Part I  I talked about the characteristics of the right and left sides of the brain and how they do not dance together in people with autism/ASD. I gave you twenty signs that I see that indicate how Mr. Left Brain and Mrs. Right Brain dance alone. Part II I was on a kick about strategies that SLPs bring to the table to assist ...

Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz  Why, if I had a brain I could... [singing] I could while away the hours, Conferrin' with the flowers, Consultin' with the rain. And my head I'd be scratchin' While my thoughts were busy hatchin' If I only had a brain.   In last week's blog I talked about the characteristics of the ...

  Everybody's brains are different and certainly, the autistic brain connects in an unorthodox manner. Autism is not curable, but there are many language strategies the SLP can do to assist in organizing the brains of people with autism. It is my theory that people with autism do not cross hemispheres of the brain, from left to ...

  Last week's blog discussed, ''Should You Ask a Non-Verbal Child a Question?'' Now that's a good question. My answer is: usually not. Instead, make statements! Children will respond to statements because: They are not threatened by communication They know they are not being requested to answer They can enjoy ...

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 ...

Children with autism don't usually like board games because they don't know how to take turns and they don't like rules. Board games also rely on interacting with people-now there's a threat to children with autism. However, when a board game is played alone, without rules, without interaction with other people, without taking turns, is it ...

I'm me. She's she. We're we and they're they.   That's all good, but most of the time children with ASD refer to themselves in the third person.   Here is my strategy for developing appropriate pronoun skills in children with ASD.   What is pronoun reversal? A pronoun reversal is a language ...