autism

A potential friend is only a ‘Hello’ away. Paul Liebau One of the first social skills that I love to teach is greetings and student’s names. As a speech and language pathologist I know that although it might seem like a very simple skill when you…

Transitions can be difficult. Whether it is a big transition to a new school year or what we might think of as a simple transition from one activity to the next the transition could be hard. One way we can make the transition less stressful…

Circle Time Song Choice Boards is my go-to for new students. As I prepare for back to school I begin to organize my supplies and things that I will need to begin therapy. The first thing I always pull out is my Circle Time Song…

As speech and language pathologists,  we evaluate student’s speech and language skills. Although there is a wealth of evaluation tools for students for speech and language it is sometimes difficult to find tools for our students with severe disabilities. We especially want a tool that…

One of the shifts in working with students with significant disabilities has been the selection of vocabulary that we teach and how we introduce that. Previously we would teach concrete nouns that were in the child’s environment or were part of a lesson. It would…

I have been a speech and language pathologist, for now, forty-one years and over that time I have experienced changes in how we conduct therapy as research further defines best practices. One area that has been rapidly changing is in our work with students with…

  Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) is constantly evolving not just the technology surrounding it but also the vocabulary that we emphasis as we teach it. I have been in the field for forty-one years and have seen the transformation of how we think of AAC.…

There are many areas for challenges for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. No two people have the same communicative challenges. Some children with autism spectrum disorder have echolalia. Echolalia At one time the thought was Echolalia was a behavior to eliminate but we have a…

What are pragmatic language skills? Pragmatic language refers to the social language skills that we use in our daily interactions with others. This includes what we say, how we say it, our non-verbal communication (eye contact, facial expressions, body language, etc.) and how appropriate our interactions are in a given situation.

Not all of our communication is verbal. When we examine a child’s speech and language skills we need to include observations and descriptions of how the child is communicating non-verbally. Eye Gaze: A child might look at something they want and then back to the…