Valentine's Day is the perfect time to review social skills and talk about friendship. A favorite curriculum for the younger children we serve is ''Good Talking Words'' by Lucy Hart Paulson and Rick van Den Pol. I love how this curriculum picks some simple key social concepts, and uses children's books to illustrate them. The ...

With only a month left to go in this school year, I thought I better get back to a blog I wrote way back at the beginning of the school year.  I had talked about four new approaches/therapy models/interventions that I'd be using this year — so far I've only blogged about two of them (Behavior Management Through Adventure and using the ...

Autism Awareness Month began on Sunday, April 1. My son Doug's birthday is April 1. The fifth annual World Autism Awareness Day was April 2. World Autism Awareness Day ''aims to increase people's awareness about people, especially children, with autism. The day often features educational events for teachers, health care workers and parents, as ...

When do you elicit a language sample? Certainly when you first see a child you would want to take a language sample. However, if the child is not comfortable on the initial assessment, there is nothing written in stone that says that it has to be completed the first time around. That in itself should tell you something. I feel that ...

Thank you! A special thank you to all of the SLPs who emailed pictures of their beloved pets to include in collages that we can all use to elicit language samples. It was so much fun to see the variety of who lives with you. I was amazed to find who shares your affection, and I know now to whom you talk to each night after work! These are ...

I have spent a fair amount of time here complaining about winter, so it's a good time to let you know that I LOVE St. Patrick's Day, mostly because to me it is the beginning of spring. Also, I am Darn Well Irish (the MacSweeneys, one of them being my grandfather, hail from County Cork, Ireland). This is sort of a weird holiday to target ...

Dear Kathie: ''Chad is 5 years old and ‘very' autistic and non-verbal. He covers his ears with his hands when there is a loud noise, such as a fire alarm, or even when he anticipates a loud noise, like a balloon that he thinks may pop. How can I help him, his classroom teacher, and his parents? - Payton, speech-language pathologist My ...

Dear Kathie: ''Larry speaks so loudly. I can hear him coming from way down the hall in school. No one wants to sit by him in the lunchroom and his teacher is pulling her hair out. I've talked to Larry's mother and it's the same at home, in the library and at McDonald's. Any suggestions? And is this really in the realm of speech therapy for a ...

Kids do! I was skimming the shelves at Barnes & Noble one day when I saw the cute little picture book ''When it Starts to Snow,'' by Phillis Gershator and Martin Matje. The title instantly made me think, ''temporal structure!'' Through adorable illustrations and rhyming text, the book describes what a variety of animals do when it starts ...

In ''What to Include in a Language Sample, Pt. I,'' I expressed how important I feel a language sample is to complete an assessment for a verbal child or adult on the autism spectrum. I told you what to look for during a language sample and gave you an example of how I utilize a puzzle to elicit conversation with young children. When taking ...