For a lot of kids who are learning to navigate our highly-social world, some of the most advanced skills are inferencing others’ wants, needs, thoughts, and relationships. When I worked in a clinic with lots of people around I had lots of opportunities to practice these skills while using the people around us as examples. …
“Tune In” time (instead of “time out”) is a part of the evidence-based discipline strategies from No-Drama Discipline by Dr. Daniel J. Siegel (professor of psychiatry) and Dr. Tina Payne Bryson (pediatric psychotherapist). I’ve combined this idea with the Zones of Regulation by giving my patients a place to calm down while sorting through their …
I love the Zones of Regulation! The curriculum has taught me so much about regulation and the tools have helped so many of my patients engage in speech and language treatment! I have colleagues who hate the Zones of Regulation because it gets confusing for kids whose teachers use the color-coded behavior charts. to be …
A few years ago I received a referral from a neurologist who had concerns about verbal memory. I did some research and found that, despite my lack of training in this area this is within an SLP’s scope of practice. I also found that there wasn’t a lot of evidence-based techniques for this area. The …
Disney shorts are the secret to my success with telehealth. When the word switched to online treatment due to the COVID-19 pandemic I started using these videos as an unstructured activity for grammar, pragmatic langauge, and narratives. Since then I’ve done lots of research about attention and brain waves during video calls and I find …
When I was in graduate school there was a lot of information about the difference between an “articulation disorder” and a “phonological disorder.” Then I started my internship and found that in order for an insurance company to pay for speech & langauge treatment the child needs a medical diagnosis and that these are found …
Whether I’m working on narrative creation, narrative retell, or using correct language structures during narratives I like to keep the activity as fun as possible. I find that this can be one of the hardest tasks for kids and giving them a fun way to work on it (with Disney videos, video games, or story …
When I was helping parents of children who have Autism Spectrum Disorder around the state I often made these envelope visual schedules and first-then schedules. They’re not too big to carry around and you can fit the tokens, icons, and/or a marker into the envelope. Once I was working in the schools I found them …
My patients love using Calico Critters, Li’l Woodzeez, and Honey Bee Acres during treatment! And I love that the kids are motivated to do their work while we play with them. There are so many less expensive dollhouse sets! Yet, these are the most motivating that I’ve found. My patients have always tired of the …
As children with social skills deficits try to navigate our highly-social world they must first learn the basics (eye contact, following eye-gaze, attending to others, etc.) and then learn to use those skills to identify others’ emotions, inference the cause of the emotions, and problem-solve the situations causing these emotions. To target these skills I …
