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.    ...

Mystic Pizza is a coming of age film from 1988. The title of the film was based on a pizza shop in Mystic, Connecticut, called Mystic Pizza. Through this romance, two sisters and their friends explore relationships, work ethics, goals and their futures.   Every speech therapy room is Mystic Every speech therapy ...

Last December I was assigned a new child to my caseload. She was already being seen by several of my co-workers who each informed me of their grave concerns regarding her development. At the time, she had not yet been diagnosed with anything other than a developmental delay; however two of my seasoned staff members confided that they were ...

For today's post I would like to reflect on some of the beautiful relationships that can emerge when you devote yourself to early intervention therapy and working with families with young children. There is a family I have worked with for the past two years. The little girl I see will be turning 3 next month and has a diagnosis of Down syndrome. ...

A Message to Readers: Recently, more and more readers have been commenting on the blog and have also been sending me personal emails asking for advice and guidance regarding various populations and disabilities. I absolutely love the feedback and I think the networking that has occurred is invaluable. What I am attempting to do in order to ...

I recently received an email from a speech pathology graduate student inquiring about strategies I could recommend regarding how to stimulate speech and language with a child with Down syndrome. Reading her email reminded me that I have not yet written a post about children diagnosed with Down syndrome, despite the fact that this population of ...

As many of you probably already know, April is recognized as Autism Awareness Month. As a therapist who has been working for several years with children diagnosed with autism, I wanted to give special attention to the disorder that affects so many people we love. So, in an attempt to give autism the awareness it absolutely needs, I have chosen to ...

If you missed Tuesday's post, it featured the beginning of my interview with Lona Otero-Nardone, occupational therapist. Lona has been working in early intervention for over 8 years now and has become an excellent resource for her colleagues and clients on the topic of Sensory Integration Dysfunction (SID) in young children. Today's segment is a ...