Have you ever thought about how you, as an SLP, talk to people? That means all people-- but specifically, non-verbal children with autism. We have two forms of sentence structures: questions and statements. We bombard children with questions. We do not give children time to answer these questions. Many children will ...

Keeping with my previous theme of poems for special occasions for the speech/language pathologist, I wrote this one for SLPs as the 2011 school year begins. Beginnings are unique and can be scary for all children, especially those with ASD. When I think of all of the children and their fears, I also reflect on the parents who put their child ...

  Our young clients with ASD aren't really so difficult when it comes to lesson plans for therapy and fulfilling benchmarks and outcomes. In fact, they're very easy. Look at my list of Top Five Necessities and you'll see that the first four are ''get it and you'll have it'' kind of things. 1.    ...

Why not get the school year started off with a special, personal note from YOU to the parents of your most challenging students.   Dear Parents,             As speech/language pathologist (SLP) at (name of school) Elementary School, I look forward to working with (child's first ...

When I first started to become interested in using picture books as contexts for intervention in my public school SLP position, I was really happy to find Books are for Talking Too, by Jane Gebers. It was clearly just the resource I was looking for at the time - a guide specific to SLPs detailing the power of using picture books. Many great ...

Questions from parents of children with ASD are a part of a speech pathologist's professional life. The top two questions that parents have always asked me are: ''When will my child speak,'' and ''When will he/she be potty trained?'' Those are big questions and tough ones because no one can answer either of them. It is not always necessary to ...

I'm a little firecracker sometimes waiting to explode. You never know when those times come bet you wish you had my code.   I light up like a sparkler when things don't go my way. I throw myself down to the ground until I feel okay.   When I see spinning flowers, round and round I go. I make ...