''The Biggest Pizza Ever'' by JibJab Jr. is a fun book app that you can use to work on answering ''wh'' questions, teaching verbs, stating emotions and much much more.  Here's how it works: Choose who is going to be the main character of the book and then choose Create Character and add photo, name, and skin type. Now you are ready to ...

I've always loved reading classic fairy tales with my students. Not only are they great for their narrative structure, but they also play a big role in our culture.  Well, I really lucked out, because look what our librarian's daughter painted on the wall right outside my office!   As I walk to my room with my younger ...

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 ...

Books continue to be my heroes in my school position, sometimes showing up to save me from ennui when I least expect it. I was recently doing a pull-over sort of session in the literacy center (the kindergarten class is nearby and my room is, well, not), and spied the colorful cover of Alphabet Rescue, by Audrey Wood and her son, Bruce. ...

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 ...

This week instead of a recipe, I would like to share a fun lesson that expands on the apple theme from last week's recipe post. This is a lesson I created and implemented with my occupational therapist colleague and is an imaginative mix of communication and sensory-enriched activities! The Story of Johnny Appleseed The lesson began with a ...

  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 ...

Developing story grammar can have many great intentional side effects that would not occur if we are only focusing on the smaller (but important) things: vocabulary, morphemes, sentence structure. By aiming to develop story in our clinical work, we can establish an interesting context while still modeling and eliciting the microstructure of ...

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 ...

  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.    ...