Speech 2U

Once you reach them, you can teach them.

The Eye contact debate

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Should you encourage eye contact for children on the autism spectrum?  When I first started working as a speech language pathologist, it was common to see goals such as “Johnny will sustain eye contact for 5 minutes” or “Johnny will maintain eye contact for 90% of a conversation.”  This is a great goal if your […]

Stepping up to the challenge of Challenging behaviors and surviving to live another day

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I would say at least 50% or more of my caseload has exhibited challenging behaviors for the last 16 years that I’ve been practicing.  Hitting, throwing, spitting, biting, work refusals, crying, refusing to leave etc.  Today I’m going to talk mostly about individual sessions.  At school settings when I have one student who is more […]

Love It AND list It {Linky party}

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Thank you to Jenna from The Speech Room News for hosting another awesome Love It and List It.  This month’s topic is behavior management.  What a great topic-especially when students get so squirrely at the end of the year.  I always start by making sure that my activities are fun and motivating.   Because I work with […]

Autism: Zeroing in on WHAT to teach.

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I’ve been working with children on the Autism spectrum for the last 16 or so years.   I’ve noticed more consistently in my state (Minnesota) that these students are not always being serviced by the Speech Language Pathologist.  I’ve heard some colleagues mention that these students need services from an Autism specialist or that they […]

Recycled Guest Posts: Teaching communication Alternatives to Challenging Behaviors in Young Children.

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Shari was a 5 year old girl who just started therapy.  She wasn’t producing any words, had minimal eye contact and cried during most of each session.  She really enjoyed ball slide types of toys but became upset when she wasn’t allowed to control the entire interaction.  When the clinician touched the ball she cried, tried […]

Recycled Guest Posts: Functional language therapy: Making Chips in Therapy

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I’m recycling some guest posts I did over the last year while I am on vacation.  I hope you are having a great week!******************* I really enjoy incorporating hands on activities: crafts, experiments, gross motor games and cooking in my therapy sessions.   I use these activities with early Elementary clients up to Middle school […]

Recycled Guest Posts: Inferencing

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I’m recycling some guest posts I did over the last year while I am on vacation.  I hope you are having a great week! ************************** One of my favorite skills to work with older children is inferencing.   So I’m really excited (and a little nervous) about my first guest post for Carrie’s first year […]

Emergency Mustache Maneuvers

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Hi, My name is Kelly and I have a fear of growing a mustache.  Sometimes in that bathroom light, I’m not sure if there is a shadow on my top lip or if I’m starting to grow some coarse mustache hairs.  On occasion, when I go into get my eyebrows done, the technician will ask […]

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