards, and while they're doing that, I would go ahead and administer a quick probe per student. A probe is just, if you're not familiar with that terminology, it's just a quick little assessment. I typically just include five items.

So, if the student is working on an articulation goal, like initial K for example, I would give the student a little probe where I ask them to say five words that start with the K sound, and then I would just score their accuracy, and that would be student one's goal. Then I would turn to student two, do a quick probe for whatever their target goal is that for that session, and then I would turn to student three, grab their quick probe, and then we would be done with that initial data collection.

That would be an example of my routine. There's not one single way to set up your sessions for successful data collection, but that's what that would look like. We do a quick check-in, the students grab their goal cards, they review them while I collect quick data for one goal per student. Then we would transition into the therapy session, do some awesome therapy, and at the end of the session, I would just recap, I would describe which supports were beneficial. I would describe if I had to do some initial teaching, whatever that might be. So, that's an example of my data collection routine.

Then step two is to determine how you're going to use the data that you collect. I really like to collect my data at the beginning of the session because it really informs me as to how I can best set up the students for success, and it really informs my clinical decision-making. So, for example, the example that I gave of the administering the probe for initial K, if a student is at 0% accuracy with initial K at the word level, I'm not going to expect them to produce K in conversation. I'm not even going to expect them to produce K in words, like using an articulation deck. I'm going to back way up and do some teaching, and I'm going to work on shaping the sound using elicitation techniques.

So, I'm going to back way up, and that feels super, super obvious when it comes to articulation. How nice is it to have that information within the first minute or two of your therapy session and then know exactly how to set up whatever activity you had planned to set up the student for success? This also applies for different goals. So, if we're working on naming items in categories for example, or syntax goals, if we know how a student is performing, we can use that to decide what we do next. So, the example that I gave with 0% accuracy, that would let me know that I need to do some teaching.

This is just a rough range, but let's just say zero to 30% accuracy, more often than not, if that's the accuracy that the student is at, I would start the session with some teaching. Then if they're between maybe 30 to 70% accuracy, that skill is emerging, so I might do a quick review and then give the students the opportunity to practice. Whereas if they're at greater than 70% accuracy on the probe, I want to give them the opportunity to practice. I'm not going to waste time with teaching if they're already starting to demonstrate mastery of the skill. And having this information right off the bat is really helpful because it reminds us to take the time to actually teach and break down skills, and this benefits students because it will reduce that frustration. We're not expecting them to do something that's really difficult. We're meeting them where they're at and giving them the appropriate supports.

But on the other hand, if a student, we might be surprised, we might expect that a student is not making progress on the goal and we might come in, if we don't collect a probe and we just start the session with some teaching and a bunch of review when the student doesn't need it. If we had given them a probe and they'd been at 80% accuracy, we would know that that's essentially a waste of time and the student might get bored. So, having that data right off the bat, again, helps us meet the student where they're at. We're giving the appropriate level of supports, but we're also giving them appropriate opportunities to generalize that skill and demonstrate the ability to do it on their own and facilitate that generalization, because we don't want to have them become dependent on our prompting and support to demonstrate the skill. So, that was step two, just determining how you're going to use that data and how it'll drive your session.

The third tip is to gather your probes. So, the routine that I mentioned would be really difficult to implement if you did not have a way to quickly measure each of your students' goals, and these are just things to consider, so you don't have to implement all of the things that I mention, obviously. Consider it buffet, and you can decide which tips or strategies make the most sense to you. But if you heard me mention tip number three and you're like, "Hmm, I don't know if I have a good way to measure my students' goals," it might be beneficial to take some time to review your students' goals, and maybe even just you don't have to tackle your whole caseload at once.

Maybe if there's a group that feels extra challenging or that you're struggling with more, maybe just start with them. Go through their goals, make sure you have an easy way to measure each of the goals, and then start implementing whatever else makes sense out of these tips. So, that's the third tip, is just to do a quick audit and start making sure that you have a way to assess students' progress towards each of the goals.

Then the fourth tip is to organize your probes. I've seen this be done in a number of ways. I've set up fancy binder systems in the past where I had number tabs for and I kept all of the probes in the binder, and the way that I knew which tab to turn to was, on all of the goal cards, I would write a number. So as the students were creating their goal cards, I would make sure that I had a probe for that specific goal card. Again, I would just write the appropriate number on the goal card, and we would go from there. Whatever goal we're focusing on, I look at that goal card, turn to that tab, and that's how I find the appropriate probe.

In SLP Now, we have probes attached to the goals in our goal bank, so when you go into a session and you click the Data Collection button, you can just click to access a probe. I love that feature because I automatically have probes attached to all of my goals, but the only thing is that a lot of the probes can be administered just with a verbal prompt given the nature of what we do, but some of them do require visual stimulus items, so I still have that binder that I use to keep the visuals and keep those organized. So, you get to decide what makes sense for you in organizing your probes.

Then the fifth tip is just to practice the routine. So, kind of just building that initial routine. Maybe you're not ready to start collecting probes right at the beginning of every session. Maybe that feels a little bit overwhelming, but you can implement having students create their goal cards and reviewing them at the beginning of the session, so that that becomes a known part of the routine, and then you can stack the probes on top of that once that becomes more automatic for you and for them. And when I mention my routine of doing one quick probe per student, I know that a lot of speech therapists, if you're feeling overwhelmed by that and if you're questioning whether that's possible, you're not alone. And that also takes some practice in navigating that. There's some setting expectations with students, there's also making sure that your probes are really organized and that they're easy to access, and that you have one for each of the goals. But this all gets easier and you start to develop resources and strategies to do this in a very, very efficient way.

So, just to recap the five tips. One, develop a routine, then two, determine how you're going to use your data. Then three, gather the probes, four, organize the probes, and five, practice your routine and give yourself grace as you're figuring this out and navigating the process. And then we'll have show notes and resources. There's some visuals and examples at slpnow.com/159. Again, that's slpnow.com/159. That's where you can find the show notes and some supplementary resources.

So, that is a wrap on today's episode. I hope that it was helpful. I'd love to hear from you, and yeah, let us know if you're implementing any of this or if you have any questions. We'd love to hear from you, and we will see you in next week's episode. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for listening to The SLP Now Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your SLP friends, and don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episode sent directly to you. See you next time.

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Embrace the magic of routine. ✨ A Five Step Framework to Help SLPs Structure Therapy Sessions Having a framework to rely on can be an invaluable support for SLPs at every stage of their career and caseloads. But some folks can be a tad hesitant when it comes […]

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Are you ready to party? Because we’re all about partying around here today… and not just any party, a scheduling party! Believe it or not, this just might be the best start-of-the-school-year advice you can receive as an SLP. In this episode, Marisha takes the mic to share […]

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Ready to step into the new school year with confidence and ease, SLP? If you’re ready to tackle the unique challenges that speech language pathologists face in the first weeks of a new school year, then you’re in the right place! In this episode of The SLP Now […]

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Back to School Mindset for SLPs We are kicking off an epic series with tons of back to school tips to help make the school year just a little bit easier. On today’s episode, we’re starting things off with a little chat about mindset. I don’t know about […]

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I just got to present at the SLP Summit and had the. best. time! Missed us live? The replay is available until August 7th! I presented 5 simple tools that SLPs can use to step up their narrative intervention. There were a lot of questions, so I’m going to take some time to answer them here! 💛 Narrative Intervention […]

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify How Mindfulness Can Help You Be a Better SLP When you hear “mindfulness”, what do you think of? 💭 Maybe you think about yoga or meditation or breathwork — and you’d be right! But mindfulness is also so much more than that, which is why Marisha and […]

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Gratitude Practice for Speech-Language Pathologists Marisha was pretty skeptical when she was first introduced to the idea of a gratitude practice thanks to her new journal a few years ago. Obviously, there were a lot of things in life to be grateful for, but why does it matter […]

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Emotional Literacy and Speech-Language Pathologists There are at least a few things SLPs don’t study in school that would be helpful in practice, and emotional literacy belongs on that list. In this episode of the SLP Now podcast, Dr. Laura Mansfield and Marisha sat down to talk […]

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Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify How to use Self-Reflection to Grow as an SLPs “I’ll stare directly at the sun but never in a mirror.” Taylor Swift nailed it with those lyrics — self-reflection is hard, and most of us would rather avoid it. But. Self-reflection is also necessary if you want to […]

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What does it look like to practice self-care as an SLP, and what does self-kindness have to do with it?That’s the topic Marisha and Dr. Laura Mansfield explore on this episode of the SLP Now podcast — the first in a five part series about managing your mindset, called The Joyful SLP!

As school-based SLPs, there are a LOT of activities that we’re pouring our energy into. We’re planning therapy sessions, collecting data, doing paperwork, practising therapy, managing behavior, wrangling schedules… in the midst of all that giving, it’s super important that we take care of ourselves — otherwise we’ll find we’re on the fast track to burnout.

That’s why this conversation about SLP self-care matters so much. The only way you can show up for others is by showing up for yourself; you have to fill that bucket of energy before it’s empty, and that’s what we’re talking about today!

In this episode, Marisha and Laura discuss:💛 Why self-kindness and self-care are individual journeys
💛 How you can pour into your self-care bucket throughout the day
💛 Ways that Marisha and Laura practice self-care
💛 Why getting curious is an important part of the self-care process
💛 Getting off the hamster wheel of ineffective self-care (that actually makes you feel worse!)

The big takeaway here: how you practice self-care as an SLP is up to you. The best way to find what works is to be curious, be kind to yourself, and do more things that your future self with thank you for. 🥰

“Some of that self-care and self-kindness was pausing to say, okay, how am I feeling right now? Is my body telling me something?” – Dr. Laura MansfieldResources Mentioned:Fill a Bucket: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Young Children

Excerpts from the Episode:Laura: “We see it a lot on Instagram and social media, people with their glasses of wine and drinking that and watching Netflix, and I’m not against wine or Netflix in any way, but I know for myself, I don’t function well the next day after wine, so I have to be really thoughtful about when I drink it, if I drink it. So was that really kindness? And if I do sit and binge watch something, do I feel better after I’m done or is it feeding me in a way that gives me energy and the space that I need to be my best self?”

Marisha: “A lot of the things that I end up doing are things for future Marisha, like setting up my future self for success. If I have a big day, I’ll pick out the outfit ahead of time or I will prep my food or just do something to make my life the following day a little bit easier. One of my love languages is acts of service, so I end up doing that for myself. And it’s just like when I wake up and have the awesome outfit ready to go, I’m like, thank you, past Marisha. That was great. I appreciate you.”

Laura: “So many of the SLPs that I know are just such giving people, and they just give and they give of themselves, and that can be a beautiful thing. But where are we giving from? Are we giving to earn our worth? Are we giving to prove our value?”

Marisha: “We might not all get a full lunch break, but even just stepping away and eating while we’re not working can be self-care too. It’s the little moments that we can just keep pouring into our bucket. It doesn’t have to be a full spa day or an extravagant vacation. I think the most beneficial things are just the little sprinkles that we give ourselves throughout the day.”

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TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew Tab[00:00:00] Marisha: Today we are chatting about self-care and what that actually looks like. And we could also frame it as self-kindness. What does it mean to be kind to ourselves. What do you think about when you think about self-care?

[00:00:16] Laura: It's such a great question. I recently came out of a year of really intense therapy, and I remember asking my counselor cuz it had come up and I realized that I kind of move really quickly and I push myself really hard and I didn't know what self-kindness was. And I asked her like, what does that even mean? And of course, like any good counselor, she said what does it mean to you? And she said, write that down in your journal. So I wrote down what does self kindness look like?
And went on a journey of just trying things out. We see it a lot on Instagram and social media, people with their glasses of wine and drinking that and watching Netflix, and I'm [00:01:00] not against wine or Netflix in any way, but I know for myself, I don't function well the next day after wine, so I have to be really thoughtful about when I drink it, if I drink it. So was that really kindness? And if I do sit and binge watch something, do I feel better after I'm done or is it feeding me in a way that gives me energy and the space that I need to be my best self? So I really had to try out like a bunch of different things.
What do you think of when you think of self-care and self-kindness?

[00:01:35] Marisha: A lot of the things that I end up doing are things for future Marisha, like setting up my future self for success. If I have a big day, I'll pick out the outfit ahead of time or I will prep my food or just do something to make my life the following day a little bit easier.
And one of my love languages is acts of service, so I end up doing that for [00:02:00] myself. And it's just like when I wake up and have the awesome outfit ready to go, I'm like, thank you, past Marisha. That was great. I appreciate you. So that's one thing that I really like to do if I know that I'm having a day that's stretching me or I'm just feeling challenged, that's something that' a general practice now. I do extra things when I feel like "ooh, tomorrow's a big day." So that's one thing that I like to do. And then that helps cuz I feel like we walk through life with a bucket. Let's pretend we all have a bucket and throughout the day we're pouring out that bucket.

[00:02:37] Laura: That's actually a children's book.
The bucket fillers.
[00:02:39] Marisha: Yeah, the bucket fillers. And I think that book is focused on kindness towards others.
[00:02:44] Laura: Yeah. I think it's the same kind of thing that you're talking about.
[00:02:46] Marisha: Yeah. Our bucket gets emptied throughout the day, and especially as school-based SLPs, there's a lot of things that we're pouring into. And by doing those things for my future self, it helps [00:03:00] make sure that my bucket doesn't get too empty.
And so that's a huge part of self-care, self kindness, self love for me. And that helps keep the bucket from getting far too empty.
But sometimes, I do need a little bit more. So to me that could look like reading fiction books. Oh. That is one thing that is a huge form of self-care for me.
And walking outdoors fills my bucket. Being in nature. Absolutely.
[00:03:30] Laura: We recently moved near the beach and it's a mile walk from my house and it's been such a gift.
I think something that you said made me think about as we go through our days, where we can get into these routines. And part of my routine is also taking care of tomorrow Laura. By getting my coffee ready at night, I fill my water bottle and I put it right on the bathroom sink so that yes, I can start drinking my water first thing in the morning.
And just doing those little things. But we can also get in routines where we're moving so quickly. We [00:04:00] don't get curious about why we do the things that we do. And when I was going through that with my therapist of, I was, when you're hungry, you eat right? You check in with yourself, oh, I'm hungry.
I need to fuel my body. But I wasn't checking in with myself emotionally. I was just plowing through.
[00:04:16] Marisha: Oh, yeah.
[00:04:17] Laura: So I think for me, some of that self-care and self-kindness was pausing to say, okay, like, how am I feeling right now? Is my body telling me something? That I need to step back or have a gratitude moment or just be mindful for a minute and just sit here for a minute and not try and get something done.
And just check in with myself can be a kindness to yourself too. And staying curious and not be judgemental towards ourselves. I know for a long time, like I could get really judgemental if I tried to emotionally cope with something with eating and then get on this negative track of how I felt about myself because I chose that. I was just trying to figure out how to do something for [00:05:00] myself and there's nothing wrong with that. We have to take care of ourselves so that we can take care of others and we have a bucket to pour from.
[00:05:06] Marisha: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that reflection is key. And because sometimes the Netflix night with a couple glasses of wine, or however many you can tolerate, for me, it's probably less than one.
[00:05:19] Laura: Me too.
[00:05:20] Marisha: Sometimes that is truly something that can fill our bucket and maybe sometimes we'll go for a walk and that's not quite what I needed today.
[00:05:28] Laura: Yeah.
[00:05:28] Marisha: I don't know how often that has happened, but being curious and reflecting. There might be a season where walking just isn't as effective, or where Netflix isn't the self-care that you need or scrolling Instagram or reading. We go through seasons where we need different things.
And I think that's the key is getting curious and just because reading fiction is my current thing, that doesn't mean that Marisha three months from now will need that, or where that will be part of my regular self-care [00:06:00] routine.
[00:06:00] Laura: Yeah.
[00:06:00] Marisha: And then just because it works for me doesn't mean it'll work for you.
[00:06:03] Laura: Yeah.
[00:06:04] Marisha: And maybe it won't work for you now, but it will in the future. And so it's that constant curiosity and seeing what actually helps me feel better and what fills that bucket. And I don't think there's any one thing. Each thing that we do just fills our bucket just a little bit more.
It's not going to go from completely empty to full with one act of self care.
[00:06:28] Laura: Yeah.
[00:06:29] Marisha: So being mindful of that level and giving ourselves
[00:06:33] Laura: permission to take that time for ourselves. I know for me, like as a mom and a wife and someone, who has always worked maybe more than one job at one time,
[00:06:45] Marisha: like 50 jobs at once.
[00:06:46] Laura: Well not that many but a few. Pushing myself to exhaustion doesn't serve my family. And I missed that for a while. And felt selfish if I took [00:07:00] time for myself. And even kids can really come in and be your priority. And there's so many women in our fields and so many of the SLPs that I know are just such giving people, and they just give and they give of themselves.
And that can be a beautiful thing. But where are we giving from? Are we giving to earn our worth? Are we giving to prove our value? Are we giving just on this exhausted wheel, and then we're just falling into these patterns of scrolling or watching something and whatever it might be, and not like,
[00:07:35] Marisha: Why don't I feel better?
[00:07:36] Laura: Yeah. I did that. That's what I see people on Insta doing, but I did it and I'm still exhausted the next day. I don't feel any better
[00:07:46] Marisha: or worse.
[00:07:47] Laura: Yeah. Sometimes worse. I know. I know how I feel if I have too much to drink. And then I don't sleep well, and then I struggle to get up the next morning and then I am fighting that energy suck, and then I'm [00:08:00] trying to compensate with food and chocolate and coffee. You can just get on that kind of survival mode.
[00:08:06] Marisha: In the hamster wheel of just putting band-aids on.
[00:08:09] Laura: Yeah, exactly. So I think that, step back and putting some of those practices in where you're checking in with not just your belly's feeling of hunger, but emotionally, how are you doing. And giving yourself permission. We're a lot of busy women out there, so it doesn't have to look like an hour.
[00:08:27] Marisha: No.
[00:08:27] Laura: carved out of time. It can be a couple minutes here and there throughout your day.
[00:08:31] Marisha: Yeah. Taking a couple minutes to breathe in between sessions.
[00:08:35] Laura: Yeah.
[00:08:35] Marisha: Like just taking a breath.
[00:08:37] Laura: Yeah.
[00:08:37] Marisha: Or taking a moment of gratitude or,
[00:08:40] Laura: Yes.
[00:08:40] Marisha: Reading a chapter at some point in the day. We might not all get a full lunch break, but even just stepping away and eating while we're not working can be self-care too. It's the little moments that we can just keep pouring into our bucket.
It doesn't have to be a full spa day or,
[00:08:59] Laura: which [00:09:00] would be nice.
[00:09:00] Marisha: It would be nice. Yeah. But it doesn't have to be a full spa day or an extravagant vacation. I think the most beneficial things are just the little sprinkles that we give ourselves throughout the day.
[00:09:13] Laura: And we have to start by asking ourselves what will feed me?
[00:09:15] Marisha: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:16] Laura: In a healthy way.
[00:09:17] Marisha: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:18] Laura: That will re-energize me and help fill my bucket.
[00:09:20] Marisha: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:21] Laura: How can I do that?
[00:09:21] Marisha: Yeah.
[00:09:21] Laura: Is what I'm doing working?
[00:09:23] Marisha: Yeah.
[00:09:23] Laura: Do I feel better after I do those things? Is there a hobby that you can pick up?
[00:09:27] Marisha: Yeah.
[00:09:28] Laura: Yeah. I started playing piano again
[00:09:30] Marisha: Yeah.
[00:09:30] Laura: Last year. So that is just such beautiful time for me.
[00:09:34] Marisha: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:34] Laura: And I might not be able to practice as much as I'd like, but even just five minutes if I feel like I just wanna sit and something about music, you know?
[00:09:43] Marisha: Oh, it's so therapeutic.
[00:09:44] Laura: Yeah. Crafts. Cricuters. We have so many talented SLPs who do so many different things.
[00:09:52] Marisha: Like knitting, crocheting, dance parties.
[00:09:55] Laura: Dance parties are good.
[00:09:56] Marisha: You can even have a 30 second dance party if you're having a [00:10:00] day, and that'll make a big difference.
I
[00:10:01] Laura: bet you your students would really like it too.
[00:10:03] Marisha: Yeah. And it can have lots of extra benefits.
[00:10:08] Laura: Absolutely.
[00:10:09] Marisha: Yeah. I love that.
[00:10:11] Laura: Yeah.
[00:10:11] Marisha: That's our take on.
[00:10:13] Laura: Yeah.
[00:10:13] Marisha: Self-care.
[00:10:14] Laura: Be kind to yourself.
[00:10:15] Marisha: Yeah.
Love on yourself a little.
[00:10:18] Laura: You deserve it.
[00:10:18] Marisha: Yeah. You do.
[00:10:19] Laura: You work hard.

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This is a guest blog post by Lesley, SLP Now’s District + Community Manager, sharing 5 tips to request funding from your district for your SLP Now Membership.

5 Tips for Requesting Funding from Your DistrictWhen we ask SLPs about the biggest hurdle between them and saving time with SLP Now, the number one answer is…

🥁🥁🥁Budget!

Bet we didn’t surprise you with that one… and we get it! Working with a limited (or non-existent!) budget is not ideal — but we might have a solution for that.

Your sanity and the success of students can both be positively impacted when you have the right tools and resources at your disposal.

Here are a few ways to help you get your membership funded so you can save up to 5 hours per week in caseload management and therapy planning – – and have thousands of evidence-based resources at your fingertips…

Tip 1: Talk to your fellow SLPs!There is power in numbers and if multiple SLPs request support with funding for SLP Now, it’s more likely your district will be willing to listen.

Maybe your coworkers are struggling with the same things you are and would benefit from an SLP Now Membership, or maybe they already have a membership paid for by your district. The only way to find out is by starting a conversation.

Tip 2: Put us to work! (Yes! We accept purchase orders!🎉)Before you request funds from your lead SLP or admin, it’s important to do your homework. Gather all the information you think you’ll need beforehand.

And – if you want to make that an easy peasy process, fill out the form at slpnow.com/po and we’ll put together a formal quote for exactly what you need. #SLPstudybuddies

Districts often request the following information:

Billing Address: SLP Now, 10810 N Tatum Blvd, Suite 102860, Phoenix, AZ 85028
Phone: (480) 808-0757
Fax: (480) 360-7726
Email: school@slpnow.com

Tip 3: Start a conversation! Know who to ask but not quite sure how? We’ve got you covered.

If you’re ready to reach out to your principal, here’s a sample purchase request letter you can edit + share to get you started!

Have a contact in your district to reach, instead?: Here’s a sample purchase request letter to share with your lead SLP or coordinator to engage on the district level.

If multiple SLPs in your district are interested in joining, we also offer group discounts. Please contact us at school@slpnow.com to learn more!

Tip 4: Showcase SLP Now!From the filterable, evidence-based, fully-prepped therapy plans inside SLP Now to the magic billing tool and incredibly efficient progress reporting, it’s hard to pinpoint one favorite feature amongst our members.

So when you’re trying to describe it, we find it’s easy to have a go-to list of what’s inside:

✅ 4,200+ materials, including 400+ fully-prepped literacy-based therapy units
✅ Caseload management tools
✅ Digital data tracking
✅ Professional development courses
✅ Community

Do you have an opportunity to present to your administrators? Use this premade SLP Now presentation to showcase the membership to your administrators or email them this quick SLP Now Video Tour.

If we can help facilitate any conversations, please don’t hesitate to reach out (school@slpnow.com)!

Tip 5: Submit your PO + celebrate! Did you get approval? Wahoo! The next step is to submit the purchase order online using this form: slpnow.com/po

Once we receive the order, we will process the PO, activate your SLP Now account, send you an email with instructions on how to access your account, and then we will send an invoice to your administrators.

Celebrate with SLP Now! 🎉Share your wins with us! You can post your win(s) in the SLP Now Community or tag us in an Instagram post (@slpnow) and we will do a happy dance with you!✨The icing on the cake ✨✉️ Who doesn’t like a thank you note?

You did the legwork — and we’re celebrating you, for sure. Now, send a handwritten note or a quick email to show your appreciation for the support you got in securing your membership from whoever helped you along the way!

We’ll see you inside!

P.S. 📚 DonorsChoose is another great option for funding. Click here for more information.

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I just got to present at the SLP Summit and had the. best. time!

Missed us live? The replay is available until January 30th!

I presented a simple framework to help SLPs streamline their therapy planning.

Here are some of the questions that came up during the presentation:

GeneralHow long are your sessions?

It depends, but my average session length is 30 minutes.

What do you accomplish in a typical session?

It depends (again)! I spent 2-5 minutes checking students in and collecting the probe data. I divvy up the rest of the time for teaching and practice. In a 30-minute session, I may spend 25 minutes teaching. Or I may spend 25 minutes practicing. Or it may be an even split between the two! It really depends on the students’ needs for that session.

Session PlannerWould you use the planner to plan for multiple days?

You absolutely could! I created the planner for this presentation as more of a thought exercise. It’s a scaffold to help you wrap your head around how to organize your sessions.

If you’re curious about next steps, we have an entire course in the SLP Now membership about how to implement this across sessions + across different groups!

Can you share your filled-in planner?

Yes! You can find the examples here: slpnow.com/planner

AssessWhat is the difference between baseline data and a probe?

I collect baseline data when I’m completing an evaluation and/or updating a student’s goals. I collect probe data at the beginning of each session to monitor students’ progress and determine which supports they need to be successful within that session.

How many items do you include in your probes?

It depends (again)! It varies depending on the student and the goal, but a 5-item probe typically does the trick for me.

How long does it take to do a probe with a mixed group of 4-6 students?

I would account for ~1 minute per student.

Do you actually use these probes every time at the start of a session?

I do! It only takes me a few minutes, and I use the data to maximize my session. It’s well worth the time!

Where can I find the probes in SLP Now?

If you go to the Materials page and click “Assess” in the sidebar, you’ll see all of the probes! Here’s a direct link.

Are you using the same probes each week?

Generally, yes!

I rotate through one goal each session (per student). If a student has 4 goals, I’ll probe each goal every 4 weeks.

Because I’m not providing feedback on accuracy/performance, the students typically don’t learn the stimulus items–especially since they only see the probe every 4 weeks.

There may be exceptions for certain types of goals, but I like using the same probe so that I can more confidently assess progress over time.

How do you plan your sessions if you probe at the beginning of the session?

I plan month-long thematic units. (I have a course on that in the SLP Now membership too!)

I also make sure I have all of my teaching tools ready to go.

I have a general idea of what I’d like to accomplish in any given session, but I have all of the tools I need to quickly adjust and meet my students’ needs in the moment.

Will this take up too much time at the high school level when I might have to read multiple short passages to multiple students if I’m only focusing on one student per probe?

This is where we can get creative! For those types of goals, I’ll typically read the passage as our first activity, and then collect probe data about that passage–before doing any teaching!

TeachWhat is a goal card?

You can read all about goal cards here.

Where is the goal card template?

You can download the template here!

What ages are the goal cards appropriate for?

I’ve used this with all ages. That said, it may not be appropriate for every student. Use your clinical judgment and adjust as needed (e.g., using visuals for students who aren’t reading yet).

PracticeWho developed the literacy-based therapy framework?

Dr. Ukrainetz! Contextualized Language Intervention is a fabulous resource if you’re looking to learn more!

MembershipWhat grade levels does SLP Now cover?

PK-12. This article explains in more detail!

Is SLP Now helpful for teletherapists?

Yes! We have a blog post for that too.

How can district SLPs go about getting their district to pay for SLP Now for the whole district?

This article provides resources for district SLPs!

Where can I find the backpack?

You can find all of the backpack goodies here!

Can members purchase laminated visuals?

Yes! Email us at hello@slpnow.com!

The post [SLP Summit Q&A] 3 Strategies for Epic Speech Therapy Sessions appeared first on SLP Now Blog.

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This Week’s Episode: Making Recommendations for Speech Sound DisordersThis month we have the pleasure of learning from Lindsey Hockel, the owner + creator behind Speechy Things. She’s a specialist when it comes to learning the /r/ sound, and she currently runs a small private practice where she has a caseload full of R kids.

Over the last few weeks we’ve covered case histories, language samples, oral mech exam, perception tasks, trial therapy… and more!

Today we’re going to tie all of that information together and dive into making recommendations for therapy.

Here we go!

Topics Discussed🎯 The importance of referrals.
How to approach a referral in Clinic:
✓ When in doubt, referral! Refer back to the pediatrician or getting counseling involved if that’s needed or PT, OT, a dentist, ENT, GI, Nutrition, depending on what’s going on.

School-Based Referal Suggestions:
✓ “If it were my child, I would consider…”
✓ Suggest the parent ask the pediatrician about it at the next pediatrician appointment.
✓ If insurance and finances allow, you can always share your IEP findings with your pediatrician and see what medical options there are.

🎯 Writing goals for perception tasks

🎯 Assessment never really ends
✓ With every session, we have the chance to get to know the little human we’re working with, and the initial assessment is just a snapshot of one day in that kid’s life — there’s so much more to learn!

✨It’s okay to get into treatment and realize your assessment was off base or your treatment approach requires some tweaking. In fact, it’s a sign of excellent clinical skills. ✨

Want to learn more about Speech Sound Disorders?🍎 Check out Lindsey’s website and blog: Speechythings
🍎 Lindsey Hockel is on insta! @speechlythings
🍎 Are you an SLP Now Member? Check out all of our materials on Speech Sound Disorders
🍎 ASHA Evidence Map: Speech Perception Skills of Children with Speech Sound Disorder
🍎Check out our blog post: The SLP’s Guide to Speech Sound Disorders: Articulation & Phonological Development

✨ Not an SLP Now Member? Join our free 14-day trial! Your first 5 downloads are on us! ✨

Here’s what to expect this month:

November, 29: Assessing Speech Sound Disorders: Getting Started
December, 6: Assessing Speech Sound Disorders: (Part 1)
December, 13: Assessing Speech Sound Disorders: (Part 2)
December, 20: Assessing Speech Sound Disorders: Making Recommendations

Subscribe & Review on iTunesAre you subscribed to the podcast? If you’re not, subscribe today to get the latest episodes sent directly to you! Click here to make your listening experience auto-magic and as easy as possible.

Bonus points if you leave us a review over on iTunes → Those reviews help other SLPs find the podcast, and I love reading your feedback! Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews,” “Write a Review,” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is.

Thanks so much!

TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabMarisha : Hello there and welcome to the SLP Now podcast, where we share practical therapy tips and ideas for busy speech language pathologists. Grab your favorite beverage and sit back as we dive into this week's episode.

Welcome to the SLP Now podcast. We are continuing the series with Lindsey from Speechy Things. And today we are wrapping up this month long series and we are going to talk about making recommendations. So at this point we would've done our case history, oral mech exam, a speech sample, maybe some formal assessment. We talked about perception tasks and trial therapy, all sorts of good stuff. But Lindsay, can you help us walk through, okay, so we have all of this information, what are some of our next steps

Lindsey: In terms of making recommendations, either recommend or not recommend therapy, maybe recommend a reassessment in however many months. You'll recommend how many times a week for how many minutes. Yada, yada yada. But something I feel like is missed is referrals, outside referrals. I feel like this comes with experience and this comes the more we collaborate with other professionals and work as a part of a care team instead of it just being between us and the family and that comes with time and experience and a lot of effort. We're so busy. I can't even fathom working in a school and the caseloads they deal with and the paperwork they deal with because even in a clinic, it was hard for me to find time to do this stuff. But referring sometimes back to a pediatrician or getting counseling involved if that's needed or PT, OT, a dentist, ENT, GI, Nutrition, depending on what's going on.

I feel like for speech sound disorders, some of those aren't as applicable, but I just want to encourage people to, if in doubt, refer. And do your best throughout the assessment, I mean, starting with the case history and then all the way through and keeping your eyes open. By the way, I feel like it's easy for us to focus so much on the sound and not watch what's in front of us. Looking at posture, looking at are they fidgeting a lot? Not that that's a bad thing, but it might tell you something about sensory needs. I just feel like it's easy for us to get so focused on our piece of this puzzle that we forget the kid might benefit from help in another discipline. And it's just, it's hard. Oh man, our jobs are hard, Marisha. There's a lot.

Marisha: There is a lot.

Lindsey: There is a lot going on all the time.

Marisha: Yeah. But that's a really helpful overview of people that we could refer to. And if we're seeing something, even if we don't know what it is, be like, "Oh okay. Would any of these people be able to help?"

Lindsey: Yes.

Marisha: That should be a whole other podcast episode. Not even a podcast episode, it should be a whole day seminar essentially.

Lindsey: I know.

Marisha: Just like this podcast episode could have been.

Lindsey: Yeah.

Marisha: There's so much stuff. What would you recommend? So I'm sure some school based SLPs are like, "But I'm in the schools. What does this look like?" Do you have any thoughts around navigating that?

Lindsey: I do have thoughts and I can't claim any of them. I did a clinical placement in grad school in the schools for one semester and that was it. So this is coming from my awesome Instagram follower community because I have spoken about this before on Instagram and in a clinic I don't feel like it is so much easier for me to just refer left and right whatever I think they might need, even though that could be a sensitive conversation with a family and that's tricky. But in a school I got a whole bunch of responses from therapists on how they might approach a referral. And the common threads mostly was putting it back on the pediatrician.

One person did say... But y'all please don't go doing this in the school and then getting in trouble. Please talk to your supervisors or whoever before you even utter any of the words that are about to come out of my mouth. Do not email me telling me you've got in trouble. Okay? So do your homework. Anyway, this gives you some ideas that might work.

So one person said that they used the phrase, "If it were my child, I would consider..." I feel like that's a little bit risky. I don't know. An overwhelming amount of responses from people recommended that they suggest the parent ask the pediatrician about it. And so more specifics within that would be just the actual wording to suggest that they bring up XYZ concern at the next pediatrician appointment. One person also mentioned just stating point blank, if they decide to do anything outside of the school, it's up to them and it's at their expense. Another recommendation, the specific wording I'm going to read it because I feel like it's a very careful quote, so I don't want to do it wrong. They said, "If insurance and finances allow, you can always share your IEP findings with your pediatrician and see what medical options there are."

So I feel like the keys there would be sharing the IEP, which I think is very helpful because I don't know if parents always realize that they can... That paperwork is theirs to do whatever they want with. Whether it's the IEP, whether it's an evaluation from a clinic, that's your child's medical information and you can mail it to anyone you want, broadcast is on the internet, whatever you want to do. And it can be so helpful to share that with other professionals and I think the idea of actually bringing that to the doctor and then hopefully this pediatrician is fantastic and can kind of decipher what they're looking at and knows where they might need to go. But anyway, I thought those were really helpful suggestions.

Marisha: Yeah, I love that. I'm really glad you looked into that and put that together. Yeah, I love it. This is not a goals episode at all, but I'm just curious, and we kind of touched on this as we went, you mentioned a couple times the case history is our gold. It's very critical as we move forward and I'm trying to find the best way to navigate this. So with the perception tasks, for example, maybe it'd be best just to go through a couple cause it's hard to give suggestions and ideas if we're super, super broad. So maybe we can start with some more specifics.

Let's say a student really struggles with perception tasks and in the speech sample in the formal assessment, we find that they have, they're gliding all of their sounds. And then with trial therapy, we are trying to elicit an R, but we aren't able to elicit an R. So how would that influence the goals that you write versus if they rock their perception tasks and they were stimulable? And I know this is hard because we're not seeing an actual kid. Do you ever write goals for perception?

Lindsey: I do. And you know what? That is something that a lot, I feel like I saw several times in the summit, SLP Summit Q&A that we just did a couple months ago. I feel like it's something maybe people just aren't doing. And I know I never used to do it, so I totally get that. It's just as I'm learning more and more and more, I see how important it is. So I think it's totally fine to write goals for perception tasks because I think it's one of the beautiful things about therapy. That's what makes us so skilled and that's what makes us clinicians, not technicians. We can break things down, especially through years of experience and all this clinical knowledge that we have. We can break things down into the tiniest little baby steps to get where we need to go and we can see all of the foundational skills and scaffold the heck out of it so that we can support the student all the way to getting out of our speech room forever.

And I think perception tasks are one of those little building blocks that are a foundational skill that is worth writing a goal for if it's something that they struggle with. And whether or not you do perception tasks before working on elicitation, I'm seeing conflicting advice about that. I tend to do perception tasks first or not necessarily first, but I don't think you have to master one thing before you move to another. We're always working on multiple aspects of whatever's going on.

Marisha: Yeah, this is where our clinical judgment comes in. It's not a black and white answer and there's a lot of gray in here. I really wanted to touch on this because I think it is a helpful, as a CF, I had a handful of our kiddos talk about R because that's what you're so good at.

Lindsey: I can't get out of my head. I'm trying so hard to make it more general than that.

Marisha: Now, I love it though. Some kids, it was really easy to elicit the R and we just flew through therapy, but there were some kids where, I don't even want to admit how long we spent trying to elicit an R, and that's all I was doing. And I found ways to make it fun enough, I think. But who knows, if I had been using some of those perception tasks, it could have decreased the frustration and maybe we would've seen more progress because maybe they just needed that. And I can't explain it well either, but maybe there is something like they needed that representation in their brain to let the other things click and each student is wired differently, so that's where our clinical judgment comes into play.

For the students who were really easy to, who quickly picked up the R and it was easy to elicit, maybe it doesn't make as much sense. Or maybe it's something we need to revisit if it's impacting their reading still. We want to, like you said, keep our eyes open and consider all of these pieces. But I think that's just, you're right. It's something that not everyone thinks about in terms of perception tasks, and I'm so glad that we got to discuss that.

Lindsey: Me too. It's something that I think is a key, really, for a lot of kids. Because again, if you want them to self-monitor, we need them to be able to judge their own speech. And I think it's just such a critical piece for so many students. And what you were saying kind of brought up for me, I think it's important to note the assessment really never ends. We are constantly, every single session, you are learning more and more and more about this kid. And the initial assessment is just one snapshot of one day and you're doing the best you can to figure out what's going on and what direction you need to go and the best steps to get there.

But I think it's okay, and I think it shows excellent clinical skill to be frank, if you figure out like, "Whoops, I got that wrong." And then pivot. That is okay. We are always learning more about the student. We're always learning more about what works best for them. We're gathering information from research or from whatever our favorite way to learn more about speech language pathology is. You never know everything and the more you know the more you know you don't know. And I think it's okay to always be assessing and reassessing and adjusting and pivoting and that's... Anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there.

Marisha: I love that. That is such a good lesson and just a perspective to work on. And it also decreases some of the pressure of that evaluation. You're right, it is a snapshot in time. We are doing our best and we're trying to look at the pieces and not remembering to do a structural functional exam. We can learn from that. If we find out that there's something going on later on, then that's okay. But I think we can have a good framework and then continue to keep our eyes open.

Lindsey: I mean, we're always doing our best. And what you were saying about, you don't even want to admit how long you were working on elicitation with some kids. I've totally been there and I think we all have. And oh my gosh, there's so much that I look back even a year ago and I'm like, "Oh, I cannot believe." Well, I mean, knowing what I know now, I would've done that so differently. And that's just the way it goes. And I think we all have that, but it also shows signs of growth. And we're just always doing the best we can with what we have and that is enough because it just has to be.

Marisha: Yeah, absolutely. I love it.

Lindsey: If I could, one more thing, even this conversation has given me new ideas for this R assessment I've been working on. And the way I'm designing it, so I'm going to talk about this resource I'm designing, but this applies to anything. My vision for this is for those kids, like you mentioned, who have been in speech for however long and they just still don't have their R, I want people to be able to bust this out and be like, "Okay, we're starting from the beginning." And go back and figure out what those foundational skills might be that we're missing. Because, like we just said, we're always, as professionals, learning and growing. And if you've had a kid in your speech room for six months, a year, two years, three, whatever it is, you probably know more now than you did when you started.

And it's easy to get kind of just in a rut. And sometimes I feel like it's helpful to have another therapist come in and look at them if that's even an option. But I think it's okay to just go back to the beginning sometimes and go back and look at your paperwork. Go back and look at your assessment. Take what you know now that you didn't know six months ago and go back and see if you can't fill in some of those holes. And I just want to encourage anybody, if you feel like you are not making progress with a student, the initial assessment is not your only opportunity to assess. Go back and look at it again.

Marisha: Perfect. Yeah, like I said, if it's ready, I will link in the show notes. I'm excited to see this thing.

Lindsey: Thanks. I'm...

Marisha: Awesome.

Lindsey: Who knows when it'll be ready. I have no idea, but I hope it's awesome when it comes out.

Marisha: Yeah, it definitely will be.

Lindsey: Thanks.

Marisha: So awesome. Well, thank you so much, Lindsey. This was an absolute treat and I'm so grateful for you being so generous with your time. If people want to connect with you after listening to all of your awesome content, where can they do that?

Lindsey: I'm most active on Instagram, Speechy Things, spelled with a Y. I'm barely on Facebook. I'm curious about Twitter. I'm trying on YouTube, but Instagram's definitely the biggest place. Or you can go to speechythings.com. I have a lot. I mean, like I said, for the past year and a half, I've just totally focused on R. So that's most of what you'll find. But I have tons of free resources on my website and on Teachers Pay Teachers to help you rock the R as I like to say.

Marisha: Love it.

Lindsey: Just thank you so much, Marisha. I love talking to you.

Marisha: Likewise. We'll see you guys next month for another topic.

Thanks for listening to the SLP Now podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your SLP friends and don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episode sent directly to you. See you next time.

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This Week’s Episode: Informal Assessments for Speech Sound Disorders (Part 2)This month we have the pleasure of learning from Lindsey Hockel, the owner + creator behind Speechy Things. She’s a specialist when it comes to learning the /r/ sound, and she currently runs a small private practice where she has a caseload full of R kids.

So far this month we have covered some things to consider when we are navigating speech sound disorders, and where to get started with informal assessments for speech sound disorders. She is an incredible resource when it comes to speech sound disorders and I hope you are learning as much as I am from these conversations!

This week we get to dive a little deeper into speech sound disorders assessments, specifically focusing on perception tasks in practice and trial therapy.

Let’s make a splash!

Topics Discussed🎯 What perception tasks are and how to use them
🎯 The correlation between speech sound disorders and children not doing well on speech perception tasks
🎯 The benefits of a dynamic assessment and how it’s related to trial therapy
🎯 Why trial therapy is so important for writing good goals

…and so much more!

✨ Not an SLP Now Member? Join our free 14-day trial! Your first 5 downloads are on us! ✨

Here’s what to expect this month:

Thanks so much!

TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabMarisha: Hello there and welcome to the SLP Now podcast, where we share practical therapy tips and ideas for busy speech-language pathologists. Grab your favorite beverage and sit back as we dive into this week's episode. Welcome back to the SLP Now podcast. We're continuing this series with Lindsey from Speechy Things. If you don't follow her on Instagram already you should definitely go check her out. Just search Speechy Things. She's got lots of great content. But we are continuing our conversation about speech sound disorders assessment and specifically focusing on perception tasks and trial therapy today. So, Lindsey, should we start off with perception tasks?

Lindsey: Let's do that. I think that sounds great.

Marisha: You gave us a little bit of an overview of what perception tasks are in the first episode this month but can you give us a reminder of what a perception task is and then why do you use them and what does that look like? Spill all the beans.

Lindsey: I will spill the beans. So a perception task is basically something that helps you tease out whether a student's... I hope I'm saying this right, okay, but whether their inner voice matches what the word should sound like. Does that make sense?

Marisha: It does make sense.

Lindsey: Okay, so if you can think about a student, think about any phono kid you've ever had and they're like, "It's a tat." And you're like, "What, is this a tat?" And they're like, "No, it's a tat." Right? They're so convinced that they're saying it correctly. They would not do well on perception tasks. Their awareness is just not there.

So, I got to point out, there is an ASHA Evidence Map about this, in the Speech Sound Disorders section, called Speech Perception Skills of Children with Speech Sound Disorders, and it's really helpful. I love the ASHA Evidence Maps. I feel like I have not been utilizing them enough. I just love the summaries. Between that and The Informed SLP I'm set.

There is a correlation absolutely between speech sound disorders and children not doing well on speech perception tasks and I've been digging more into the research behind this and I've seen some varying reports on how important it is for kids to be able to discriminate errors in other people versus themselves. But, I think, no matter what in an assessment, it's valuable information for you to know. Typically, I mean, I always look at it in the assessment and I'll get more into what that actually looks like but I just want to throw out there I think it's okay to spend some time on this in early therapy. There's mixed reports on whether or not you have to get perception down before you could even work on elicitation or working up the articulation hierarchy or vice versa if they're not going to get perception until they know how to produce the sound. I just think it's so interesting. Would you like some examples of what you would do to look at this?

Marisha: Yes, let's do it.

Lindsey: I feel like this is much more in the phonology wheelhouse and can help you tease apart what's articulation, right? So what is the difficulty producing the sound and what is phonology? And that is much more about their awareness and their linguistic skills. Is that accurate? Sounds fancy. I don't know if that's actually right. But anyway, their understanding of the sound and its job in their speech.

So my examples would be judging if someone else produces a sound correctly, judging if they said a sound correctly, saying the same word twice and them telling you if it sounded the same or if it sounded different, bringing in some minimal pairs. It's a great opportunity to bring in minimal pairs and really look at phonology. So, just in case, minimal pairs would be a word that differs by one phoneme like tat and cat, those would be minimal pairs. Not a great example. I don't know how many kids know what tatting is, even though that is a real word. But if you have pictures of both words and you say one of them, can they point to the picture that you just said? Can they hear the difference between those two words? Those are some examples that I try to include in my assessments and there are things that I'm building into the R assessment that I've been working on that I was telling you about because I think it's so important.

Marisha: That is amazing because I feel like having an assessment that gives you some resources to navigate that would be so helpful. A lot of this we can just take it and run with it but sometimes having it in a little bit of a informal protocol or whatever can make a huge difference. So I'm excited to see that.

Lindsey: Thanks.

Marisha: If your assessment is ready it'll be linked in the show notes. No, that's so exciting to see that come together. Are we good to talk about trial therapy?

Lindsey: Yeah, let's do it.

Marisha: Okay. So, I think it makes sense, but tell us what trial therapy might look like, why you use it, how you approach that?

Lindsey: Okay. So in the textbooks that I peruse from time to time they talk about dynamic assessment and I'm assuming those people know what they're talking about, they're professors and stuff, smart people. To me, as a clinician, the benefit of a dynamic assessment, meaning you assess, then you teach, then you reassess, basically, so you're figuring out what cues might be helpful. You're figuring out at what level, for example, in the articulation hierarchy are they at? Because, as I mentioned in the first episode of this series, I think, formal assessments often fall short here, right? They don't give you necessarily an insight into how easy or difficult it's going to be for a student to achieve a particular speech sound or to eliminate a particular phonological process. So I think that doing trial therapy is crucial for knowing how to write your care plan. You can't just write the care plan based on the formal assessment, in my opinion. Not that I haven't done that before but I don't think it's the best way.

Marisha: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. Would you mind giving us an example or two of what an activity might look like or how we might do that?

Lindsey: So basically I would just think about... So this is towards the end of the assessment, so, knowing what you know now about this kid, what would be one of the first therapy activities you did with them in your first official session? And bring that out. So if it's a phonology kid then maybe bringing out some minimal pairs and probing there, similar to the perception tasks, but can they produce whatever sound is an error or whatever phonological process that they're doing, can they fix it? And then, for articulation, maybe bringing out a couple of... a little word list or something and seeing, okay, can they imitate it? Can they make the sound at all? Or what kind of cues do they need from me in order to fix it? I mean, really you're just trying to figure out, in that assessment, "Can I get them to do what they need to do with whatever phonologic process for a speech sound?" I think it's just a little bit more of a fine tune dive into what the issue is and how easy or difficult it's going to be to get them where they need to go.

Marisha: And I've done this before where in the clinic where I'm at, I administer formal assessments in addition to all the informal stuff but [inaudible 00:08:30] SLP could also, if they give the Goldman and Fristoe, for example, you can pull the words from there, the ones that they produced in error, and then see what do they need to produce that word? Is it just another, typically, not just repetition, but do they need just a visual cue, a model, or do they need placement cues, whatever that looks like? And, I think, that's a lot of times parents will ask, "How long is this going to take?"

Lindsey: Oh my god.

Marisha: And that's like the worst question ever to answer. But if we can do some of that, if we have some of that trial therapy, that can make such a world of a difference in being like, "Well, they just needed this type of support." And just in terms of writing goals too.

Lindsey: Absolutely.

Marisha: Because if it's super-easy to cue them we can be very ambitious with our goals. A lot of times we can't get the correct production in our first session but that gives us information that we can use in considering our goals too.

Lindsey: For sure because there's just a million different ways you can write goals. I feel like the most important thing you get from your assessment is the care plan. And I feel like goals are tricky to write and I think it's easy for us to be so exhausted with writing up our report that that's almost like an afterthought and I think that's backwards. Your goals guide treatment and I think they deserve so much love and attention and you just can't write good goals without trial therapy.

Marisha: Yeah, I love it. So I think that's a really awesome note to end this episode on because the next episode is talking all about making recommendations and maybe we can tie together some cool stuff in that episode.

Thanks for listening to the SLP Now podcast. If you enjoyed this episode please share with your SLP friends and don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episodes sent directly to you. See you next time.

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This Week’s Episode: Informal Assessments for Speech Sound Disorders (Part 1)This month we have the pleasure of learning from Lindsey Hockel, the owner + creator behind Speechy Things.

She’s a specialist when it comes to learning the /r/ sound, and she currently runs a small private practice where she has a caseload full of R kids. We are in for a real treat this month! Lindsey brings a ton of clinical experience to the table and she is an avid research nerd like me. 🤓

Last week we talked through some of the considerations we should be thinking about when we’re navigating a speech sound disorders evaluation, and she delivered some incredible tips and strategies.

Today Lindsey shares even more tips! We discuss where to get started with informal assessments. She is an incredible resource when it comes to speech sound disorders and I hope you learn as much from this conversation as I did!

Let’s get to it, shall we?!

Topics Discussed‣ Case history
✓ Open-ended questions (Dr. Megan Hamilton)
✓ Feelings towards their speech
✓ Medical History
✓ What the parent thinks I need to know about their child

‣ Quality language sample
✓ Make sure the student is comfortable
✓Build a rapport
✓ Chat with the kids about their favorite things, conversation cards, or draw pictures

‣ Structural-functional exam
✓ Structure: symmetry, dentition, tonsils, palate
✓ Function: dissociation, range of motion, proprioception, adequate control over their tongue

Amy Gram 17

…and so much more!

Want to learn more about Speech Sound Disorders?🍎 Check out Lindsey’s website and blog: Speechythings
🍎 Lindsey Hockel is on insta! @speechlythings
🍎 Are you an SLP Now Member? Check out all of our materials on Speech Sound Disorders
🍎 For additional resources check out our blog post with Amy Graham: How to Tackle Oral-Facial Exams
🍎 Amy Graham on insta! @grahamspeechtherapy

✨ Not an SLP Now Member? Join our free 14-day trial! Your first 5 downloads are on us! ✨

Here’s what to expect this month:

Thanks so much!

TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabMarisha: Hello there and welcome to the SLP Now podcast where we share practical therapy tips and ideas for busy speech language pathologists. Grab your favorite beverage and sit back as we dive into this week's episode.

Welcome back to the SLP Now Podcast. We are continuing our series with Lindsay from Speechy Things and she is an incredible resource when it comes to speech sound disorders, especially R therapy. So I'm really excited to continue the conversation about informal assessment with Lindsay today. Are you ready to dive in?

Lindsey: Ready.

Marisha: Let's do this. So the first informal assessment tool that you mentioned is the case history. You talked a little bit about the case history last time, how you would give the parents a form to use before your evaluation and then when they come in you review that with them. So can you tell us a little bit more about the types of questions you ask? You mentioned using open-ended questions. What could that conversation look like?

Lindsey: Really quick before I miss it. We've all heard about open-ended questions and it can just lead you down pathways that you didn't even know existed. Just asking so tell me how your child is at home. You never know what will come up with an open-ended question. That way you're not guiding the conversation based on your own biases or perceptions.

But I wanted to add, I watched a CEU from Dr. Megan-Brette Hamilton on culturally responsive assessment and she emphasized this as well. I just thought it was such a good point asking open ended neutral questions. So instead of saying, "So what's the problem with your child's speech?" Say, "Tell me about your child's speech." That's the only example I can think of off the top of my head. But the point being to just keep it very neutral I think is important. So I just wanted to throw that in there 'cause it was a really good session for her.

Anyway. So questions I might ask would be how is your child doing in school? Educational impact is important even in a clinical setting. But then I would also ask about how they communicate at home. You want to know intelligibility ratings across communication partners. So not just the parent, but distant relatives, close friends, teachers. Especially for the R sound, I usually ask the parent about how their child feels about their speech, if they're getting frustrated. I usually try to ask the student that as well separately.

For medical history, we're looking for red flags. I want to know about... Some questions you can ask that'll kind of lead you toward tongue tie or airway issues could be asking about did they have any trouble feeding as an infant? Whether breast or bottle. Do they snore? Do they have allergies? Asking about any previous surgeries. You want to know about history of ear infections and how many they've had, if they ever had tubes in their ears.

Marisha: Awesome. That's a great overview of what to include in the case history. So the takeaways here are to use open-ended questions and having neutral open-ended questions. Asking about how the child's doing in school, what they're noticing about the speech, medical history to help us figure out where we're going. You had something to add?

Lindsey: Yes. Something else I really like to ask is tell me what you think I need to know about your child. Usually in there you get some kind of insight into the personality. Whether they're really shy at first, but they warm up or asking about what their favorite things are. Because then you can use that whenever you're getting a conversational sample. Who doesn't love talking about whatever their favorite video game is or whatever it is.

But asking those questions ahead of time I find so helpful because then if I have a material that relates to their favorite, I can bring that. If I know that they are shy or if I know that they are... If something indicates they might need extra movement, then I can have that in mind going into the assessment.

Marisha: Yeah, that's perfect. 'Cause I feel like when an evaluation walks in... Or I'm seeing a student for the first time during an evaluation, you never know what to expect. If you have that on your case history form where it's what are their favorite things, you can be the coolest person right off the bat. You just can factor in one of their interests. It's perfect. So that's super helpful overview of what we can do with case history. Then what about a speech sample?

Lindsey: So for a speech sample, this is where I like to incorporate those favorites usually. I usually sort of use the speech sample also as a time to build rapport because so many kids, I feel like sometimes they're just a little embarrassed. Part of this I think is my slant working with kids with R because that's really all I do now. So a lot of them are maybe a little bit older, they're very aware of this error. Maybe they've been in speech for a long time, but I just try to be sensitive to how they're feeling and make them feel as comfortable as possible while also listening to as many contacts as I can.

So sometimes I'll bring in silly pictures. I'll ask them about what they did this weekend, ask them about their favorite vacation, ask them about their family, their friends. You could have them retell something about their favorite movie or their favorite book. Anything I can think of. For a younger kid, then I might bring out one of those staple toys that SLPs usually have in their closet, like the Critter Clinic or something to do with pretend play. Again, bringing out their favorites as much as I can, or having them tell me about their favorite sport. I feel like those are all good ways to get kids talking.

Marisha: Great tips. I love it. Thank you. Then what about the structural functional exam? What does that look like for you?

Lindsey: I do them. I would love for somebody to come up with a course where they do a structural functional exam and talk you through everything they're seeing and what it means. I want to see examples of kids' mouths, all kinds of kids' mouths. I just feel like I look at it, I'm looking for structure of course. So I'm looking for symmetry. I'm looking at their dentition. Are there any teeth missing? Are they a little bit out of place? I want information on their palette. Is it narrow? Is it looking typical? Is it a high arch in their palette? Definitely looking at tonsils.

Anything that might indicate structurally something could be going on, even though I don't necessarily think any one thing is a guaranteed issue for speech sound disorders, but it's good information to have. I also, again, I feel like this comes into place so much with the R sound, and by the way, I feel like all this information is very slanted so far towards articulation. So I just got to throw that out there. That so far I've not been touching on phenology as much, but we'll get there.

In terms of function, I pay attention a lot to whether I think they have good proprioception and tongue jaw dissociation. I want to know if they have adequate control over their tongue and whether they can move it in the ways that they will need to move it depending on what speech sounds I've already noticed they have an error.

Marisha: Perfect. I did a podcast episode with Amy Graham way back when, it's episode 17. So if you're in the same boat as Lindsay and I and you feel like you could use a little bit of extra information on the SFE checkout episode 17. You can just scroll back in whichever podcast app or go to SLPNow.com/17. She's created a really cool informal assessment that helps you walk through and know what to look for. So it definitely decreased my overwhelm and increased my level of confidence.

Lindsey: Oh, for sure and she has some on Instagram. I know she posted some videos of her doing a structural functional exam.

Marisha: She did.

Lindsey: But I want more from her. I'm like I want you to tell me exactly what you're seeing and what you're going to do about it.

Marisha: What referrals we need to make. Yeah, she's the one who should make that course.

Lindsey: I think so too. I think so too.

Marisha: I love it. Okay, so I think that's a really good overview of the case history, speech samples and the structural functional exam. So that'll be a wrap on our review of informal assessments for today. Then next week we'll talk about perception tasks and trial therapy.

Thanks for listening to the SLP Now Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your SLP friends and don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episode sent directly to you. See you next time.

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This Week’s Episode: Assessing Speech Sound DisordersThis month we have the pleasure of learning from Lindsey Hockel, the owner + creator behind Speechy Things.

I asked her to walk us through some of the considerations we should be thinking about when we’re navigating a speech sound disorders evaluation, and she delivered some incredible tips and strategies.

Let’s get to it, shall we?!

Topics Discussed✅ Perception tasks, which help us figure out whether a student hears the sound production
✅ What you can do to encourage or work with a student who isn’t stimulable yet
✅ The role that formal assessment, informal assessment, and clinical judgment play in the evaluation process
✅ The difference between evaluations in private practice vs. a school-based setting
✅ Tips for collecting a solid case history and quality language samples

…and so much more!

Want to learn more about Speech Sound Disorders?🍎 Check out Lindsey’s website and blog: Speechythings
🍎 Lindsey Hockel is on insta! @speechlythings
🍎 Are you an SLP Now Member? Check out all of our materials on Speech Sound Disorders
🍎 For additional resources check out our blog posts: The SLP’s Guide to Speech Sound Disorders and our free download: Speech Sound Development Chart [click here to download the free speech sound development chart]

✨ Not an SLP Now Member? Join our free 14-day trial! Your first 5 downloads are on us! ✨

Here’s what to expect this month:

Thanks so much!

TranscriptTranscriptEmailDownloadNew TabMarisha: Hello there, and welcome to the SLP Now podcast, where we share practical therapy tips and ideas for busy speech language pathologists. Grab your favorite beverage and sit back as we dive into this week's episode.

Hello there, and welcome to the SLP Now podcast. This month we have Lindsey Hockel with us. She is the owner and creator behind Speechy Things, LLC, and she specializes in the R sound and currently sees a small private caseload of R kids. We are in for a massive treat. She is bringing her own clinical experience and a ridiculous amount of research, and she is so much fun to learn from. I asked her to help us walk through what we might want to think about when navigating a speech sound disorders evaluation. So all things evaluation today and she's got some really great tips planned. So, without further ado, hello Lindsey.

Lindsey: Hello. Thank you for having me.

Marisha: I am very excited. It's been really fun. We outlined the episode a little bit ahead of time and you've got so many great things for us, so I cannot wait.

Lindsey: I'm excited.

Marisha: Let's just dive right in. I know that you have some other information that you'd like to share as we walk through the evaluation process together, but let's pretend that we got a new speech sound disorders eval. Would you mind walking us through a little bit about how you would approach that and your process there?

Lindsey: Yes. So there's some basic components that you want to include in any evaluation. Gathering case history, a structural oral mech exam. You want to get a speech sample in conversation. We'll do your formal assessment. I recommend also doing some more informal assessment, like just keep on probing, and then if you want to make it a dynamic assessment, you'll do a little bit of teaching and then some trial therapy. I think that's the sweet spot for finding your goals. That's the basics.

Marisha: I think you got it all. And then we'll dive into the details of the case history and the oral mech and the speech sample and all of that in future episodes. We're also going to get to talk about perception tasks, which is super exciting. Can you give us a little sneak peek at what that is?

Lindsey: So basically perception tasks would be everybody has almost like a voice in your head of what a word should sound like, and so basically a perception task teases out whether or not a student can hear someone else's production or their own production, whether it's correct or not. I think it gives a great insight into their awareness, their phenology. I think it's definitely a missing piece for a lot of people, especially with the R sound, which is of course, everything I do now I bring it back to the R sound. But for speech sound disorders in general, I think it's important to include.

Marisha: Yeah. No, that's awesome. That gives us some information about how, in terms of progress we might be able to expect in therapy as well?

Lindsey: Yeah, I think so too. I like the option of if a student isn't stimulable yet, having things we can still work on to make them feel successful and to keep therapy productive, and spending a little bit more time on perception training I think helps with carryover in the long run too. I try to always incorporate from day one in therapy, and even in the assessment I look at it, just self awareness, self monitoring, and their ability to do that.

Marisha: Yeah, awesome. I'm excited to dive in even more on that topic. You also mentioned formal assessment, but we don't have an episode planned on formal assessment. So what are your thoughts and feedback around that?

Lindsey: I think they are helpful to know if a student qualifies, but they don't give you everything you need. Maybe I just have a limited exposure to formal assessments. I've mostly used the CAP and the Goldman Fristoe and I don't love either one of them. I know some assessments over qualify, some under qualify. I don't think they always do a good job of giving you the full picture of the student and their abilities, because there are some students who will pass with flying colors on the assessment, but then the second you get them in a conversation it all falls apart. So I think formal assessments have a place, but I think our informal assessment and our clinical judgment is much more important.

Marisha: Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad we got to touch on that. Super helpful. Can you give us an overview of, you see private clients, which is a little bit different than SLPs who are going through an evaluation in the schools-

Lindsey: Oh, for sure.

Marisha: ... or who are administering an evaluation in the schools. You listed the elements that you include, but let's say you're seeing a client for the first time, what would that workflow look like for you? You're seeing the client for the first time, what's the first thing that you do? Because I assume that we can't just jump into an oral mech exam. How long do you spend on your evaluations? What does that look like for you?

Lindsey: When I was in the clinic, an evaluation for a speech sound disorder, usually an hour face to face. Sometimes hour and a half. It just depends on the kid and what's going on. I really like sending the case history ahead of time for the parent to fill out because it gives me a chance to game plan, pull some tools that I think I'm going to want. I can figure out from the case history what formal assessment I think I'll need, and then if I see something that indicates a possible tongue thrust, then I would do a little feeding evaluation with that, because if they haven't entered in a lisp on an S, there probably is an immature swallow.

I would also just maybe highlight any red flags or a possible tongue tie or breathing airway issue, which is not my area. Please don't ask me a lot about that, I need to learn so much more. And just make note of any follow up questions, anything I wanted to dig more into with the parent, if I wasn't clear on something, because I feel it can give you such a good background. I liked having it ahead of time so I can prepare and get my head right for the assessment.

Then once they're inside, it could be different every time. But typically I would say, I would have the parent in there and if they can stay the whole time, great. If their kid's going to do better without, then we just start with going over the case history. Usually I would set the kid up with some activity that maybe I could use later. Maybe they're drawing a picture or something and we could use that as a conversational sample later. So we're being two birds, one stone. I would chat with the parent, get a sense for what their concerns are, and I feel like it's good to revisit some of these things in person because it can be such a different conversation. Who knows how they filled out that case history and what kind of rush they were in trying to get it to you? So try to ask open-ended questions and get a sense for what's going on.

Then I would probably do a conversation sample with the student so I could get a rough idea of what speech sounds I'm going to be focusing on. Hopefully during that we're building rapport because I'm not correcting, I'm just making either mental notes or jotting them down. Then I would probably go into an oral mech. Usually I would do that next. Then formal assessment. I feel like all throughout this whole thing, informal assessment is happening and I'm making notes to myself. Then we would move into a little bit of teaching and trial therapy. Then I say, "Goodbye, thank you so much." I'm kidding. Then you give recommendations, you give the run down to the parent.

Yeah, I try to give them a sense for, "All right, this is what I noticed. This is a general idea about what therapy is going to look like, either the goals that we're going to work on, I want you here once a week." We talk about therapy times. I try to always send them home with some homework.

Marisha: No, that's super helpful. I could imagine observing a session and seeing how that went. That's super helpful. Thank you, Lindsey.

Lindsey: Sure.

Marisha: Okay, so that is a wrap on our getting started tips and episodes. Stay tuned for episodes throughout the month where we'll dive more into all of the informal assessment tools, including perception tasks and dynamic assessment trial therapy. Then we'll wrap up at the end of the month with all sorts of making those recommendations and some tips to analyze what you find in your evaluation. Thank you Lindsey, and we'll be back next week.

Lindsey: Awesome, thank you.

Marisha: Thanks for listening to the SLP Now podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your SLP friends and don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episode sent directly to you. See you next time.

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This Week’s Episode: SLP Data Collection and How to Stay Organized This month we are going to discuss all things data. 🤓 We started out this series with the importance of probe data, when to take it, and why we take it. I’m excited to continue to share my organization strategies and data collection routine […]

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This Week’s Episode: How + Why I Collect Probe Data: This month we are going to discuss all things data. 🤓 We are going to start out this series with the importance of probe data, when to take it, and its importance. I’m excited to share my strategies and routine with you. Creating a framework […]

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This Week’s Episode: How to Increase Productivity with IEPS If you’ve been following along with this podcast series, I’m hoping that you’re starting to feel more productive and more confident with your therapy. We’ve discussed how to build your core materials, how to streamline your therapy planning, and how to efficiently streamline evaluations.

We will wrap up this month’s podcast series all about productivity by sharing some quick tips on how to streamline IEPs.

Let’s get productive! 🤓

How to Streamline IEPs ✓ Shift your mindset

Check out this blog post for more info: The Midset Shift for SLPs

✓ Map out your due dates

Check out this blog post for more ideas: How to Manage your Paperwork

✓Schedule time

☕️ I used to come in a little early so I could have uninterrupted time

🎧 Bring noise-canceling headphones

🙅🏻‍♀️ Put your “do not disturb” sign up

📝 Set goals

✓ Create a Checklist🍎 Write Goals: How to Write Goals

🍎 Gather handouts: Check out this blog post for important handouts: Must-Have handouts and Forms for SLPs

🍎 Gather probes/visuals/ Teaching strategies Assess

✓ **Create Templates

🍏** Speech Room News: Paperwork Short Cuts

🍏 Text Expander + Find and Replace: How I cut My Paperwork Time in Half

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This Week’s Episode: How to Increase Productivity with Evaluations If you’ve been following along with this podcast series, I’m hoping that you’re starting to feel more productive and more confident with your therapy. We’ve discussed how to build your core materials and how to streamline your therapy planning.

I am so excited as we continue this month’s podcast series all about productivity! In this episode of the SLP Now Podcast, I share some quick tips on how to effectively and efficiently streamline evaluations.

Let’s get on with the productivity! 🤓

Streamline Evaluation Strategies 1. Create a Checklist

Option 1: Printed and/ or laminate

Option 2: Digital Task Management Systems

Asana: Check out this blog post: How to Conquer your Task List Using Asana

ClickUP

2. Test Templates

Save your own template! (use a google doc)

Steps to Build Your Evaluation Templates

Set up a document. Type the main categories in your evaluation report (e.g., reason for referral, medical history, etc.)
Go through a completed evaluation. Copy and paste the sections into your template document.
Replace student names/pronouns with symbols (e.g., * for student name, for possessive pronouns, * for subject pronouns).

Bonus Tip #1 Collaborate with other SLPs to build your templates. 🤝 Speech Therapy Test Descriptions: Home Sweet Home

3. Text Expander

Create multiple text expander shortcuts and make yourself a cheat sheet by naming them after acronyms.

4. Use “Find and Replace”

Control or Command F > Search for. the”***” and replace it with the student’s name and pronoun.

5. Organize the paperwork

Hanging organizer (amazon link)

Additional Blog Posts Conquer Caseload Management

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This Week’s Episode: How to Increase Productivity by Streamlining Therapy Planning I’m am so excited as we continue this month’s podcast series all about productivity! Last week we wrapped up talking about how to build your core materials and this post will focus on productivity by building a routine and planning for therapy ahead of time.

In this podcast episode, I share some tips on how I was able to focus on a therapy routine and how it truly helped me become more efficient and productive with time. Your future SLP self will thank you.

Ready to streamline your therapy and get it planned in as little as 10 minutes a week? OK! Let’s get to it!

Streamline Therapy Planning The Importance of a Therapy Routine Step 1: Check-In

Step 2: Teach

Step 3: Practice

Step 4: Wrap Up

For more information, check out this blog post: Therapy Planning Bootcamp: Revamping your Therapy Routine

Literacy-Based Therapy This therapy framework was such a game-changer for me. It’ll take a few minutes to gather your materials, but then you’ll be ready to hit the ground running!

I plan a month-long unit to work through 5 steps of the Literacy-Based Therapy Framework.

Step 1 (Pre-Story Knowledge Activation)

Step 2 (Reading)

Step 3 (Post Story Comprehension)

Step 4 (Skill Practice)

Step 5 (Parallel Story)

Additional Links:

Check out this blog post: Planning Speech Therapy Evidence-Based Interventions Join the Literacy-Based Therapy Challenge for FREE

Check out our Therapy Planning Bootcamp – Easy & Efficient Therapy Plans

Free 14 day SLP Now Membership trial: Academy Courses Included

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This Week’s Episode: How to Increase Productivity by Building your Core Materials for Speech-Language Pathologists I’m am so excited to start this month’s podcast series all about productivity! Let’s be honest, sometimes we get so wrapped up in all of the materials that we’ve gathered over the years and we fall down a rabbit hole.

I was sort of “forced” to build my core materials when I switched jobs and move out of state. The school that I moved to didn’t have many materials available. There were some… but not many. At first, it was terrifying but it quickly became eye-opening once I realized that my productivity was much higher once I built my core materials and didn’t have to shuffle through extra “fluff”.

In this podcast episode, I share some tips on how I was able to rebuild my core materials and discard others. Taking the time to build your core materials library will save you so much time! Your future SLP self will thank you. Ready to dejunk and find a good balance of core materials for your caseload?

Alrighty! Let’s get to it!

Build your Core Materials Taking the time to build your core materials library will save you so much time! Your future SLP self will thank you.

What do you need to target your students’ goals ✓Map out your caseload

Click here to download your FREE Caseload at a Glance.

✓ What goals are you targeting? And how many students have those goals?

✓ Make 3 copies for each of the main categories that you’ll need

✓ Prioritize. We can’t do everything at once. If we can see which goals are more prevalent, we can make strategic decisions.

Probes/Progress Monitoring ✓ More on this next month!

✓ My strategy is to make sure I have a probe ready to go to measure progress when I write the goal

Visuals ✓Organize them in an accordion folder

✨YOU ✨ ✓continue building

✓ Research summaries (included in the SLP Now Membership)

✓ Watch Academy courses (included in the SLP Now Membership)

✓ Read journal articles

✓ Read the Informed SLP

✓ Attend courses like Therapy Planning Bootcamp: Building Your Core Materials

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I presented on burnout at the SLP Summit, and the goal of the presentation was to share strategies to help SLPs thrive!

Defining Burnout We started the conversation by defining burnout. (We need to be clear on what we’re dealing with first, right?!)

This is the definition that we worked with:

Burnout is what we experience when we face too much chronic stress over an extended period. It’s characterized by three attributes: exhaustion, cynicism, and a lack of productivity, all at the same time. – Chris Bailey

There were over 2,000 SLPs who joined us live, and burnout is definitely something that is rampant in our field!

Triggers for Burnout We then broke down the 6 main triggers for burnout.

Six main areas of your work serve as a breeding ground for chronic stress. The worse you are in these areas, the more likely you are to burn out. – Christina Maslach

The six areas are…

Workload
Control
Reward
Community
Fairness
Values

During my presentation, I asked SLPs to rate how much they were impacted by these triggers. We used a 1-10 rating scale. A rating of 1 means that the trigger doesn’t have an impact on the SLP’s burnout, a rating of 10 means that the trigger has a debilitating impact on the SLP’s burnout.

We also did a ton of brainstorming and came up with strategies to address these triggers.

Let’s take a minute to dive into each of the triggers, shall we?

1. Workload Workload was rated as a strong burnout trigger (a score of 7-10 on the rating scale) by 60.2% of SLPs. The average rating was 6.6.

This was rated as the strongest burnout trigger.

How is this showing up for SLPs? “The day is not enough to do all the duties we have been given (IEPs, evaluations, transfers, referrals, progress reports, billing, meetings, therapy planning, bus duty, etc.).”

“It’s the extra stuff that doesn’t relate to our work but takes so much of our time. Things like staff meetings, department meetings, Educator Effectiveness, etc.”

“What stresses me the most is that I don’t have time to plan during my planning time. My planning time is taken up with logging, IEP’s, progress reports, billing, etc.”

“The referrals have been non-stop since returning to in-person learning.”

“I got 5 SLI referrals today.”

“I had to explain to my EC teacher this year how he gets a sub if he’s out but I need to make-up the visits to hit frequency!”

“An added stress this month is the number of make-up sessions I will have for students who are in quarantine… So many!”

“I don’t have time to go to the bathroom or to go out to get lunch!”

What are some ideas to work on addressing this trigger? Mindset

“I shifted my mindset. Even though the Medicaid billing is a pain, it makes it possible to go to PD presentations.”

Here’s a blog post all about mindset, if you’re inclined to dive in more!

Therapy Strategies

“I am a big fan of single item therapy. I plan one activity for the entire day and adapt it to the groups (instead of using something different for each group). I used lots of literacy-based therapy.”

I also offer a totally free 5-day challenge to walk you through literacy-based therapy. It includes quick, to-the-point, 5-minute training videos and tools to help you streamline your therapy planning!

Paperwork Strategies

“I schedule time for paperwork in my day.”

“I blocked out one day a week for meetings, evaluations, paperwork, and consultation.”

“I create templates with colleagues for the different documents we need to fill in.”

“I created Google Forms for teacher/parent questionnaires. It saves a lot of time!”

“I have benefitted so much by moving to electronic notes.”

“I write my note while I’m with the student and bill the same day.”

Service Delivery Strategies

“I provide classroom interventions.”

“The multitiered approach can help with this, as long as the admins are on board. Lesley Sylvan has a practical book about this.”

“My district does therapy the first three weeks of the month, and we use the 4th week (if there is one) for make-ups due to SLP absence and school activities (like benchmark testing). We do not make up time for student absences.” ASHA provides some resources, in case you’d like some more detail/clarification on this!

“I reduced the number of weeks I see students yearly. My time is written X minutes/year. I’m doing 25 weeks instead of 30. This allowed me to take assessment weeks, have time for IEPs/report writing, etc. The speech team got together and made this decision in response to increased caseload.”

Advocate

“Put on your big girl pants and speak up for yourself. Don’t worry about being a pain. You are not! You (and your students!) are important.”

“I advocate my yourself. I learned how to say ‘NO’ to the things I can’t handle.”

“I was successful in decreasing my workload by advocating for myself and my students. I created a schedule with lunch, planning, and evaluation time first, then added the students. When I could not fit any other students, I let the director know that those other students did not have an SLP. I was able to get part-time assistance, and I was eventually able to get a full-time SLP. Life has been much better now that we have 2 SLPs at one school.”

“I document my workload on my calendar and fill in the ASHA workload calculator. I show it to my supervisor and cross-reference union agreements.”

“I started putting my regular weekly therapy schedule and blocks for evals and paperwork into my Outlook calendar so my admin can easily see what I’m doing when.”

“I document how much overtime I am working and what work I am doing outside of work. I advocate for myself when asked to take on more. I use data to show why workload is not manageable.”

“I shared with our Board of Education that students were missing 40% of their sessions because I was having to cancel to do evaluations, screenings, IEP meetings. Based on this data, they hired another SLP.”

“When communicating with administration, I present a solution–rather than just stating the problem.”

“Working in a district with a strong union has definitely been really great for having a reasonable workload.”

“Reach out to your LEA for support, and go up the chain from there.”

Ideas for Support

“My district hires SLPAs to support high workload.”

“We have secretaries that do a lot of the non-skilled paperwork end for us.”

“In my district, we have an admin who handles IEP paperwork and scheduling.”

“We need substitutes. I feel so much stress when I think about if I have to be out for any reason, even if I’m sick.”

“I worked as a contractor in a nonpublic private school. The therapists did the therapy notes and the SLPA finalized the billing.”

Set Boundaries

“Don’t do your work at home at night, weekends, and breaks. If it doesn’t get done, maybe admin will get the picture. We have to stop working on our own time to meet deadlines or keep in compliance.”

“I have stopped bringing ANYTHING home. Now, I am telling parents the caseload reality.”

“SLP’s are not responsible for making up missed sessions at school; your district is responsible. You’ve earned those personal and sick days! Our state organization recently stressed this!”

“I don’t let myself get behind on billing. I am willing to stay later one night a week, but I set my limit there.”

“I never left school before Medicaid billing was complete. There was no way I was going to bring that home. I did bits and pieces during the day.”

2. Control Control was rated as a strong burnout trigger (a score of 7-10 on the rating scale) by 31% of SLPs. The average rating was 5.1.

How is this showing up for SLPs? Here’s what some of us are struggling with…

Administrative Support/Understanding

“Two new administrators think they know my job better than I do after 30 years. THEY DO NOT! I used to have a much higher caseload and workload, but certain administrators over the years has made many of our lives intolerable.”

“They think they know my job better than me, because I’ve been over 25 years. New admin just has their own judgments and ideas that they are implementing on everyone, regardless of student need.”

“In terms of playing a part in deciding or weighing in on determining district policies, I feel like our SLPs have very little autonomy.”

“It feels like the district bends to parents WAY more than they listen to data, reason, etc. This can be frustrating.”

Ethics

“I’m not able to say ‘no’ to new clients/diagnoses that might be out of my wheelhouse.”

“I work in non-public schools, so there are strict rules that all students are seen once a week for 30 minutes, all pull out and group.”

Scheduling Constraints

“I am having trouble with control because I am preschool inclusion. I rely on trying to fit my students’ needs around the teacher’s daily schedule, and I can’t always get my minutes in due to classroom expectations.”

“I make my own schedule, but there are so many times in the day I’m not allowed to pull students. ALL students have core classes at the same time.”

“I get frustrated that I am scheduled for IEP meetings, even when I have the time blocked out on my ‘public’ calendar for my sessions and district meetings.”

“If my day is completely scheduled with conferences and seeing students, when exactly am I supposed to do paperwork during work?”

“When I worked in private practice, I didn’t have control. They made sure I was always at 85% productivity. (I was seeing clients 34 out of 40 hours.) They made my schedule, and I had no control. They would schedule me 4-5 hours back to back without a break.”

Teacher Training

“I hate having to attend all-day teacher training ‘just because.’ I had reports to write, calls to make, tests to score, therapy planning to do, etc. I feel like I’m sitting there wasting a full day bored and frustrated.”

But we do have a few wins!

“Control is really the only positive for me. I appreciate the flexibility of my job.”

“In terms of my daily work and service delivery modes and methods, I have plenty of autonomy.”

“I’m lucky to be able to create my own schedule and it’s helpful to create time to schedule make-up sessions, paperwork, or meetings.”

What are some ideas to work on addressing this trigger? “I take advantage of the opportunity to make my own schedule and determine when my breaks are.”

“Blocking out times during the day made me feel I had more control over documentation and other chores.”

“At the end of the day, I post a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on my door, turn out the lights, and get the paperwork done for that day. If teachers come to the door, I leave a message on my sign to make an appointment to speak with me.”

“I strictly manage my caseload so that only those who are in need of therapeutic intervention qualify. Others receive some other type of indirect intervention or consultation. I do this while I keep my fellow SLPs in my district in mind so that I don’t do anything that could potentially increase their caseloads if children move or are assigned to other schools.”

“We have to remember that we have some control over our own caseload. I am trying to be more thoughtful when writing IEPs to recommend services that will be effective and workable, rather than just the traditional recommendations. I am doing a lot more push-in and teacher consultations for students who are close to being discharged. We are the experts and we need to be more comfortable presenting evidence for the service delivery models that are best for our students. Co-teaching and collaborating with other specialists in the school district has also been helpful. ”

3. Reward Reward was rated as a strong burnout trigger (a score of 7-10 on the rating scale) by 38.5% of SLPs. The average rating was 5.5.

How is this showing up for SLPs? We were a little quieter on this trigger, but here are some of the comments related to Reward:

“The pay is stupidly low. Our district is offering a pay raise to subs and we have tons of contract workers who make more than we do, but no raise for us.”

“It just feels like I am not able to do anything well because of being pulled in so many different directions.”

“I got a nice note from a teacher after a meeting yesterday. It was so wonderful!”

What are some ideas to work on addressing this trigger? “Because we had a separate group for SLPs, our teacher’s association negotiated for us with our input. We had a separate salary scale which reflected our level of education.”

“Join the teacher’s union. Several of our SLPs threatened to quit and now we have ASHA dues and licensure paid. We also get reimbursement for Medicaid billing.”

“I like to send a quick positive email to teachers about a student while the student is still in my room. It takes no time and the student, teacher, and I all feel good.”

“I post those positive notes and pictures in front of me on my bulletin board to remind me that I am appreciated.”

“I keep a folder/envelope of all the positive emails and cards from parents, drawings from students, emails from students, present and former. I refer to these at really challenging times. I have some really supportive families and students in the midst of all these challenges and that’s where I choose to focus when things are difficult. I have been working for 37+ years as an SLP.”

4. Community Community was rated as a strong burnout trigger (a score of 7-10 on the rating scale) by 27.5% of SLPs. The average rating was 4.8.

How is this showing up for SLPs? This is clearly a need for many of us…

“I’m the only SLP in my small district.”

“I work at three schools, so community is a tough one for me.”

“Who has time to foster relationships at work when we are working through lunch and every other minute of the day?”

“Working in telepractice in the schools keeps me really separate from others and the sense of community is totally lost.”

However, there were far more positive comments related to Community:

“I love my students. They can make me laugh any day!”

“The community is the part that makes the job worth it for me. I have some great relationships with my coworkers and parents.”

“I get great satisfaction from the connections I have with my students and being able to engage them in a variety of ways. I also enjoy building relationships with the families.”

“I’ve had more parents thanking us for sticking with teaching with all this stuff going on. That has been nice.”

“YES! I love my teachers and they love me! They learned how to implement strategies, and I learned about their curriculum.”

“I share an office with another SLP and we are constantly collaborating and bouncing ideas off of each other.”

“There are 7 SLPs at my school, and I’m the newest one. Never have I felt like an outsider. They have accepted me with open arms, and the teachers have followed suit.”

“If it weren’t for my fellow SLP’s at work, I don’t think any of us would make it through a week. I am lucky to work with 5 other supportive SLPs.”

“We have 9 SLPs in a pod in my school, and we support each other emotionally and professionally. It really helps to have people to talk to.”

“The community is one of the main things keeping me in the school setting. Even when I am on speech island, it has way more bridges than when I worked in SNFs with a 90% productivity ‘requirement.'”

What are some ideas to work on addressing this trigger? Try New Service Delivery Models

“Co-treatment and push-in model approach helps build a positive community.”

“Push-in really helps teachers learn what we do and value our knowledge. They model what we’ve done, which is a win-win.”

Interns

“I take interns whenever I can. It’s really nice to see everything with fresh eyes.”

Be Intentional

“If you want support, you have to be supportive of others. Take time to say hello, catch up, and offer to help with a simple task.”

“Eating in the staff lounge helped me.”

“I make sure to have lunch with my special ed teachers to just talk about life 2-3 times a week.”

“Phuong Palifox made the recommendation to us to give student ‘shout outs’ regularly. Just 1 per day can make a huge difference in your relationship with parents!”

“When I am feeling overwhelmed and struggling to connect, I take a step back and think of one simple thing that I can do or work on with just one student that could make a difference. OR I just pick a day or two to just HAVE FUN with my students. That often does the trick for me!”

What Districts Are Doing

“Our speech department meets once monthly for ‘What Works Wednesdays.’ It gives us the opportunity to share successes, needs, and ideas.”

“My team meets every Wednesday for 1.5 hours to discuss at-risk or current students we support. Definitely a time to feel connected.”

“My large district is divided into regions. This helps to make our team feel smaller and helps us to build community. Our SLP team also has a Facebook group that we sometimes use to problem solve or to check in with each other.”

“I’m thinking of moving to a larger district that has more SLPs. I have heard that they get together for PD and get to know each other.”

“I was in a small district where I was the only SLP for K-8. I collaborated with other SLP in the high school sending district. It was great for support and ideas.”

5. Fairness Fairness was rated as a strong burnout trigger (a score of 7-10 on the rating scale) by 38.4% of SLPs. The average rating was 5.5.

This was rated as the second strongest burnout trigger.

How is this showing up for SLPs? Being Seen

“I feel like we are treated like they want us to be isolated robots with the workload. Do therapy, quickly document and that is all. But, you know that is not all we do.”

“The School District does not seem to care and is unwilling to work with us.”

“Administrative decisions do not feel fair. The way they treat professional teams is sometimes not equitable. Some professionals are expected to do more workload-wise compared to others. Sometimes the pay is different, too.”

“I feel my coworkers trust my judgment, which is nice! But they also think that I ‘have it easy’, which feels really isolating.”

Unfair Expectations

“Our headstart has 27 evaluations within 30 days, with all of the meetings after school and deadlines within 40 days. No other SLP in the district is required to do IEPs after school!”

“My biggest stressor is the fairness aspect. I don’t understand why admin thinks SLPs need to be trained in a 100 different educational programs. At no time will I be teaching math…”

“I’ve been pulled from providing services multiple times to be a teacher’s aide. It’s not fair to the kids or myself as I then had to complete make-ups.”

Space

“Fairness is my biggest trigger. I would love to have adequate office/therapy space at a school site. Just once. Not a leftover conference room that is shared with others.”

“SLPs are often thought of last. We work in closets and have to work around programs like reading intervention, PE, music therapy, etc. We have to be the most flexible. It doesn’t always feel fair.”

“Our general education counselors have their own offices, while all of the special education service providers have to juggle space and share. It makes us feel less respected and less valued.”

Adequate Services

“I disagree with placement decisions where severely cognitively impaired children are not getting adequate services. Teachers and SLPS feel our opinion doesn’t count with administration, even when we have the data to support our views.”

Billing

“I definitely struggle with the fact that we have to bill Medicaid for our district to get reimbursement for services, yet I don’t get any of that money to better serve my students (e.g., materials, professional development).”

“Our Medicaid reimbursement funds go to pay administrators.”

What are some ideas to work on addressing this trigger? “I have found that finding something good to say about the people who may make my job more difficult (and sharing that with them!) can help put the other person in a place to work on the change in dynamic.”

“Ask for what you need. Communicate! Share data and offer potential solutions.”

“I feel I gained a lot of respect by being open to doing staff training and allowing for questions/shadowing.”

“I stopped being an employee of the school systems. There is a lot more freedom in working for a therapy company.”

6. Values Values was rated as a strong burnout trigger (a score of 7-10 on the rating scale) by 26.8% of SLPs. The average rating was 4.7.

Many of us still connect with our work at a deeper level, which is great news!

How is this showing up for SLPs? Quality of Services / Making a Difference

“I feel like the students are NOT getting what they should be getting!”

“I’m guessing those that rated value as high did so because when our caseloads are super high, we tend to feel like we are not helping anyone.”

“I have been doing this for over 40 years. I love doing therapy and I still love planning and trying to come up with new and motivational activities. It is just that with the caseloads, it is not the quality I would like it to be and it is frustrating.”

“If I have 8 kinds in a group working on different skills, am I really providing FAPE? That can really weigh on me when the caseloads are high.”

However, a lot of SLPs shared this as a strength…

“I love my students and I love what I do! The therapy is what I love!”

“I’ve always felt our profession is valued and brings much to others.”

“Helping my students find their voice is my passion, so I always try to go back to that purpose in my job.”

“Seeing a child succeed and have the ‘AH-HA moment(s)’ is REALLY WONDERFUL! Enjoy that moment and savor it!”

“I love to learn. I will never learn everything in the field of speech-language pathology. I also love that I find people in my ‘tribe’ every place I’ve ever worked.”

What are some ideas to work on addressing this trigger? “I remind myself of why I chose this field in the first place.”

“I find small joys and build from them.”

“I do a daily gratitude journal.”

“I have a folder with all of the cards, notes, drawings, etc. of gratitude I’ve been given over the years. I look at it on the bad days and am reminded of my why!”

“I moved to more of a 3:1 model last year. This year, I am able to see more of my students in the gen ed setting. This allows me to help with generalization and carryover more and allows me to connect more with the staff and help them understand how important what I do is.”

“I developed a private Facebook group for my staff of SLPs to share resources, ideas, and success stories. It was clear that it wasn’t for complaints. Those needed to be handled in a different manner.”

“We need to bring it back to our students every day. They are why we do it. Emphasizing gratitude is important.”

“Making more of a connection with my co-workers and creating a ‘team’ environment has helped me to feel more value as an SLP.”

What now? We clearly have our work cut out for us! We have a lot of room for growth.

One of the big takeaways from the presentation is to focus on what we can control. We may be able to take some action to address the triggers, but there are some things that we won’t be able to change.

Here’s an exercise that may help…

Take a moment to jot down all of the things that you are struggling with at work.

Which one has the biggest impact on you?

There’s almost always something we can do. We may not be able to fix the problem right away, but is there something we can do to move in the right direction or to decrease the impact?

Check out the suggestions above for some “problem-specific” inspiration.

If there isn’t a solution that makes sense right now, keep reading!

Bonus points if you wrap up this activity by jotting down what you do appreciate about your job.

What can we control? We may or may not be able to control specific triggers, but we can control our mindset and how much we let these triggers impact us!

I know, I know! This may feel like a silly suggestion when you’re struggling with a really big issue. How in the world will silly little habits like breathing help me with my massive caseload?

Here are some thoughts that SLPs shared in the chat:

“Self-care is so important. I think back to my earlier years about all the worry and anxieties on writing reports/doing IEPs. Just not worth it. Even the simple things (like eating lunch and going to the bathroom) are part of self-care.”

“I was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer in September of this school year. I 100% believe that the high level of stress at work as an SLP contributed to this. Self-care is not selfish.”

“I did not take care of myself during my CF year, and now I have an autoimmune disease. You have to take care of yourself or you end up paying the price. I learned this the hard way.”

“I was forced to deal with burnout this past month. I got so sick I had to have surgery. All related back to stress.”

“I remember that as much as I love what I do, I want my own life. I didn’t sacrifice and give my life to this career. I know what I’m worth and I have to remember that districts/jobs/clinics need us more than we need them. There are ALWAYS jobs and we have to recognize and accept our own worth and value.”

If we don’t take care of ourselves, how can we expect to keep showing up for our students (and in our lives)?

So what could this look like?

Create a menu of options for yourself. What can you do…

– In the moment (e.g., take a deep breath, turn on some music, think of one thing you’re grateful for)

– When you have a few minutes (e.g., take a walk, meditate, watch a funny YouTube video)

– When you have time to invest (e.g., get a massage, read a book, meet up with friends, take a yoga class, go on vacation)

During the presentation, I shared lots of research on how these types of activities can significantly reduce your stress levels.

Here are some other ideas shared by SLPs:

“I realized changing my perspective has been really beneficial for my mental health.”

“Write and rate goals for yourself just like we do for students. One year my goal was to eat lunch every day.”

“Take all of your personal days. It helps a lot!”

“I stop when I’m too stressed. I take a couple of minutes and put a meditation on my computer while I clean between students. It helped calm me a bit.”

“I actually scheduled bathroom and short breaks in my schedule (with my admin’s encouragement).”

“I downloaded the Balance app on my phone.”

“I love the Piano Yoga playlist on Spotify.”

“I used to keep the word BREATHE on my laptop to remind me to breathe and relax as I worked on my computer. I had a parent ask me at a conference when he saw it if the word was for them. I told them if it helped, go for it!”

Making Changes Several SLPs shared that they changed their circumstances!

These ideas may not be doable for everyone, but here are some options:

Reducing Hours

“I reduced my work hours to maintain my sanity. Totally worth it even though getting by on a little less money.”

“I could no longer do the job full-time. I switched to part-time. It was the only way I felt like I could serve my students the way I wanted and also have some work/life balance. The difference in my mental health and job satisfaction has been significant.”

Changing Settings

“I prefer the flexibility of private practice. Part of also being a good SLP is knowing when to say “no.” I have a waitlist going and have just learned I can only take on what I can take on. I have also decided to get less pay and be subcontracted; this means someone else does the billing to various funding sources for me. I just submit my hours for each client. That alone has helped my stress.”

Several SLPs have also switched to teletherapy.

Changing Schools

I didn’t see any specific comments about this, but it is clear that some districts are more supportive than others. Don’t be afraid to explore other options! If you are interviewing at a district, ask to connect with some of the SLPs. This can be a great opportunity to get a feel for what the unique strengths/challenges are for that particular district. No district will be perfect, but you may be able to find a better fit for you and your needs.

Wrapping Up Whew! That’s a lot!

Remember, meaningful progress is supposed to be slow.

Pick one strategy to start with.

Pick a strategy that feels easy and that you can easily stick to.

You’ll be amazed to see how big of an impact one little thing can have!

You’ve got this, SLP! 💛

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This is a guest blog post by Jennie, a school-based SLP, all about speech therapy materials for preschool and early intervention.

Like with any population, it is so important to have the proper tools to create therapy sessions that are engaging, fun, and meaningful. Below are some of my favorite toys, books, and apps to use with the early childhood demographic. It is crucial to find the right tools in order to be a more confident and successful speech-language pathologist, but I want to emphasize that you don’t need all these things. I find that intentionality and simplicity is key in order to create purposeful and effective therapy.

Books I believe shared book reading is so important for our young students as it sets the tone for not only future reading success, but exposing our students to words that they would not have learned in everyday conversation (Montag, 2015).

Sandra Boynton Boynton has a myriad of popular books including Moo, Baa, La La La!, Blue Hat, Green Hat, and Barnyard Dance. These books are repetitive, minimal in text and pictures, and overall fun and engaging for the student. That makes these books ideal for targeting basic wh questions, requesting, labeling, and early speech sounds.
The Old Lady Series This series is fantastic for the students who can’t seem to sit still for a story! It is highly engaging and ideal for working on sentence formulation, retelling, and sequencing due to the story’s repetitive nature. There is a book for almost every season, holiday, and theme!
How to Catch Series This series is directed more towards older preschool students. Similar to the Old Lady series, there is a book for an array of holidays and themes. My students love the colorful pictures and following along to the humorous plot while I get to target rhyming, answering wh questions, sequencing, and vocabulary.
Lift the Flap Books There is something just so appealing about lift the flap books. They are extremely interactive and ideal for our students with trouble maintaining attention. These books are also great for incorporating core words such as ‘open, look, turn, find.’ It allows the student to learn by giving them the opportunity to explore. Where’s Spot? as well as Campbell Books are popular books that are ideal for targeting prepositional phrases, naming, and describing.
If You Give… This series by Laura Numeroff is an old favorite. There are a variety of books, and the beautiful pictures are terrific for helping our preschoolers to recall characters and events in the story. They also allow you to incorporate sequencing, describing, cause and effect, and increasing sentence length.

Apps As a traveling SLP, I only have so much room in my therapy cart. Although I prefer physical materials for my students, I like to use apps to fill in any gaps I might have in my collection. Below are apps that are affordable, functional, and enjoyable to use.

My Play Home (FREE for the basic version, $3.99 for the full version) If you don’t have enough room to carry a dollhouse around, here is a digital version! This app is incredibly interactive and brilliant for a range of language goals including but not limited to pronouns, turn-taking, following directions, role-playing, sequencing, increasing sentence length, and vocabulary. Doll houses are perfect tools for our early childhood students because they are functional and versatile. My favorite feature of this app is the ability to mirror the app on two devices. This means that you and your student or more than one student can play together within the same app.
Toca Boca ($3.99) Toca Boca makes a variety of apps that your students will undoubtedly enjoy. I personally love using Toca Kitchen, Toca Hair Salon, and Toca World. With Toca Kitchen, you’ll find yourself targeting simple and complex directions, pronouns, commenting, and sequencing while your student feeds an array of questionable foods to their character. Toca Hair Salon will allow your student to be in charge as a hairdresser while also targeting verbs, turn-taking, and labeling. Out of all the Toca Boca apps I have, Toca World would be my favorite because it allows you to have a variety of locations (e.g. farm, stable, school, hospital, etc.) all in one place.
Libby (FREE) If you have a library card then this app can be useful to you. Libby is a free app that allows the user to borrow free ebooks, digital audiobooks, and magazines from your local library. This app is ideal for teletherapists, traveling SLPs, or for someone who needs a particular book when even Amazon Prime isn’t fast enough.
Articulation Station ($4-8 per sound or $60 for the full version) This is an articulation app that is comprehensive with beautiful images, easy ways to track data, a voice recording feature for auditory feedback, and the ability to use in a group session with up to six students. Articulation Station can also be used in language therapy as well! This tool is a great asset to a traveling SLP (no need to carry articulation cards) or when you have multiple students within a group.

Need additional apps? Check out this blog post!

Toys 10. Farm Set An old favorite that not only targets basic speech sounds but also allows you to target functional vocabulary, grammatical concepts (such as plural tenses and present progressives), asking and answering wh questions, prepositions, and increasing sentence length. I personally like to have an array of animals, a few farmers, and other items such as tractors, hay bales, and fences. I also keep a few animals that do not belong on the farm to work on negation and categories.

Play Food Set There are a ton of play food sets out there. I prefer the ones where you can cut the food with a play knife and that comes in its own container, which makes it great to travel with! Bonus points if you can find one that has a sink and stove top to target even more language and articulation opportunities.
Puzzles I prefer wooden puzzles because they are durable, come with fun colors, and our little ones can hold them so much better. Puzzles are ideal for working on turn taking, naming, answering -wh questions, and sequencing. I find myself using them to reinforce articulation trials as well!
PlayDoh How could you not have PlayDoh in your therapy toolkit? Our students with little hands might have a difficult time opening the lid to the PlayDoh which will create a fantastic opportunity for initiating communication. This tool is not only rich in language opportunities, but is fantastic for targeting specific speech sounds such as /k/ or s-blends. For example, you can have your student cut, squeeze, or smash the PlayDoh.
Pirate Treasure Chest by Learning Resources This toy pairs perfectly with mini articulation objects or Mini Brand toys. The student will have the best time locking and unlocking the treasure chests, as well as sorting and matching the trinkets included. I get more natural and spontaneous conversations with my students using this combination of toys.
Cosmic Soda Vending Machine A random little find from Five Below that my students absolutely love! You can target an array of articulation sounds with keywords like coin, soda, machine, cherry, orange, and grape. But fair warning…this toy is LOUD. Feel free to keep the batteries out or put tape over the speaker to muffle the sound.

These are just a few of my favorite therapy materials for the early childhood population. I value quality over quantity when it comes to my therapy materials. I love materials that are easy to travel with, simple to set up, and can be used in multiple ways. Now it’s your turn! What are your favorite therapy materials? Share in the comments below!

References Montag, J. L., Jones, M. N., & Smith, L. B. (2015). The Words Children Hear: Picture Books and the Statistics for Language Learning. Psychological Science, 26(9), 1489–1496.

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This is a guest blog post by Monica, a school-based SLP, all about tips to implement literacy-based therapy for students with SLI.

Where to Start If you’re looking for where to start with your students that need additional support for literacy-based therapy, this blog post is right up your alley. I’ll be going over how I modify literacy-based therapy for students with specific language impairment/speech-language impairment (SLI).

First, I will go over some recent research really quickly! It’s important to know where these suggestions are coming from.

Pico et al. (2021) just released a meta-analysis of narrative language interventions. This article had the conclusion that “findings from this corpus of studies suggest that measurable and lasting improvements in macrostructure and microstructure elements of narrative production can result from a variety of interventions even when provided in relatively small dosage.” They also found that many different types of interventions were successful including “manualized and/or scripted curriculum, explicit teaching of story grammar, and verbal and visual prompts.” The interventions included children with “diverse learner characteristics”.

My takeaway from this article is that it isn’t HOW we’re using contextualized narrative intervention; it’s that we’re just using it in the first place. This gives me the green light to keep modifying narrative therapy to support my caseload in a way that is individualized for my student’s unique needs. That’s what EBP is all about anyway, right?

I also reviewed two articles specifically studying children with specific language impairment. Both articles outlined methods that did not teach all of the story grammar elements in one lesson.

📕 Gilliam and Gilliam (2016) “Narrative Discourse Intervention for School-Aged Children with Language Impairment”

This study introduced story grammar one by one in individual lessons highlighting the “causal connection that exists between them” when teaching them (“e.g., He ran because he was afraid the bear would eat him”).

📗 Hessling and Schulele (2020) “Individualized Narrative Intervention for School-Age Children With Specific Language Impairment”

This study used individualized sessions to target the story elements that students had difficulty with and paired them with coordinating elements. For example, if a student struggled with the “character” element, they paired it with feelings. After that, they would move on to another element after they were confident the student understood that element.

Now, on to how to shape narrative-based lessons for your students with SLI!

How do I scaffold the literacy-based therapy framework for my students? Research has shown that you can teach story grammar before (Gillam & Gillam 2016) you start putting events together or during (Spencer & Petersen 2020). Use your clinical judgment to choose what works best for your caseload!

Gillam and Gillam (2016) outlined having students learn story grammar parts first before targeting retell with the story grammar elements. I tend to lean towards this method because students with SLI “often have deficits in auditory memory and verbal working memory” (Hessling & Schuele, 2020). During these sessions, you’re gauging and scaffolding supports for a student’s working memory and also adding extra vocabulary exposure.

How to Adjust Literacy-Based Therapy for SLI Students ➡️ Activate pre-story knowledge with what makes sense for your students. I use songs, videos, and play therapy. If we’re doing a book about penguins, we might watch a video about penguins as we describe them (pre-teach vocabulary), talk about what we already know, and act like penguins.

➡️ Next, you can make a decision here to teach story grammar first, or to teach it while you work on sequencing/retelling based on what works best for your caseload. If you are pre-teaching story grammar, complete that step before reading the story.

➡️ Do a book walk and make predictions based on the title and cover page. You can chart your predictions on a story grammar graphic organizer.

➡️ Use shared reading strategies and point out story grammar elements as you are reading. In later stages, you can have the students identify it using gestures or verbally (Spencer et. al., 2015). Then, have your students sequence/retell with the supports that work for your students (ex: acting it out, retelling with a story grammar visual). If your students need extra support, you can chart the story grammar elements while you are reading.

➡️. After you’re done reading you can go back to your story grammar graphic organizer and fill out more details. When you look at it from this perspective you can see how the supports that you put in place and then take away are working memory supports.

➡️ After reading the book and retelling the story, you can work on other goals like expanding sentences and describing.

➡️ Last but not least, create a parallel story giving as much support as needed for your students. If this is a difficult task for your students, you can create the parallel story together until your students can do this without support.

Here’s a link to a free literacy-based planner to help you plan and organize all of your activities!

What if my students aren’t ready to learn all of the story grammar elements? You can adjust how many story grammar elements you teach.

Sometimes I may only start with 3-4 story grammar parts (character, problem, plan/attempt, solution/consequence) and build from there. Spencer & Petersen (2020) suggest that at a minimum episodes will include the “problem, attempt, and consequence”.

What if my students need support with temporal words? After students are able to put 3-4 story grammar elements in order, I’ll switch to building up to using temporal words independently. I use lots of modeling and visuals!

I adapt all of the SLP Now materials to fit my needs. There was a new update to include simple retell pictures and sentence icons so that you can support your whole caseload!

Here’s an example of how to do this with SLP Now materials. We will use Room on the Broom as our story.

✓Do any pre-story activities you want!

✓Go on a book walk and predict what might happen in the story.

✓You don’t have to read the story word for word! I may scaffold a story and just describe the pictures and what’s happening for some of my students.

✓After going on a book walk, we read the story.

✓For the retell we talk about how first there was a witch (the character).

✓Next, she flew into the sky (setting).

✓Then, she had lots of animals on her broomstick and it broke (problem).

✓Last, she made a new broomstick in a cauldron (plan/consequence).

Adjust the retell for how much support your students need. They may need you to just model it at first. You can use pictures from the SLP Now book activity for your retell (pictured below).

You can add support by using story grammar icons and placing them next to the coordinating picture (Spencer et al., 2014). You can do this while you’re reading or during your story retell. It’s a great way to get your students familiar with story grammar before they’re ready for it.

What about students that are working on WH questions? You could also use the same worksheet to practice WH questions.

WHO: The witch is a character, and when we talk about WHO questions it’s the character.

WHEN: The night is the setting and that’s the answer to our WHEN questions.

WHERE: A broomstick is a place because she sat ON the broomstick and that’s the answer to our WHERE questions.

WHAT: At the end of the story, they make a new broomstick. That solved the problem and is the answer to our WHAT questions.

This is also a great time to talk about causal relationships between the story elements.

Here’s an example:

The broomstick broke (problem) BECAUSE there were too many animals on the broomstick, so the witch (character) had to make a new one (plan/consequence).

I like to highlight to parents and students that they need to remember all of the key details (story grammar elements) in their working memory to be able to answer WH questions. I tell students that’s why we pick out the important parts and put them in our memory to keep for later!

What about students that are working on expanding sentences and describing? The book activity packets also contain icons that are great for students working on putting sentences together after retelling.

The icons also include describing words from the story. That’s a home run for mixed groups! I pair this sheet with the SLP Now Sentence Pack, a whiteboard, or sticky notes.

What about students that aren’t ready for the literacy-based therapy framework? For students that I know won’t be able to start with picture books, I lean into supporting their vocabulary skills (learning about story grammar first) and work on creating a retelling schema to build up to working with the literacy-based framework.

This means that I want my students to know what story grammar elements are and be able to independently retell a simple story using pictures (basic episode). For students who are still working on putting words and sentences together, I adjust my visual supports. We’ll use core boards and sentence frames as needed.

When working on simple story retells, I will model the story first then turn over the pictures. I want my students to imagine what’s happening in their heads and then retell it to me using whatever mode of communication they prefer, using lots of verbal support. Later on, we might act out the story together. The last step would be to take the pictures away and have them retell the story independently. I use vocabulary like “character” and “setting” while I’m talking about the story, but don’t expect students to use the terms. That way we have lots of exposure to the story grammar elements before we even start going over them!

This progression is backed up by an article by Dempsey (2021), that showed that strong story comprehension skills were best predicted by a child being able to use a verbal account of a story (without pictures), followed by enactment (acting it out with prompts), then sequencing (retelling a story with pictures). This sets up a natural progression for fading support.

Another way you could adjust retelling for preschool students is using scaffolding, as outlined in an article by Spencer et al. (2014). These steps are for the retell phase. The article also outlines supports for a personal generation phase.

✓Model (show the pictures, model the story, put icons with coordinating picture, identify the story grammar parts)

✓Retell with pictures and icons (have pictures out for retell with icons, give support to the student with retell)

✓Retell with icons (take away pictures for retell, have icons out for visuals, support the student with retelling)

✓Retell without pictures and icons (no icons or pictures for retell, support student with retelling)

I hope that some of these strategies help you with your caseload and being able to provide literacy-based therapy! If it feels overwhelming, start small! You can start with a couple of groups to get the hang of it and expand from there.

Don’t forget that SLP Now members have access to The Academy which has lots of information about literacy-based therapy if you ever wanted an in-depth course!

References Dempsey, L. (2021). Examining the validity of three methods of measuring pre-readers’ knowledge of storybook events. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 37(2), 137–148.

Gillam, S., & Gillam, R. (2016). Narrative Discourse Intervention for School-Aged Children With Language Impairment. Topics in Language Disorders, 36, 20–34.

Hessling, A., & Schuele, C. M. (2020). Individualized Narrative Intervention for School-Age Children With Specific Language Impairment. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 51(3), 687–705.

Kamhi, A. G. (2014). Improving Clinical Practices for Children With Language and Learning Disorders. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 45(2), 92–103.

Pico, D. L., Prahl, A. H., Biel, C. H., Peterson, A. K., Biel, E. J., Woods, C., & Contesse, V. (2021) A. Interventions Designed to Improve Narrative Language in School-Age Children: A Systematic Review With Meta-Analyses (world) [Review Article]. ASHA Wire; American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Spencer, T., Petersen, D., Slocum, T., & Allen, M. (2014). Large group narrative intervention in Head Start preschools: Implications for response to intervention. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 13.

Spencer, T. D., & Petersen, D. B. (2020). Narrative Intervention: Principles to Practice. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 51(4), 1081–1096.

Ukrainetz, T. (2006). Contextualized language intervention: Scaffolding PreK–12 literacy achievement. Eau Claire, WI: Thinking Publications.

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This is a guest blog post by Holly, a school-based SLP, all about speech sound disorders: articulation and phonological development.

Speech Sound Disorders This post is a comprehensive guide to speech sound disorders, which is an umbrella term used to categorize difficulty with the production of speech sounds (the ASHA Practice Portal page for Speech Sound Disorders is a great reference for this topic).

There are speech sound disorders with known underlying causes (organic) including cleft lip/palate, orofacial conditions, deafness, dysarthria, and apraxia (check out this post for more information on childhood apraxia of speech). In this post, we’ll focus on types without a known cause (functional), including articulation and phonological disorders.

We’ll take a deep dive into these terms, but for now, here’s a quick refresher:

An articulation disorder is characterized by difficulty producing individual speech sounds. The impairment is at the phonetic/motoric level, meaning that a sound may be substituted or distorted in a predictable way.

Example: A student produces the /s/ and /sh/ sounds with lateral airflow (e.g., a lateral lisp).

A phonological disorder is difficulty organizing sounds in the brain. This impairment is at the phonemic/linguistic level, meaning that overall syllable structures and groups of sounds are omitted, substituted, or simplified. These phonological patterns often lead to reduced speech intelligibility.

Example: A student simplifies entire classes of sounds; they can produce /k/ and /g/ in isolation but habitually swaps in sounds that are produced in the front of their mouth as [t] and [d] (i.e., fronting phonological patterns, “tan” for can and “dough” for go).

Because this is a longer post, here’s an outline of everything we’ll cover:

1. Typical Speech Sound Development

– Articulation Norms

– Phonological Pattern Norms

– Speech Intelligibility Norms

– Contextual Factors

– Dialectal Considerations

2. Differential Diagnosis

3. Treatment Approaches

– Traditional Articulation Therapy

– Principles of Motor Learning

– Complexity Approach

– Phonological Contrast Approach

– Cycles Approach

– Metaphonological Approach

– Core Vocabulary Approach

– Multimodal Intervention

4. Literacy, Language, & Social-Emotional Considerations

Typical Speech Sound Development To distinguish between typical development and speech sound disorders, let’s first consider what “typical” speech sound development looks like. We can use norms for sound acquisition, elimination of phonological patterns, intelligibility ratings, and contextual factors. For this post, we’ll also consider how dialectal differences in speech production can be distinguished from speech sound disorders. The information below is based on Mainstream American English (MAE).

Articulation Norms There are different milestone sources to consider, which vary based on the population (who was included in the normative samples) and criteria for acquisition (what percentage of children can produce the sound at a given age, in order for it to be considered “acquired”). There is a wonderful post on the Informed SLP blog about interpreting speech norms! Here is a previous post that includes a free Speech Sound Development Chart. 🙌

The Iowa-Nebraska norms (Smit et al., 1990) were based on monolingual children (specifically, speakers of the standard Midwestern dialect), excluding children with any known conditions such as hearing loss, repaired clefts, or motor speech impairments. This data set was used to determine at what age 90% of children have acquired a sound at the word level.

The chart below (also found in our materials collection under Therapist Tools) outlines the Iowa-Nebraska Norms for each phonetic target (articulation). When looking at each sound class (phonology), you’ll notice that young children tend to acquire nasals, glides, and stop consonants first. They subsequently go on to acquire fricatives, affricates, liquids, and consonant clusters.

Next up, we have a summary of cross-linguistic developmental speech norms by McLeod & Crowe (2018), which included 64 studies and 27 languages. In a follow-up article (Crowe & McLeod, 2020), English consonant acquisition norms were compiled from 17 studies and a mean age of acquisition based on a criteria of 90%.

The chart below outlines the McLeod & Crowe Norms for each phonetic target (articulation). In an analysis of each sound class (phonology), plosives, nasals, and glides were typically acquired by 3;11, affricates by 4;11, liquids by 5;11, and fricatives by 6;11.

Phonological Pattern Norms When children are learning to speak, it is natural for them to use just a few sounds and to simplify words. As their speech system develops, many of these simplified patterns are expected to fade away (phonological pattern elimination). These patterns can affect the way sounds are accidentally copied/pasted in a word (assimilation), the presence of sounds/clusters in syllables (syllable structure), and the place/manner/voicing of these sounds (substitutions).

Based on the work of Bowen (1998) and Peña-Brooks & Hegde (2015), here is a list of phonological patterns and the age that a child typically grows out of using the pattern:

Speech Intelligibility Norms Speech intelligibility is used to determine how often a speaker is readily understood by their listeners. As you can imagine, this data may be impacted by the person judging intelligibility (a familiar listener vs. an unfamiliar listener) and the context (single words vs. utterances in connected speech; a known topic vs. a novel topic). ASHA’s guidelines state that by age 3, it’s expected that familiar people understand a child’s speech and by age 4, most people understand a child’s speech. We can also consider the following data across different sources:

To measure speech intelligibility, you can use an estimated percentage or calculate utterances using a speech-language sample. You can also gather input using a questionnaire by McLeod, Harrison, & McCormack (2012). The Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS) has been validated across many languages and rates the degree to which a child’s speech is understood by different communication partners.

Contextual Factors We can also consider a range of factors when determining if a student has a speech sound disorder. In an article by Storkel et al. (2019), the authors advocate for gathering student-centered information about the potential academic and social impact:

“Best practice entails using a richer representation of development, specifically reflecting the range and variability inherent in development. Moreover, diagnosing the presence of a speech sound disorder requires more than just a single measure.”

Based on these recommendations, it is valuable to consider students’ capacity for speech perception and production, overall intelligibility, stimulability, phonological awareness, academic/social impact, and student/family insights (Storkel, 2019).

The Paperwork Binder on the SLP Now Materials site has a helpful Speech Sounds Assessment Checklist that can be used to consider factors beyond standardized testing numbers (see below).

Dialectal Differences vs. Speech Sound Disorders As clinicians, we must consider the sound systems of all the languages/dialects our students are using when we provide services. You’ll see at the top of the assessment checklist, there’s a prompt to consider factors for culturally/linguistically diverse speakers. This is important, because we don’t want to penalize students for using valid dialectal differences in their speech production.

For instance, the phonological features of African American English can include final consonant/cluster reduction at the syllable level, or substitution of “th” to /d/ and /f, t/ depending on the word position. These patterns are not counted as errors, just like a British English speaker wouldn’t need therapy to address vowelization of post-vocalic /r/. When considering a bilingual speaker, it is helpful to list out all the patterns that a student is using and cross-reference between languages to see if they could be explained by a dialectal difference or disorder. Here is a compilation of Phonemic Inventories and Cultural and Linguistic Information Across Languages from ASHA.

Differential Diagnosis of Speech Sound Disorders Based on assessment data related to the information above, disordered speech production without a known cause can be differentiated between articulation disorders and phonological disorders. Here are some ways to distinguish between the two:

Treatment of Speech Sound Disorders These different diagnoses lend themselves to different treatment approaches. In this section, we’ll identify which populations benefit from a variety of intervention options. Building off a previous post (Articulation Approaches), here is an expanded version:

Traditional Articulation Therapy Who: This is appropriate for children with 1-2 errors (e.g., /s/ or /r/), who have difficulty with the physical production of certain sounds.

What: Sounds are targeted based on the order of acquisition.

When: The child’s errors are not a part of a class of sound errors.

How: Stimulable sounds are targeted first, in order of age of acquisition. Therapy activities often include auditory discrimination, shaping of target sounds, and a hierarchy of practicing in subsequent contexts (isolation, syllables, words, words, phrases, sentences, structured conversation, unstructured/carryover).

Source: Tambyraja, S. R., & Dunkle, J. T. (2014). Target Selection in Speech Therapy: Is a Non-Developmental Approach More Efficient Than a Developmental Approach? EBP Briefs, 8(5), 1-9.

Principles of Motor Learning Approach Who: This is appropriate for children who have difficulty with the physical production of certain speech sounds.

What: Using the principles of how we learn new movements, speech sounds are taught and practiced with high levels of repetition.

When: The child has access to therapy in distributed sessions, rather than longer/massed practice.

How: We explicitly teach and shape the target sounds, then randomize practice opportunities across contexts (e.g., words, sentences, connected speech).

Source: Maas, E., Robin, D. A., Hula, S. N. A., Freedman, S. E., Wulf, G., Ballard, K. J., & Schmidt, R. A. (2008). Principles of motor learning in treatment of motor speech disorders. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 17, 277-298.

Complexity Approach to Therapy Who: This is appropriate for children with low speech intelligibility who are missing several sounds from their phonemic inventories.

What: Sounds are targeted based on the level of complexity. Research shows that children acquire skills needed for less complex sounds while working on complex sounds and that articulatory skills trickle down to foundational sounds.

When: The child doesn’t yet produce the sound and is not stimulable.

How: We target more complex, later-developing sounds first, including clusters with 2-3 sounds (like “throw” and “splash”). The objective is to make fast changes. Check out an earlier podcast episode detailing the Complexity Approach!

Source: Strokel, H. L. (2017). The Complexity Approach to Phonological Treatment: How to Select Treatment Targets. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools.

Phonological Contrast Approaches Who: This is appropriate for children with mild-severe phonological disorders, including developmental and non-developmental errors.

What: Phonological patterns are targeted to help re-organize a child’s linguistic system by teaching meaningful contrasts between sounds and syllable structures.

When: Students consistently substitute or omit sounds using phonological patterns (e.g., fronting, backing, stopping, consonant cluster reduction, gliding).

How: We use sets of words that differ by one sound, which may deviate by one feature (minimal pairs) or many features (multiple/maximal oppositions, empty set). Using these words, students practice discriminating between the targets, then producing words in meaningful ways.

Source: Blache, S. E., Parsons, C. L., & Humphreys, J. M. (1981). A minimal-word-pair model for teaching the linguistic significant difference of distinctive feature properties. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 46, 291–296.

Cycles Approach Who: This is appropriate for children with patterns of omissions and sound substitutions.

What: Phonological patterns are treated in cycles of 5 to 16 weeks. The error patterns are targeted in each cycle.

When: Students present with many sound omissions and some sound substitutions.

How: A new cycle begins upon completion of a previous cycle. Check out a podcast episode with Shannon Werbeckes diving into the Cycles Approach!

Source: Hassink, J. M., & Wendt, O. (2010). Remediation of Phonological Disorders in Preschool Age Children: Evidence for the Cycles Approach. EBP Briefs, 5(2), 1-7.

Metaphonological Approach Who: This is appropriate for children with phonological disorders.

What: The phonological structure of sounds within a language is taught to help remediate the underlying lack of awareness.

When: Students lack self-monitoring skills in the area of speech sound production but are stimulable with cueing.

How: We target phonological patterns by explicitly teaching features of sounds (long/short, voiced/voiceless) and linking phonological awareness to speech production.

Source: Dean, E., Howell, J., Waters, D., & Reid, J. (1995). Metaphon: A metalinguistic approach to the treatment of phonological disorder in children. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 9, 1–19.

Core Vocabulary Approach for Speech Sound Therapy Who: This is appropriate for children with severe speech sound disorders, especially if their errors are inconsistent.

What: Select functional, high-frequency words and work on producing them consistently in a variety of contexts.

When: Students are highly unintelligible, motivated by certain interests, and where family involvement is available to support practice.

How: We collaborate with family members to create a list of target words and visuals, practicing in batches until repetition is consistent and mastery is reached.

Source: Dodd, B., Holm, A., Crosbie, S., & McIntosh, B. (2006). A core vocabulary approach for management of inconsistent speech disorder. Advances in Speech-Language Pathology, 8(3), 220-230.

Multimodal Intervention for Speech Sound Disorders Who: This is appropriate for children with severe speech sound disorders with low speech intelligibility.

What: Supplement speech with visual supports, either using low-tech or high-tech augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) options.

When: Students and families are facing communication breakdowns and in need of a functional method of communication ASAP.

How: Simultaneously targeting natural speech and AAC speech using an integrated multimodal approach can be effective in producing positive changes in both overall communication and speech production goals.

Source: King, A., Hengst, J., DeThorne, L. (2013). Severe speech sound disorders: an integrated multimodal intervention. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 44(2):195-210.

Literacy, Language, & Social-Emotional Considerations The link between speech sound disorders and additional communication concerns has been studied for good reason! Here are some resources to brush up on your knowledge in these areas:

Literacy Not only are students with speech sound disorders at a higher risk of reading difficulties, but working on phonological awareness skills can help when targeting speech sound production in therapy (Tambyraja & McCauley, 2012). Win-win!

Because of this, phonological awareness has been a topic we’ve taken a special interest in lately on the SLP Now podcast and blog!

Blog Post: Phonological Awareness Development + Chart

Podcast #28: Where to Start with Phonological Awareness

Podcast #98: A Quick Review of Phonological Awareness

Podcast #99: Phonological Awareness Assessment and Goals

Podcast #100: Phonological Awareness Treatment Ideas

Podcast #101: What We’ve Learned About Phonological Awareness

Language Speech sound disorders and language disorders are also known to co-occur (with rates estimated between 50-75% in preschoolers, and 15% by age 6; Macrae & Tyler, 2014). There’s still a lot of growing evidence in this area (Combiths, 2019), but something to consider is the overlap of phonological and morphosyntactic skills for students (e.g., word-final consonant clusters to mark plurals, possessives, and verb tense).

Social-Emotional Considerations It’s no surprise that when students encounter difficulty clearly expressing themselves, the risk of social-emotional impact also rises. In a study by McCormack et al. (2009), childhood speech sound disorders were found to be associated with activity or participation restrictions related to communication, academic skills, relationships with family/friends/authority, and job skills. Because of this, it’s valuable to assess and address our students’ perceptions, feelings, and attitudes about their own speech, plus barriers they may encounter across social settings. This gives us a better picture of the impact of their speech sound disorder and leads to student-centered focus with our intervention!

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Whew, you made it! Thanks for checking out The SLP’s Guide to Speech Sound Disorders. We reviewed typical development, considerations for differential diagnoses and intervention, plus overlapping factors with speech sound disorders! What questions do you have and is there anything else you’d like to see related to this topic?

References Baker, E., & McLeod, S. (2011). Evidence-Based Practice for Children with Speech Sound Disorders: Part 2 Application to Clinical Practice, Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 42(2), 140-141

Bauman-Waengler, J. A. (2012). Articulatory and phonological impairments. New York, NY: Pearson Higher Education.

Bernthal, J., Bankson, N. W., & Flipsen, P., Jr. (2013). Articulation and phonological disorders. New York, NY: Pearson Higher Education.

Blache, S. E., Parsons, C. L., & Humphreys, J. M. (1981). A minimal-word-pair model for teaching the linguistic significant difference of distinctive feature properties. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 46, 291–296.

Bowen, C. (1998). Developmental phonological disorders. A practical guide for families and teachers. Melbourne: ACER Press.

Bowen, C. (2011). Children’s speech sound disorders. Retrieved from http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/ [Updated on Tuesday, 12 October 2021]

Coplan J, Gleason JR. Unclear speech: recognition and significance of unintelligible speech in preschool children. Pediatrics. 1988 Sep;82(3 Pt 2):447-52. Erratum in: Pediatrics 1988 Dec;82(6):862. PMID: 3405680.

Combiths, P. N., Barlow, J. A., Richard, J. T., & Pruitt-Lord, S. L. (2019). Treatment targets for co-occurring speech-language impairment: A case study. Perspectives of the ASHA special interest groups, 4(2), 240-256.

Dean, E., Howell, J., Waters, D., & Reid, J. (1995). Metaphon: A metalinguistic approach to the treatment of phonological disorder in children. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 9, 1–19.

Dodd, B., Holm, A., Crosbie, S., & McIntosh, B. (2006). A core vocabulary approach for management of inconsistent speech disorder. Advances in Speech Language Pathology, 8(3), 220-230.

Fabiano-Smith, L., & Hoffman, K. (2018). Diagnostic Accuracy of Traditional Measures of Phonological Ability for Bilingual Preschoolers and Kindergarteners. Language, speech, and hearing services in schools, 49(1), 121–134. https://doi.org/10.1044/2017_LSHSS-17-0043

King, A., Hengst, J., DeThorne, L. (2013). Severe speech sound disorders: an integrated multimodal intervention. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 44(2):195-210.

Maas, E., Robin, D. A., Hula, S. N. A., Freedman, S. E., Wulf, G., Ballard, K. J., & Schmidt, R. A. (2008). Principles of motor learning in treatment of motor speech disorders. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 17, 277-298.

Macrae, T., & Tyler, A. A. (2014). Speech abilities in preschool children with speech sound disorder with and without co-occurring language impairment. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 45(4), 302-313.

McCormack, J., McLeod, S., McAllister, L., & Harrison, L. J. (2009). A systematic review of the association between childhood speech impairment and participation across the lifespan. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 11(2), 155-170.

McLeod, S., & Baker, E., (2017). Children’s Speech: An evidence based approach to assessment and intervention. Boston: Pearson

McLeod S, Harrison LJ, McCormack J. (2012). The intelligibility in Context Scale: validity and reliability of a subjective rating measure. J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2012 Apr;55(2):648-56. doi: 10.1044/1092-4388(2011/10-0130). Epub 2012 Jan 3. PMID: 22215036.

Peña-Brooks, A., & Hegde, M. N. (2015). Assessment and treatment of speech sound disorders in children: A dual-level text. PRO-ED, an international publisher.

Shriberg, L. D., Austin, D., Lewis, B. A., McSweeny, J. L., & Wilson, D. L. (1997). The Speech Disorders Classification System (SDCS) extensions and lifespan reference data. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 40(4), 723-740.

Shriberg LD, Kwiatkowski J. (1982) Phonological disorders III: a procedure for assessing severity of involvement. J Speech Hear Disord. 1982;47:256–70.

Smit, A. B., Hand, L., Freilinger, J. J., Bernthal, J. E., & Bird, A. (1990). The Iowa articulation norms project and its Nebraska replication. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 55(4), 779-798.

Smit, A. B. (1993). Phonologic error distributions in the Iowa-Nebraska articulation norms project: Consonant singletons. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 36(3), 533-547.

Storkel, H. L. (2019) Using Developmental Norms for Speech Sounds as a Means of Determining Treatment Eligibility in Schools. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, Vol. 4, 67-75.

Williams, A. L. (2000). Multiple oppositions: theoretical foundations for an alternative contrastive intervention approach. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 9(4), 282-288.

The post The SLP’s Guide to Speech Sound Disorders: Articulation & Phonological Development appeared first on SLP Now Blog.

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In today’s episode, Benita shares her favorite strategies and resources for comprehensive emergent literacy.

You’ll walk away with some great ideas and new resources to add to your toolbox. 💪

As we wrap up this month’s series, we want to remind you that you, as an SLP, already have a lot of these tools and knowledge in place, and now you have a framework for implementing them for students who use AAC. You’re doing an amazing job and we hope that this information will help. It certainly has helped us and the purpose of this series is to help you do what you’re doing, but to do it even better! So we encourage you to just keep doing what you’re doing, and you are going to do amazing things to help support your students who use AAC to learn to read and write.

Keep it up, SLP! 💛

Comprehensive Emergent Literacy Framework Shared Reading

Shared Writing

Alphabet and Phonological Awareness

Independent Writing

Self-directed Reading

Favorite Strategies and Resources – BIGmack

– Story Grammar Marker

– Braidy Doll

– Tarheel Reader

– Epic Books – FREE with an educator email

– OverDrive – FREE with a local library card

– Novel Effect – Sound Effects for the book and help with engagement

– Literacy Through Unity – FREE resources on the AAC

– Saltillo – FREE Calendar support

– Tell Me curriculum – Elementary population

– UNC Center for Literacy – Training

– Vooks – Engaging Video Books

– Comprehensive Literacy for All: Teaching Students with Significant Disabilities to Read and Write

– Speechie Side Up

– @speechiesideup on Instagram

– Core Calendar Club Facebook group

Subscribe & Review in iTunes Are you subscribed to the podcast? If you’re not, subscribe today to get the latest episodes sent directly to you! Click here to make your listening experience auto-magic and as easy as possible.

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Marisha: Hello there and welcome to the SLP Now Podcast, where we share practical therapy tips and ideas for busy speech-language pathologists. Grab your favorite beverage and sit back as we dive into this week's episode.

Marisha: This month we are talking all things AAC and literacy with Venita Litvack. So, head to episode 102 to get a getting started face, and if you've already been listening to the episodes, just join us to continue learning more about AAC, literacy, and comprehensive emergent literacy.

Marisha: We've got one more question. What are your go-to resources when you're implementing these strategies and just incorporating AAC and literacy in your sessions?

Venita L.: This is probably my favorite question because there's so many great resources out there and I don't know that everybody knows that they're available. And you kind of wonder, "Where are these resources?", but they're so disseminated. So I'd like to summarize them all here.

Venita L.: In terms of AAC and literacy, or just literacy in general, Tar Heel Reader is an amazing resource. It was developed by the University of North Carolina's Center for Literacy and Disability Studies, and what you can do on Tar Heel Reader is you can create your own books or you can look for books and you can look for books based on keywords. So if let's say you're doing a core word of the week or the month or the day, then you can look up books that have that core word in it. So that's a really great resource that you can use online, you can pull up on a projector or SMART Board and implement it within a group setting. And then Epic Books, which I'm sure you probably mentioned. I know that's a hot one in our field, but Epic Books is great and you can access it for free if you have an educator's email or a school email. And then OverDrive is also great. You can access thousands, tens of thousands of books that are available at your local library for free, you just have to put in your library card information.

Venita L.: And then this one's not as well known, but I've spoken about it in other trainings that I've done, it's called the Novel Effect app. And the reason I like that one is because it provides sound effects for popular books and they're building their library all the time. So if you're reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear, it's crazy. It knows when you are onto the next page without you even clicking anything on the app, just based on your reading of the book. So if you say, "Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?", and then you pause, it'll play music just for that page and sound effects just for that page. So I think that's a really great way to get especially younger kids engaged in the reading.

Venita L.: And then PRC or the Prentke Romich Company, the creators of LAMP Words For Life and Unity and other AAC language systems and devices, has a resource called Literacy Through Unity on the AAC Language Lab, which is a phenomenal program that's online that you can go to and they have free resources on the AAC Language Lab, and they also have a paid subscription, but it's very little for the year. I want to say it's like 20 bucks for the year, maybe even less, but they have a Literacy Through Unity program that, actually, Karen Erickson helped develop. So if you have a student who uses Unity or LAMP, then I would check that out.

Venita L.: And then Saltillo, if you have a student who uses a NovaChat or the TouchChat app, they have these calendar supports. So for the month of January, they give you a book and then the words that you can target with that book and some other literacy-based suggestions for that month. So I love that resource and it's free.

Venita L.: The TELL ME curriculum, I just wanted to mention it here. I, in full disclosure, don't have a lot of experience with that book just because I think it's primarily geared towards the preschool population and that's not a population that I work with, that I support at this time. I would love to learn more about it, but in my department, we kind of provide resources and trainings to the areas that you work in. So at some point, I'm looking forward to diving into that curriculum a little bit more, but I just don't know a lot about it. But if you work with that population or the elementary population, then I would really encourage you to look into that curriculum.

Venita L.: And then any of the resources from UNC's Center for Literacy and Disability Studies is phenomenal. They have trainings on there and modules, so check that out. Now we have this resource, and I'll just say the name one more time, because I think it's worth noting. A lot of the information I spoke about today is from this book, and it's just a really helpful book. I will forewarn you though, that it is like a textbook, which I wasn't really expecting because it has this beautiful cover. It's very dense and it is bringing me back to grad school days, but you know what? It is just so amazing, and every page is like a mic drop, so I really encourage you to check it out. It's called, again, Comprehensive Literacy for All: Teaching Students with Significant Disabilities to Read and Write by Karen Erickson and David Koppenhaver.

Marisha: Oh, I love books like that, where there's just so many mic drops and knowledge bombs. It can be hard to find those types of answers, so when you find a resource that really breaks it down, you just kind of hone in on that.

Venita L.: Mm-hmm (affirmative), definitely.

Marisha: And those were so many amazing resources. I'll definitely, if you're listening and you had a hard time keeping up with all the amazing ideas, I'll list and link to everything that I can at slpnow.com/42, so you can start checking those out.

Marisha: Is it okay if I add one more that came up for me too?

Venita L.: Sure.

Marisha: I just discovered this, maybe a few months ago, it's called Vooks, so V-O-O-K-S. They make animated videos for a lot of popular books, so I think it could be a great activity for that independent or self-directed reading time because it really draws students in. And then I think they even animate the words in some or all of them, so it's just a great way to draw attention to the literacy piece, but it supports the students in reading that too, and just keeping them engaged. The students I've used it with have loved it, so I really like that one too.

Venita L.: I love that. I've heard about that resource. I haven't actually had the opportunity to look at it, but I think it is a great idea for that self-directed reading, so thank you for sharing that.

Marisha: And then, I also just want to emphasize, 'cause I feel like one of the biggest barriers is getting access to books, because you feel like some SLPs aren't able to go to the library or they don't want to use library books in therapy because things happen. And so, I just think the resources that you mentioned to get books for free, like Epic and OverDrive are so incredibly helpful because you don't even have to go anywhere. You have instant access to these digital books for free. So I don't think that budget or time to drive and get physical books should be a barrier here.

Marisha: And if those options don't work, YouTube has books as well. They have lovely grandmothers who record themselves reading books, and definitely check out the video first, but there's lots of ways to make this happen. And I feel like after listening to this episode, you are equipped with so many strategies to use literacy in therapy. And so, I feel like that's just the last step to start practicing and working on implementing this.

Venita L.: Yeah, absolutely.

Marisha: Venita, is there anything that you would add or that you just really wanted to emphasize?

Venita L.: No, I think that you, as an SLP, already have a lot of these tools and knowledge in place, and now you have a framework for implementing them for students who use AAC. So you're doing an amazing job and I hope that this information will help. It certainly has helped me as I'm reading through that book because it was just really nice to see like, okay, we're doing the right thing, but this is how we can do it even better. So I encourage you to just keep doing what you're doing, and you are going to do amazing things to help support your students who use AAC to learn to read and write.

Marisha: I love ending on that note. Thank you so much for sharing your time and wisdom with us. And if people want to find out more about you, where are the best places for them to connect?

Venita L.: Good question. I tend to hang out on Instagram @speechiesideup, and then my website is also speechiesideup.com. And if you want to come join us on that Facebook group called the Core Calendar Club, we would love to have you. We do ask two questions in the beginning and one includes taking a quiz. The reason that we have you take the quiz is because we're gathering data that we are hopefully going to present at a conference in the near future, and we also want to see if the group is helping you from the start to finish. So you'll take a quiz at the beginning and you'll take a quiz at the end, but it's a fun quiz. It has maybe 5 to 10 questions, and then you find out if you're more like Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, or Beyonce, so we make it fun for you.

Marisha: Oh, I love that. Definitely something fun to check out. Okay, that's a wrap. Thank you so much, Venita. You are amazing and such an inspiration, and I definitely appreciated all of the information that you shared, and thank you to the listeners for tuning in.

Venita L.: Thank you so much for having me, Marisha. When you asked it was such an honor and I think you are so inspiring too. And again, I love that we were able to combine both of our passions into this episode today.

Marisha: Yeah, this was definitely a highlight, so thank you.

Venita L.: Thank you.

Marisha: Thanks for listening to the SLP Now podcast. This podcast is part of a course offered for continuing education through SpeechTherapyPD. So yes, you can earn ASHA CEUs for listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your SLP friends and don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episodes sent directly to you. See you next time.

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In today’s episode, Benita shares multiple strategies for the last 3 steps of the Comprehensive Emergent Literacy framework.

Comprehensive Emergent Literacy Framework Shared Reading

Shared Writing

Alphabet and Phonological Awareness

Independent Writing

Self-directed Reading

Activities for Steps 3+4 of the Framework Alphabet and phonological awareness Time: Erickson and Koppenhaver recommend doing this for about 20 to 30 minutes a day, explicit alphabet and phonological awareness instruction.

Phonological Awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate sounds and spoken language.Activities: Letter-of-the-day approachOverview: Reteach every 26 days using the following routine. Identify the letter, identify the sound of the letter, find the letter in text and write the letter.

Those four components are really important for teaching a letter.

Alphabet Knowledge includes the ability to distinguish letters, shapes, name them, write them and identify the sounds they represent.Activities: Clap out syllables, listen to nursery rhymes, raps, poetry, and playing alliteration games.

Independent writing Strategy: Provide access to a variety of writing materials, such as crayons, pencils, dry erase markers, alphabet letters, computers, AAC devices. Time: 20-30 minutes a day

Overview: Then make sure to ask the student to read aloud what they have written and write it down for them and publish the material but putting it up on a board or in the classroom.

Self-directed Reading Strategy: Build a library of reading materials. Providing access to magazines, newspapers, song lyrics, reading apps, comic books, audible, all of those different ways that they can access reading, because believe it or not, audible reading, like read alouds, is reading. There’s tons of research to support that. I just heard it recently and it reaffirmed that.Time: 10-15 minutes a day

Overview: Have the students share what they read about at the end of the self-directed reading.

Links Mentioned in the Podcast – BIGmack

– Story Grammar Marker

– Braidy Doll

– Tarheel Reader

– Epic Books

– OverDrive

– Novel Effect

– Literacy Through Unity

– Saltillo

– Tell Me curriculum

– UNC Center for Literacy

– Vooks

Thanks so much!

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Marisha Mets: Hello there and welcome to the SLP Now Podcast, where we share practical therapy tips and ideas for busy speech language pathologists. Grab your favorite beverage and sit back as we dive into this week's episode. This month we are talking all things EAC and literacy with Venita Litvack. So head to Episode 102 to get the getting started phase. And if you've already been listening to the episodes, just join us to continue learning more about AAC, literacy and comprehensive emergent matters.

Venita Litvack: The third area is alphabet and phonological awareness. We're going to be talking about different activities to use for that area. But I think when we talk about the terms phonological and alphabet knowledge, it brings back nightmares from grad school. I'll just provide some brief definitions for both of those, because if you're anything like me, it was definitely crossed over the two definitions. Phonological awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate sounds and spoken language. Then alphabet knowledge includes the ability to distinguish letters, shapes, name them, write them and identify the sounds they represent. Now that we've talked about both of those, let's get into the activities that we can address for both.

Venita Litvack: Interestingly, what I read in that book that I referenced in the beginning is that Treiman, Levin and Kessler in 2007 found that teaching a letter of the week or month is not the appropriate amount of time to learn each letter. I thought that was so fascinating and super applicable to even a core word-of-the-week approach, which that's a whole nother topic. But they found that this is the case, because if they're doing a letter of the week, it's going to take 26 weeks for that letter to be revisited again, unless it's being embedded in daily routines. But really to be specifically targeted, it's going to be another 26 weeks before it's reintroduced. It's almost the entire school year. It just is not enough time for students to embed that letter, use it in functional ways.

Venita Litvack: Instead, what they recommend is that you use a letter-of-the-day approach so that letters are retaught every 26 days using the following routine. They want you to identify the letter, identify the sound of the letter, find the letter in text and write the letter. Those four components are really important for teaching a letter. Any questions about that? Because I know that was a lot of information.

Marisha Mets: No, I think that makes sense. I really appreciated just defining what we're talking about with phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge. I think that's a really great tip of focusing on using the letter-of-the-day approach versus the week or the month. I love the four strategies that you shared too, because I feel this is so incredibly actionable. I'm curious to hear if you have any other tips for this area.

Venita Litvack: Okay, perfect. We'll move on to ideas for phonological awareness instruction. These are fun. I'm sure that a lot of these you've heard of. You can go on Pinterest for some ideas on addressing phonological awareness. But things like clapping out syllables, listening to nursery rhymes, even [RAPs 00:03:33] for your older students, poetry and playing alliteration games. Like I said, Pinterest has so many different activities that you can do to address those areas. Then in terms of alphabet instruction, same thing. You can use alphabet books, alphabet puzzles, games, student names, environmental print. There's so many different ways that you can address that just by looking at ideas on Pinterest. If I didn't say this already, Erickson and Koppenhaver recommend doing this for about 20 to 30 minutes a day, explicit alphabet and phonological awareness instruction.

Marisha Mets: Perfect. I think that's a really great overview and starting point. Each of these areas could potentially be a whole podcast. I think we'll leave it at this. And maybe we can revisit if we have time at the end, just to break it down a little bit more. But I think this is a really awesome place to start. So what's the next step?

Venita Litvack: The next two areas, they're much shorter. They're not as dense. We'll go through those pretty quick. The last two areas are independent writing and self-directed reading. Some ideas for promoting independent writing 20 to 30 minutes a day is to provide access to a variety of writing materials, such as crayons, pencils, dry erase markers, alphabet letters, computers, AAC device. The idea here is to provide access to a ton of different writing materials, not just a pen and paper or pencil and paper. Then make sure to ask the student to read aloud what they have written and write it down for them.

Venita Litvack: A training that I just attended, it was so fascinating, because she had us go through different writing examples. We know that emergent writing is not letter based. It's forming circles, forming lines, doing little drawings that communicate a message. She had us look at these drawings. Then she told her what the child explained the story behind the picture was. Then she would ask us, is the student and emergent writer or a conventional writer? I just thought that was so fun. If your students are not writing conventionally, like with letters, you can definitely have them tell you the story behind their drawing or their writing and summarize it for them on another page by writing it down so they can see what that looks like.

Venita Litvack: Then one really special thing is when your parents would put up your writing on your refrigerator or a board, it's really special for kids to be motivated to keep writing more by publishing their writing that way. If you can put it up in your speech room or in the classroom, maybe have a writing corner or a board, that would be really helpful as well.

Marisha Mets: No, that's perfect. Those are such great ideas. I'm curious too, because you could potentially use some of the RAP strategies that you talked about here, too. With some of these students, if we ask them and they don't respond within a couple of seconds, we probably want to wait a little bit longer. Do you have any additional strategies when it comes to talking to students or asking students about what they wrote?

Venita Litvack: That's a really, really good question. I would assume that they dive into that in the book that I presented in the beginning. I would recommend looking at that. On the top of my head, I don't have a framework for writing, like I do with the shared reading. But it's a really good thought, because if it hasn't been developed, then that might be a nice thing for somebody to look into.

Marisha Mets: If they don't have well researched answers for us, I think we can definitely pull from some of the other strategies you've shared to make that happen. I love that. I'm loving these tips so far. What about self-directed reading?

Venita Litvack: Self-directed reading, that was the last area of comprehensive emergent literacy instruction. Some ideas that are recommended to promote independent reading include building a library of reading materials. It's important to note that this should be done about 10 to 15 minutes a day. Depending on the time that you see this child or the time that you see the group, that might not be feasible for your group, if you're only seeing them for 30 minutes, but again, working with the teacher to provide that additional time for self-directed reading. Providing access to magazines, newspapers, song lyrics, reading apps, comic books, audible, all of those different ways that they can access reading, because believe it or not, audible reading, like read alouds, is reading. There's tons of research to support that. I just heard it recently and it reaffirmed that.

Venita Litvack: It's definitely questionable, but it is still considered reading. It's important for people to keep that in mind and provide access to that for students. Then you want to provide a variety of materials so that all the students have access to something they want to read. Not necessarily materials, but maybe genres. Some students might like to read comics. Some students might like to read fantasy, fiction, sports. So it's important to provide a variety of reading materials to them. Then at the end of the self-directed reading, this is really important, have students share out what they read about.

Marisha Mets: That is perfect. You just shared a ton of different strategies, lots of different resources and things that we can use. But there's a lot, definitely way more than can fit in one session. So how do you go about planning your group lessons to incorporate these strategies and just tips for making this happen in general?

Venita Litvack: Okay. That's such a good question. I think it's so important, because looking at the research is one thing. But putting it into practice is a totally different thing. You explained what my role is now. I'll just be very transparent here, I am an assistant technology specialist. Now, I support teachers and SLPs in the middle school. But I did work in a charter school for children with autism when I first got started. I'll explain what that looked when I was doing AAC and literacy in group lessons, when I was doing collaborative lessons with the teacher. It's going to look a little bit different than what I described and I think you do what you can until you know better. I'll explain what I did. Then maybe some things I might change knowing what I know now.

Venita Litvack: One of the things that I did in terms of shared reading is that I would pick a book for theme of the week, which I know you're really passionate about. And that's great. I'd pick a book or theme of the week. If it could go along with the academic lesson, all the better. I would talk with the teachers about what they were working on and try to pick a book that went along with that. Then I would identify core and fringe vocabulary that can be modeled while reading, which is important when you're doing that RAP strategy. And then I provide access to AAC. Students could use their personal AAC systems or BIGmacks. And on the BIGmack, I might put a repetitive phrase that I want the student to say.

Venita Litvack: If we're reading a book like Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? I might have that whole phrase or I might have, what do you see on the BIGmack. And the students that don't have a ACC system, they can take turns pushing the buttons so they feel they're helping me read. I don't know, Marisha, are you familiar with Story Grammar Marker? I feel you would be.

Marisha Mets: Yes.

Venita Litvack: Okay. I love Story Grammar Marker. I would use the Braidy doll to discuss story elements after the reading. We would talk about the character, the setting and the story sequence using the Story Grammar Marker doll. Then in order to address shared writing, I would pick a phrase that relates to the book, such as, say we're reading Brown Bear again, maybe I see a... Then the students could do that predictable chart writing with them filling out what they see. Each student would say, "I see a teacher, I see a chair," whatever they see at the moment that they want to say for their little phrase.

Venita Litvack: I like to reiterate this. Depending on how often you go into the classroom, you can do each step of the predictable chart writing or some steps and help the teacher, or even assign homework to the parent. And then in order to address alphabet knowledge and phonological awareness, every day I would sing a letter song with my groups. You can find these on Pinterest or TPT. Mine were cards. For each letter, it had a sound that went with the letter and we would sing it out as a group. This was really for my younger elementary school aged kiddos.

Venita Litvack: Then in order to also address the phonological and alphabet knowledge, we would incorporate the academic words. The programs that the teachers that I worked with `provided words of the month. These tended to be a lot of sight words. There's a lot of crossover between sight words and core words. We put it up on a word wall or they might already have it up on a word wall. We would try to read the words, clap them out, spell them out. There's other research out there, other strategies that are pretty well known, at least in the education field, on how to target those words as a group and do phonological awareness instruction with those words.

Marisha Mets: I love the practical examples here, and just what this could look in practice. Then I have just a quick experience to share, too. I worked in an autism preschool. This was my first job that I had. I didn't know all of this research yet. I totally resonate with what you said about you do what you can until you know better, because there's definitely no way to know it all when we first start out. But I was able to use a lot of these strategies when I went into the classroom. For me, circle time was a really good time to make that happen, because the teacher was already using, like we did songs that we could work on. We had an alphabet song. We would show the letters. We had a lot of that alphabet-phonological awareness aspects built into that routine. Then I would always bring in a book and do some different activities around that.

Marisha Mets: At this level, a lot of the students were just using a single switch, that and the BIGmack or whatnot. We included some of those different activities. We identified the core vocabulary that we wanted to target during that. If I were going back, I think I would have done the RAP strategy. And I don't know, did they say in the book, which ages you would start this with? Would you do the sentence activity with preschool, too?

Venita Litvack: They did say that you can start pretty young. I haven't gotten to a point where they said there's a specific age limit. They give ideas for targeting these areas with different age groups. But they didn't say that a child is too young. But I haven't completely finished it so I don't want to say that they do or they don't.

Marisha Mets: That's amazing, because I was in a typical preschool too, where they definitely did activities. In the autism preschool, they also did activities with their names and letters and all of that. But I know in the general preschool, they cut up sentences and things like that. I've seen it in practice. I've seen little kiddos do it. I am definitely going to check out this book, because it sounds an amazing resource for this population. I'm so grateful you shared that. But I think it's just really helpful, because I think a lot of us, as we're listening to this, we're able to identify strategies that we've used in our practice. And this is just a way to celebrate what we're doing and reinforce those activities that we are using. Then maybe think of some things to add to our own session or to work with the teachers on, like, "Hey, I heard that this was really great."

Marisha Mets: The reason that I wanted to share my preschool experience was I would go in on Monday with the book and I would model all of that. Then the teacher and the para educators would be in the classroom with me, too. It's the best thing, when you walk into a classroom and they're using those strategies that you modeled the day or earlier in the week. So I definitely led it a couple of times, but it was just really cool to see them reinforcing that throughout the day, too. We definitely get to use a team approach to make this happen. It's not all us.

Venita Litvack: I love that. I, like you, I've done both sides. Recently I had to help cover for SLP services. I got to work with the gen ed population in the schools. I could see why that collaborative teaching wouldn't work because their goals are very different. Maybe we're working on sound specific goals. But even in your group settings, you can definitely address those areas of literacy at the same time that you're targeting those other goals.

Marisha Mets: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So amazing. Thanks for listening to the SLP Now Podcast. This podcast is part of a course offered for continuing education through SpeechTherapyPD. So yes, you can earn [Ashesi CEs 00:17:18] for listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your SLP friends. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episodes sent directly to. See you next time.

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This is a guest blog post by Monica, a school-based SLP, all about the importance of phonological awareness development. Scroll down to access the free download!

The Importance of Phonological Awareness Phonological awareness always feels like something you hear about everywhere, and with good reason! It’s the earliest indication of reading skills in students (Gillon, 2000) and working on phonological awareness has been shown to improve speech sound disorder therapy outcomes in preschool students (Tambyraja & McCauley, 2012).

It makes sense when we think about a phonological disorder as a language disorder (Bowen, 2011). I love incorporating phonological awareness in my sessions because it’s a small effort for a big reward! You’re probably already using phonological awareness in your sessions (hello, minimal pairs)!

Phonological awareness is quick and easy to both assess and include in your therapy sessions. I promise! In doing so, you can also prevent your students from developing reading difficulties later in life (Gillon, 2000).

SLP Now has you covered if you want to know more about phonological awareness! I’ll link to some of our podcasts, blog posts, and give you a preview of the available materials to members.

But first… Click here to access the Phonological Awareness Development Chart freebie!

SLP Now Phonological Awareness Resources SLP Now Blog Posts (free) How to Target Phonological Awareness in Speech Therapy

SLP Now Podcast (free) Podcast #98: A Quick Review of Phonological Awareness

Podcast #99: Phonological Awareness Assessment and Goals

Podcast #100: Phonological Awareness Treatment Ideas

Podcast #101: What We’ve Learned About Phonological Awareness

SLP Now Membership Phonological Awareness Skills Pack

Phonological Awareness Smart Decks

Bonus Resources The ATLAS-PA is a free phonological awareness test. The best part is that you can use it for students who have disabilities related to speech production.

The CUBED Dynamic Decoding Measures include a segment that quickly tests phonemic awareness, word identification, and decoding. This test is also free!

I hope you’ve found some helpful information that you can start incorporating phonological awareness into your sessions.

References Bowen, C. (2011). What is the difference between an articulation disorder and a phonological disorder? Retrieved from http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/ on 10/29/2011.

Gillon Gail T. (2000). The Efficacy of Phonological Awareness Intervention for Children With Spoken Language Impairment. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 31(2), 126–141.

Tambyraja, S. R., & McCauley, R. J. (2012). Do Phonemic Awareness Interventions Improve Speech in Preschool Children with Speech Sound Disorders? EBP Briefs. Volume 7, Issue 3. In EBP Briefs (Evidence-based Practice Briefs). NCS Pearson, Inc.

The post Phonological Awareness Development Chart [Free Download] appeared first on SLP Now Blog.

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In today’s episode, Venita Litvack shares a brief overview of the Comprehensive Emergent Literacy framework and breaks down strategies for the first two steps of the framework.

It’s nice to have a framework and know where we should start with the student rather than just saying, okay, they need literacy, let’s read books. Because we know literacy is so much more than that. And today, we’re going to touch on the five different areas that encompass comprehensive emergent literacy instruction and break down the first two steps with some strategies.

Comprehensive Emergent Literacy Framework Shared Reading

Shared Writing

Alphabet and phonological awareness

Independent writing

Self-directed Reading

Activities for Steps 1+2 of the Framework Shared Reading Strategy: RAAP: Read, Ask, Answer and PromptTime: Erickson and Koppenhaver recommend that you do this activity at least two times a day for 10 to 15 minutes a day.

Overview: RAAP is an interactive reading strategy for improving literacy experiences for individuals who use AAC. It encourages aided language input and is a form of modeling on the AAC system, which is really critical for our emergent communicators. It gets the communication partner to slow down and allow the AAC user more processing time.

Step 1. Read page and model two symbols on the device

Step 2. Pause for 5 seconds by maintaining eye contact and look at the AAC learner expectantly. Then ask a WH Question and model two symbols on the device and again, wait five seconds

Step 3. If they didn’t answer the wh question, you’ll answer it for them and model two more symbols on the device, and then pause again.

Step 4. And if they don’t say anything, or if they do say something, you’re going to provide a two to three-word response using the AAC system and verbally. Example: show me the (blank) on the page, like a caterpillar, show me the caterpillar.

Step 5. Repeat this process for every single page of the book.

The RAAP strategy really helps the student who uses AAC to be more active in the reading and less of a passive listener.

Shared Writing Strategies Strategy: Predictable Chart WritingTime: 20-30 minutes a day over a 5 day period

Overview: Predictable Chart Writing is a fun and easy shared writing activity that supports emergent and conventional writers and readers. It’s a way of providing some structure while allowing students to generate their own ideas.

Day 1. Write a chart and repetitive phrase and have every student create a sentence. Example: I like to…

Day 2. Reread the chart and sentences

Day 3. Cut up the sentences

Day 4. Assign students a word and have them act out the sentence

Day 5. Make a class book

Links Mentioned in the Podcast – The effect of pause time upon the communicative interactions of young people who use augmentative and alternative communication. (Hilary Mathis)

– Video of RAAP method in action

– Predictable chart writing

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Marisha: Hello there. Welcome to the SLP Now Podcast, where we share practical therapy tips and ideas for busy speech language pathologists. Grab your favorite beverage. And sit back as we dive into this week's episode.

Marisha: This month we are talking all things AAC and literacy with Venita Litvack. So head to episode 102, to get the getting started phase. And if you've already been listening to the episodes, just join us to continue learning more about AAC, literacy and comprehensive emergent matters.

Marisha: Just a quick recap. So we've got three main types, immersion, conventional, or both in terms of the intervention that we can use. That really just depends on where the student is at. Are they identifying letters of the alphabet? Are they engaging in shared reading? Do they have a method of interaction? And do they understand that print has meaning? Did I get that?

Venita Litvack: Yeah. Thank you for summarizing that.

Marisha: Awesome. So, just one more time too, because you said 80% of AAC users...

Venita Litvack: Yeah. Like I said, I was trying to find the reference for that because I recently heard it in a training.

Venita Litvack: They said something like 80% of individuals who are nonverbal, which I don't like that term, and I know we're trying to move away from that term, so I said, individuals who are non-speaking, are at the emergent literacy level.

Marisha: Okay, amazing. So this is a super important conversation then, because we definitely want those kids moving towards literacy.

Venita Litvack: Yeah. And they're set up differently, the type of instruction. So it's nice to have a framework and know where we should start with the student rather than just saying, okay, they need literacy, let's read books. Because we know literacy is so much more than that. And we're going to talk about the five different areas that encompass comprehensive emergent literacy instruction.

Marisha: Okay. Let's do it. I can't wait.

Venita Litvack: Great. So I'll briefly share those. The first area of comprehensive emergent literacy instruction is shared reading. Then you have shared writing. Then you have alphabet and phonological awareness, independent writing with full access to the alphabet and self directed reading. And all of these are outlined in that book. So when we start to talk about the different activities that I would recommend when teaching literacy to students who use AAC, I will break them down by those five different areas.

Marisha: Perfect. Let's do it.

Venita Litvack: Great. Are you ready to dive into those activities?

Marisha: Yes.

Venita Litvack: Perfect. In terms of shared reading Erickson and Koppenhaver recommend that you do this activity at least two times a day for 10 to 15 minutes a day. Now I know SLPs, we have different schedules, different settings. So you have to do what you're able to do. When I worked in a school for children with autism, I actually got to go into the classrooms every day for about an hour, but I know that looks drastically different in other types of school settings. Maybe you're only seeing the student one time a week, two times a week. So take this with a grain of salt or what you can do. And we'll actually talk about some ways that you can incorporate these strategies in group lessons. And I am sensitive to the fact that you might not see the child every day of the week so we'll talk about that later.

Venita Litvack: But in terms of shared reading Marisha, you brought this up earlier. One of the strategies that I really like and talk about is the RAAP strategy. And I like it one because I actually studied under one of the researchers, Dr. Kent Walsh, and got to see the impacts that that research got to help present at the ASHA convention, but it was developed by doctors, Cathy Binger and Dr. Jennifer Kent-Walsh. And it's not rap music, but it actually stands for read, ask, answer and prompt.

Venita Litvack: And it is an interactive reading strategy for improving literacy experiences for individuals who use AAC. It encourages aided language input. So a form of modeling on the AAC system, which is really critical for our emergent communicators. And it gets the communication partner to slow down and allow the AAC user more processing time. And along with that processing time, I do like to highlight what the research tells us in terms of the amount of time it takes students to process questions or information that we present to them. So there was a study by Hilary Johanna Mathis entitled "The effect of pause time upon the communicative interactions of young people who use augmentative and alternative communication". And in that they suggest that we provide a wait time of up to 45 seconds and that would support AAC users to claim more conversational turns and use more words.

Venita Litvack: Now, I know 45 seconds seems like a really long time. So I think on average, the research says that between 10 to 20, that was the only reference I was able to find them, that's why I brought it up, but it just illustrates the importance of how much time we need to be giving. And in reality, we're probably giving closer to two to three seconds. So the framework for the raap strategy, when you're reading a book together with a child is on every single page, you're going to do the raap. So the first step is to read the book or read the page and model two symbols on the device. Then you pause for five seconds by maintaining eye contact and looking at the AAC learner expectantly. Then you're going to ask a wh question and model two symbols on the device. And again, you're waiting for five seconds.

Venita Litvack: The reason you're waiting for five seconds is because you're allowing the child to comment, to answer the wh question, whatever they want to do in order to be a active reader along with you. And then the third step is if they didn't answer the wh question, you'll answer it for them and model two more symbols on the device and then pause again. And then if they don't say anything, or if they do say something, you're going to provide a two to three word response using the AAC system and verbally. So you might say something like, your turn or show me the, you know, if there's something on the page, like a caterpillar, show me the caterpillar and you actually repeat this process for every single page of the book. And it really helps the student who uses AAC to be more active in the reading and less passive, less of a passive listener.

Venita Litvack: So that's my shared reading activity that I wanted to share. Do you have anything you want to add to that before I move on to the next area?

Marisha: No, that was perfect. I'd be super curious to see this in action. Do they have examples of this? On YouTube or anything?

Venita Litvack: That's a great question. They definitely have videos. I'm not sure if they're sharing it on YouTube, but there's a name of the lab and I'll try to get that for you. What I'll do is I'll share that in email with you and you can put that in the show notes, but they have a lab and I would assume they put the videos on there, but I'll do my best to get those for you.

Marisha: Okay. Amazing. Thank you so much.

Venita Litvack: No problem.

Marisha: Were there more strategies under shared reading?

Venita Litvack: That's it, but I really could talk about this stuff all day. So I tried to condense it.

Marisha: Okay. So let's do some shared writing strategies then.

Venita Litvack: All right, perfect. So in terms of shared writing again, Erickson and Koppenhaver recommended to do this for 20 to 30 minutes a day, and this doesn't have to be done just by the SLP. This can be done by the classroom teacher as well. So if you're finding this information helpful, you can share this framework with the teachers that you collaborate with, but predictable chart writing has been found to be really helpful for these shared writing activities. So I'm going to talk about the framework that was outlined by Hanser, Cunningham, Hall, and Williams, separately of course, they had different research studies looking at predictable chart writing, but in summary, predictable chart writing is a fun and easy shared writing activity that supports emergent and conventional writers and readers. It's a way of providing some structure while allowing students to generate their own ideas.

Venita Litvack: And it provides many different activities that occur around the predictable chart over a five day period. So this is going to look very different depending on whether you are in the classroom every day, doing collaborative teaching, or if you see the student one to two times a week, but again, the classroom teacher can definitely implement this. So I'm going to discuss the activities across all five days with you. So on day one, you are going to write a chart. So for that, you're going to need chart paper, or you can use a big dry erase board on the front of the classroom and a single message device. So what happens is that you're going to pick a phrase that's repetitive. So let's say we're going to use the phrase, I like to. If you're working in a group, every student who uses AAC in the group, or every student in your group, they're going to tell you something that they like to do.

Venita Litvack: So the phrase is repeated for each student. So let's say you have five students. Maybe student one says, "I like to swim." The next student may say, "I like to sleep." The next one might say, "I like to eat." And the only word that changes is the last word, but they get to write their own sentence or finish their own sentence by providing something that relates to them. And then on day two, you are going to reread the sentences as a group, and you're going to put them on individual sentence strips. So you're going to together as a group, reread the chart while pointing to each word, you can clap out the words. You can rap the word, you can sign the words, but it's just getting them to recognize that those words are individual units of meaning as you're rereading them. And then on day three, you're going to cut up the sentences.

Venita Litvack: So you want to make sure that you have the students sentence, their own sentence on two separate sheets of paper, because they need one as the model and the other one you're going to cut up and they're going to rearrange the words to remake the sentence and play with the words, maybe they can even make a new sentence. So the goal of this step is to help support students in understanding that sentences are made from left to right. And that students don't have to create a perfect sentence. They just have to get comfortable with using these words, manipulating these words and the process of writing. And then on day four, they get to act out the sentence, which is fun. So you would give each student their AAC system or a single message device with the word of the sentence programmed into it. So let's say you have five students in the group.

Venita Litvack: One student would be I, the other student would be like, another student would be to. And then it can be one of the words that the students had said, maybe I like to swim. So they're going to read the sentence together. So the person that has I was going to do I, and then the next one's like, and the next one's to and the last person would say swim. So they're acting out the sentence by saying their individual words, and you can actually have them if possible, depending on their physical limitations line up in the order of the sentence too. And that gets them to understand like the structure of a sentence. And then on day five, the last day of the week, you would make a book with all of the students' sentences. So one-on-one, you're going to support the students in making their page, which will be part of a class book.

Venita Litvack: So if the first student said, "I like to swim", you would help them find a picture to go along with that, to support the texts. And then they get to make one page of the class book. Then the next student might have, I like to eat and they'll find a picture for that. And they get to make the second page of the class book. And at the end you can print it out and add it to your class library. And it's really nice because it's a book that they created together as a group and can reference and get to know each other a little bit better. And one resource for making the book, which I really like is called Tarheel reader, which I'm going to talk more about later.

Marisha: Thanks for listening to the SLP. Now podcast. This podcast is part of a course offered for continuing education through speech therapy PD. So yes, you can earn ASHA CEU's for listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with your SLP friends and don't forget to subscribe to the podcast to get the latest episodes sent directly to you. See you next time.

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