Dear Kathie: ''Do you always take a language sample as part of an assessment with a verbal child or adult with ASD? If so, what do you look for and how do you elicit the conversation?'' - Adrian, speech-language pathologist My Response: Thank you for asking about the assessment aspect for a child/adult with ASD. I feel there are three ...

This time of year, especially in the Northeast, it can seem like everyone is struggling with Seasonal Affective Disorder, including our students. It's cold, it's dark, and the smallest thing can set us off! As SLPs, we can be good counselors to our students and encourage positive self-talk for all sorts of occasions.  Self-talk ...

Listening is such a key skill for SLPs in schools to address and foster for all students, whether they have auditory comprehension deficits, social communication problems or are just overly active in the classroom setting. Comprehension exercises are one way to do this, but it is helpful to be as strategic as possible and give ...

I am taking a brief departure from the soon-to-be-wrapped-up ''Book It'' series on using picture books in language interventions in order to report back from ASHA Convention in San Diego. I was super excited to attend this year's ''Divas + One Players'' Session: Language Intervention in Science and Social Studies: A Panel Discussion. ...

Autumn is the perfect time to use trees as a context for your speech and language therapy. The study of trees is often identified as a curriculum unit, at least here in the Northeast where they change significantly across the span of a year. Trees can be related to categories and subcategories, can be used to teach describing by parts ...

How many of you have a budget for therapy and/or diagnostic materials at your workplace? Budgets are always limited, and I tend to request only materials and items that I know are patient-specific (communication books, etc.) to be purchased by the facility. I tend to buy my own therapy books because I prefer to create my own ...

I am happy to share some good news for those of you who have been following the Speech in the Schools Blog over the past year. Last October in a blog post I recommended a book called ''The Spooky House of Horror'' by Charles Fuge, Ian Craig and Ron Van der Meer. I felt horrible to discover that it was a collectors' item and now costs a ...

A couple of blogs ago, I wrote about several new therapy techniques/strategies/programs that I was trying with my students this year. Now that it is nearly the end of the first marking period (Friday!), I think I've had enough time and experience trialing these programs to give you my opinion of each in this blog. One of the four new ...

It scares me to think that a child with ASD could have a tantrum on my watch. My knees -- they are a-shakin' at the thought. It will happen, and when it does, what will I do?   Children with ASD have tantrums. They hit and pound. They flail. They scream. They may bang their heads against a wall or throw items. They may spit or ...

I have always enjoyed children's literature, and enjoy using children's books in my therapy sessions. I always hope that I'm doing the books, and my students' goals, justice. Because of this, I really enjoyed the ADVANCE Webinar  Narrative Development: Beyond Story Grammar  presented by Maryellen Rooney Moreau, MEd, CCC-SLP. ...