The Speech Link

In this episode, Linda and Char discuss Linda's creative concepts of incorporating Love, Listening, and Language into artic and language therapy for school-aged children. 

In this one-hour PodCourse, Lisa focuses on communication through behavior. She shares how to not just address aberrant behaviors but the emotional causal factors, as well. She explained the four primary functions of behavior, how they are the rationale behind most behaviors, and how to address behaviors using the four functions as a reference point. She discussed several procedures to use with lower-functioning children, as well as a several key tips to do with small groups of regular ed kids. Parent support is a primary concern of hers. She outlined the parent-perspective and offered suggestions on how to support parents of special-needs children.

In this episode, Nina shares her experience and extensive knowledge on the current views of stuttering and stuttering therapy for individuals of all ages. She suggests that outdated and negative views can be a roadblock to treatment success and shared how to do a personal activity to explore our mindset about the treatment of stuttering. Conversely, she outlined positive paradigms and several resources to enhance our mindset, improve our therapy outcomes, and work with families of those who stutter.  

In this course, the presenter reflects back on her career and shares personal insights about listening, learning, life, and doing therapy. She stresses the importance of listening to parents, teachers, and kids, and the value of seeking and finding a balance between life and work. Being in the schools, Erica knows the stress of paperwork. She shares a few of her secrets to managing this ever-present problem, as well as caseload tips. Interestingly, she chronicles the evolution of her 38 years of therapy and how it’s changed for the better.

In this episode , Dr. Anna Vagin shares her extensive knowledge and expertise on how to use YouTube animation videos with children who have social learning issues. She explains how research supports using materials that “move” especially with children on the autism spectrum. Video animations—with words or without words—are engaging and provide excellent examples of social interaction and pragmatics. They exemplify how feelings are an important aspect of our human experience. Dr. Vagin details specific therapy procedures on how to fun and effectively use and apply short YouTube animation videos in therapy.

In this episode Sharon Ivey, a highly experienced school SLP who has done classroom therapy for 35 years sits down with Char. She shares valuable information as to how to get into the classroom, how to work with teachers, and what to do once you’re there. She even shared her experiences of the “push-back” of “pushing-in.” She sited several benefits of going into the classroom, the most important one being the improvement of the students and how they transfer their increased language abilities into higher reading and academic skills. Therapy tools, games and activities were shared.

In this episode, Char sits down with Pat Mervine, MA, CCC-SLP and asks her to share some knowledge and expertise on creating a positive atmosphere to enrich communication for students with complex communication needs. She explains how to engineer the environment by raising expectations with your attitude, actions, and teaching strategies so students of all ages have ample opportunities to communicate throughout the day with a variety of communication partners, using speech or their AAC system. She explicitly details the importance and process of using the Prompt Hierarchy, The Expectant Pause, and Scripting to provide and personalize communication needs.

Within the school setting, collaboration of SLPs, teachers, support staff, and administrators is a key—sometimes a hidden key—to academic success. Typically, the SLP initiates the first steps and forges the way to shaping working-relationships and collaboration connections. This PodCourse explains how to do just that. She suggests starting the process with presenting at the school staff meeting; she details the topics and the process. She covers collaboration and therapy scheduling tips, time-efficiency techniques, as well as how to “select” teachers for collaboration.

In this one-hour episode, MariBeth shares a wealth of practical AAC information and resources to use with children and adults. She covers details about aided and unaided communication components, specifically how to do an environmental communication assessment (as part of the assessment team), as well as the process to determine an individual’s personal language needs. She explained and recommended resources for no-tech and low-tech tools, as well as static and dynamics devices and several apps. Very comprehensive, very practical and specific, provides a lot of valuable information within a short length of time.

In this Episode Char speaks with Ruth Jenkins, an SLP from Portland, Oregon who started a successful improv comedy troup with her husband and since has learned to use improv techniques to motivate and engage children with articulation, language, and fluency difficulties. The creative techniques can be modified for almost any aged student (elementary through high school).

This episode is about routines: what they are, why they’re beneficial to our therapy-kids, and how to create them. You learn systematic details of how to generate routines during transition time from the classroom to the therapy room, efficient ways to begin the therapy session, and beneficial routines to conclude the session, as well. Ms. Chin shares practical methods to maximize and utilize therapy-time as well as increase therapy effectiveness.

Every speech-language pathologist uses pictures in therapy. This podcourse, however, offers a twist on how to include pictures, graphics, and symbols not only in pull-out therapy, but in the classroom. In this case, pre-school is the primary focus, but the techniques can be applied to almost any lower-aged special education class. You’ll learn to use visual references as a critical piece to increasing receptive and expressive language to help children comprehend classroom expectations, sequences, and events of the day.

In this Podcast, you’ll learn a direct and systematic approach to increase vocabulary acquisition and heighten retrieval in language disordered children. For young children, basic concept knowledge is needed to advance to high-frequency words and curriculum-based instruction. You’ll learn details about what basic concepts to teach, Beck’s Tier 1, 2, and 3 vocabulary words, and several informative and practical strategies on how to implement vocabulary instruction in a sequential, meaningful way.

It can be challenging to get students with language disorders to use longer, grammatically correct sentences. In this podcast, Dr. Dudek-Brannon delves deeply into the topic of vocabulary as it relates to syntax. It’s especially frustrating when we want our students to correctly use target vocabulary words in sentences and they struggle; you’ll learn why they struggle and what to do about it. In addition, you’ll learn the secrets to troubleshooting and getting students to add complexity to their sentences by teaching them specific rules of syntax.

Don’t miss Char’s new, practical podcast—The Speech Link! Tune in to challenge your mind, lift your spirits, and meet your childhood speech and language needs. Listen and learn to interesting and compelling interviews with successful therapists, researchers, and authors who freely share their timely, relatable topics. The Speech Link—a wonderfully fresh new way of consuming content!