Podcasts about slps

Musical speech therapy techniques for the non-musical SLP.Guest: Corinne Zmoos, MS, CCC-SLPEarn 0.10 ASHA CEUs for this episode with Speech Therapy PDWatch on YoutubeTake the FREE Pediatric Feeding Courses for ASHA CEUs (through June 30, 2026)Want to incorporate music into your speech therapy sessions but don't know where to start? Michelle and Corinne share easy-to-use resources to help non-musical SLPs confidently incorporate music into sessions, along with evidence-based tools for clinicians looking to deepen their knowledge of music-based language intervention.About the Guest: Corinne Zmoos, MS, CCC-SLP, is a musical speech-language pathologist based in Baltimore, Maryland, and the founder of *Messy Happy Music Lab*, a private practice specializing in neurodivergent language acquisition, musical language therapy, Gestalt Processing, and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC).Show Notes:Contact Corinne:IG: @crescendo.communicationcrescendocommunication.comGestalt Get-Together podcastLove Money: Support Marian House in BaltimoreJoin the National Foundation of Swallowing DisordersRun the Virtual Dash For Dysphagia June 6-13, 2026Dysphagia Research Society

Have you ever looked at an AAC device and thought, “Where do I even start?” I've been there too, and I know how overwhelming it can feel.For years, I supported students using AAC while secretly feeling unsure of myself behind the scenes. I could teach communication strategies all day long, but when it came to navigating new systems and vocabulary sets, I remember leaving work feeling defeated and questioning whether I was truly helping my students. That experience completely changed the way I approach AAC today.I'm sharing the story behind our brand-new course, AAC Mastery for SLPs and BCBAs, and why I created it for professionals who want practical, real-world support with AAC instead of more theory that never translates into therapy sessions. This course brings together incredible AAC experts to talk about assessment, motor planning, collaboration, bilingual learners, switch access, parent support, and so much more.My goal is simple. I want you to feel confident supporting every AAC user on your caseload. Whether you're brand new to AAC or you've been in the field for years, I want you to walk away with strategies you can actually use right away.#autism #speechtherapyWhat's Inside:Why motor planning matters more than you thinkAAC assessment tips and funding guidanceCollaboration strategies for SLPs and BCBAsReal case studies and practical AAC problem-solvingMentioned In This Episode:AAC Mastery for SLPs and BCBAs Earn CEUs with a community of peers. Join the ABA Speech ConnectionABA Speech: Home

In this episode of SLP Coffee Talk, Hallie gets honest with new grads and CFs who are quietly wondering if they're already behind. She talks through what imposter syndrome actually looks and feels like in those early weeks — the brain-blank first session, the late-night Google spiral — and why all of it is completely normal. If you're a new SLP asking “what if I can't do this?”, this one was made for you.Bullet Points to Discuss: Why imposter syndrome hits hardest when no one's watchingFour things that will actually get you through those early sessionsShrink the moment — just pick one thing to targetOne activity, stretched across every group and goal you've gotNarrate your thinking out loud — that's the therapyExpect the clunky sessions — even the veterans have themHallie's recipe for a speech lesson that works no matter whatHere's what we learned: Feeling clueless doesn't mean you're underprepared. It means you're new.Language is hard because it overlaps with everything — slow progress is still progress.Adaptability is the skill that will carry you further than any material or lesson plan ever will.The confident SLP you're trying to be right now is built through exactly these messy, uncertain moments.You don't have to do this alone — and there's no rule that says you have to.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Learn more about Hallie Sherman and SLP Elevate:  

Imagine being a speech therapist and waking up in an ICU, unable to speak, swallow, or move your head and neck. That's what happened to Vanessa Abraham, MS, CCC-SLP, seven years ago when she was paralyzed by the pharyngeal-cervical-brachial (PCB) variant of Guillain-Barre. In this episode, she shares the full story from ventilator, tracheostomy, G-tube, and eye gaze boards through her path to eventually rebuilding her voice, her ability to swallow, and her clinical practice.  We cover: The PCB variant of Guillain-Barre and what recovery actually looks like How Vanessa found the Neubie, which turned out to be the missing link in her recovery The ways she uses electrical stimulation on the head and neck in her speech-language pathology practice, and how she dials in for swallowing and vocal cord function Polyvagal theory, why the body can't heal in a state of fight-or-flight, and how Vanessa uses the Master Reset Her frameworks for working with children with autism, adults with neurodegenerative conditions, and people experiencing PICS (post-intensive care syndrome) Vanessa is now one of the first SLPs in the world using the Neubie and has become a passionate educator through her book Speechless, her various talks and appearances, and her clinical practice. Her story is a very powerful pain-to-purpose conversation.  

What really helps speech sound practice stick once kids leave the therapy room?I'm joined by Shail Silver, founder of SpeechLP and parent to a child receiving speech therapy services, for a thoughtful conversation about carryover, motivation, and how technology can support meaningful speech sound practice at home. As a school-based SLP, this topic is especially important to me because we know progress doesn't just happen during therapy sessions. The real growth comes from consistent practice in everyday environments.Shail shares how his family's experience inspired the creation of SpeechLP, an AI-powered app designed to make articulation practice more engaging and less stressful for both parents and clinicians. We talk about the challenge of getting enough repetitions for true generalization, why carryover can be so difficult for students, and how gamified practice can help keep learners motivated. I also loved hearing how practicing SLPs are actively helping shape the platform so it stays practical and clinically relevant.There's so much potential in tools that support families, reduce clinician workload, and help students build confidence with communication in a fun and functional way.#autism #speechtherapyWhat's Inside:Why carryover matters so much for speech sound progressHow SpeechLP uses AI to support articulation practiceWays clinicians can use technology to support home practiceThe importance of making speech practice motivating for kidsMentioned In This Episode:SpeechLPParagraphAIEarn CEUs with a community of peers. Join the ABA Speech ConnectionABA Speech: Home

In this episode of SLP Coffee Talk, Hallie chats with Daj Mitchell—school-based SLP, online educator, and Illinois State University graduate—about getting everyone on board with AAC. With over six years of experience serving pediatric and adult clients across settings, Daj breaks down her buy-in stair step framework and explains why many SLPs accidentally skip to the last step. She shares practical strategies for coaching parents and staff, building real collaboration, and improving carryover beyond the therapy room. They also explore Daj's work in AI, AAC, and neurodiversity-affirming care, along with how she supports fellow clinicians through education and social media. This one's for any SLP who's ever handed a family a home program and never heard about it again.Bullet Points to Discuss: What the AAC buy-in stair step framework actually looks likeHow adult learning theory applies to parent and stakeholder coachingWhy video modeling works better than handouts for skeptical caregiversHow to use Google Forms, scheduled emails, and templates to manage AAC collaboration without eating your lunchWhat an AAC profile spreadsheet is and why Daj swears by itHow to extend the same coaching framework to teachers, paras, and adminHere's what we learned: Buy-in has three parts. Acceptance, willingness to support, and active participation are not the same thing—and most caregivers are only at step one.Don't skip ahead. Handing over a home program before a caregiver is ready guarantees the device stays on the refrigerator.Adults need a reason. Connect AAC to something that already matters in their life and they'll move faster.Start with one win. Find the routine they actually care about and build from there.Set it and forget it. Once your emails and forms are built, your collaboration system basically runs itself.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Learn more about Daj Mitchell: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yourslpdaj/ Learn more about Hallie Sherman and SLP Elevate:  

In the United States, approximately 49,000 people die by suicide each year. And, unfortunately, the rate of suicide has increased substantially since 2000, up about 30%. Suicide remains among the 10 leading causes of death among persons aged 10-64 years and is the second leading cause of death among those aged 10-14 and 25-34.While these trends are multifactorial, they are particularly distressing because evidence-based approaches to screening and intervention are better established than ever. Yet confidence and training in these approaches remain too low — even among behavioral health workers. OTs, PTs, and SLPs are uniquely positioned to recognize warning signs through repeated, relationship-based care, but most receive little formal training in suicide prevention.This course seeks to address that gap. We'll cover the basics of: What to watch forEvidence based ScreeningEvidence based intervention And, the role of the team. We'll anchor our discussion in one of the most comprehensive evidence-based frameworks available: the VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guideline for Assessment and Management of Patients at Risk for Suicide (2024). And we'll be joined by Christine Weible-Cruz, LCSW, to get practical on what these guidelines look like in frontline care.See full course details here:https://otpotential.com/ceu-podcast-courses/suicide-prevention-for-ot-pt-and-slp See all OT CEU courses here:https://otpotential.com/ceu-podcast-coursesCheck our our live webinar schedule here:https://otpotential.com/live-ot-ceu-webinarsSupport the show by using the OTPOTENTIAL Medbridge Code:https://otpotential.com/blog/promo-code-for-medbridgeTry 2 free OT Potential courses here:https://otpotential.com/free-ot-ceusSupport the show

Lindy Myers, MS, CCC-SLP, pediatric speech-language pathologist (SLP) and Clinical Lead at Coral Care, discusses the first few weeks of newborn life and how SLPs, occupational, and physical therapists can help families as they adjust to their new normal, including … Continue reading →

Hey Friends~  Many parents think reading begins with letters, flashcards, and sounding out words. But the foundation for reading actually begins much earlier—through listening, sound play, hearing sound patterns, understanding language, building vocabulary, and everyday conversation. So whether you have a toddler and want to give them the strongest start possible… or you have an older child who struggles with reading and you've wondered, “What are we missing?” …this episode is going to shed light on important skills that might need to be fortified. Today, I'm joined by speech language pathologist, Sarah James as she unpacks the building blocks that support reading success and explains what the research actually shows makes the biggest impacts on a child's ability to learn to read. You'll begin to understand how speech and language skills are deeply connected to literacy, and why some struggles may actually begin long before a child ever sits down with a book.   This conversation will likely cause you to see reading through a whole new lens. Always cheering you on!  Dinalynn CONTACT the Host, Dinalynn:  hello@thelanguageofplay.com WEBSITE:  https://www.thelanguageofplay.com/ Have a question or comment? Leave a voice message!  https://castfeedback.com/play   ABOUT THE GUEST:   Sarah James is an accomplished Speech Language Pathologist, SLP, seminar leader, keynote speaker and consultant. She is experienced working in urban, suburban and rural public schools as both the SLP and as a consultant for school districts around the country where she has offered speech-language pathologists practical and effective strategies for therapy. She served as president of MNSHA, her state's speech-language hearing association and was awarded the Honors of the Association.  Sarah's area of specialty is the relationship between speech language skills, literacy and academic development. She has wide-ranging experience helping SLPs to make connections between speech language-literacy skills and classroom expectations, curriculum targets and state standards.  CONTACT THE GUEST:   sarahjamesconsulting@gmail.com   IF YOU LIKED THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL WANT TO LISTEN TO THESE EPISODES: 256 Melanie Jeffrey: What If Phonics Made Speech Easier? 248 Dr. Emily Levy: Effectively Teach Reading with Orton Gillingham & Multi-Sensory Techniques 238 Dr. Bibi Pirayesh: How an Educational Therapist Helps Kids with Learning Differences Succeed  230 Daniela Feldhausen: Speech Sounds and Reading Are Linked. Fun Ways Parents and Educators Can Help     WE'VE MADE IT EASY FOR YOU!  Love this podcast?  Let us know!  https://lovethepodcast.com/play Follow & subscribe in 1-click!  https://followthepodcast.com/play To SPONSOR The Language Of Play, schedule your call here:  https://calendly.com/hello-play/discovery-session To DONATE to The Language Of Play, Use this secure payment link: https://app.autobooks.co/pay/the-language-of-play

ASHA launched a new consumer-facing website, and SLPs immediately started digging. In this episode, Jeanette Benigas, PhD/SLP, and Stephanie Feero, MS/SLP, unpack the newly rebranded Communication Health Support Association (CHSA), its connection to ASHA, and the financial and organizational questions surrounding the rollout.The conversation explores CHSA's 70-year history, ASHA's evolving mission statements and strategic objectives, tax filings, membership positioning, ProFind listings, and the ongoing debate surrounding the CCC. Jeanette and Stephanie also examine public IRS Form 990 data, nonprofit structures, affiliate language, and the broader implications for clinicians and the future of the profession.This episode discusses publicly available documents, organizational timelines, and the growing questions many SLPs are now asking after discovering a consumer-facing association that has existed for decades with little public awareness, all mixed with a little sass and a few tin foil hat theories from Jeanette.✨ Grateful to Chomper Champs for bringing so much positivity and fun to the pediatric SLP space. Follow the link to order the

As the professional world grows increasingly mobile, hear how the Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology Interstate Compact is making it easier for CSD professionals to deliver services across state lines. Guests discuss how the compact works, who may benefit from it, how it creates greater access to services, and the story behind what they did to make it happen.Learn More:The Audiology & Speech-Language Pathology Interstate Compact WebsiteUpdate on Interstate Compact Launch (2025)ASHA Voices: Student Advocacy and a Win for People Who StutterTranscript

Sometimes collaboration feels seamless, and other times it leaves you questioning everything.That contrast came up in such a real way as I talked with Jenny Argueta, and it's something so many of us have experienced but don't always say out loud. She shared how working with one collaborative SLP felt energizing, while another interaction left her feeling small and shut out. That moment stuck with her and ultimately shaped her decision to become dually certified so she could be part of the solution.We unpack the tension that can exist between SLPs and BCBAs and how those challenges often stem from past experiences, misunderstandings, or lack of exposure to each other's work. I always come back to the importance of listening. When we take the time to understand someone's perspective instead of reacting, we open the door to better collaboration.We also talk about AAC and the gaps in training that so many providers face. Jenny shares honestly about how overwhelming AAC can feel, even as an SLP, and why ongoing learning is so important. At the end of the day, our goal is the same. We want to support meaningful communication and real progress for our students.#autism #speechtherapyWhat's Inside:Real examples of collaboration going well and breaking downWhere SLP and BCBA tensions come fromPractical ways to build trust and shared understandingWhy AAC training is essential for all providersMentioned In This Episode:Mirific LLCEarn CEUs with a community of peers. Join the ABA Speech ConnectionABA Speech: Home

In this encore episode, we're revisiting one of the most meaningful conversations from the early days of the podcast — a wide-ranging chat with speech-language pathologist Nicole Casey about gestalt language processing, echolalia, and what it really takes to support autistic communicators. What if the words a child is repeating aren't random? Gestalt language processing (GLP) is a natural way of acquiring language where children begin with whole strings of intonationally-defined language — often lifted from songs, shows, or meaningful moments — instead of starting with single words. These "gestalts" are not literal, but they carry deep meaning. And when we miss that meaning, we miss the child. Nicole walks us through what GLP is, how it differs from analytic language development, and how to recognize it even in non-speaking or minimally speaking children. We also get into something just as important: why connection, relationship, and presuming competence are the foundation that every strategy is built on. Without those, the techniques don't land. With them, even small shifts can transform a child's communication journey. This is a longer, story-rich episode — the kind of conversation where two SLPs who love this work just couldn't stop sharing examples. You'll hear about Toyota Tacomas, Downy Unstoppables, Peter the doll, "we all fall down," and a spin class playlist that included the Delta Airlines theme song. Every story carries a lesson worth holding onto. In This Episode, You'll Learn What gestalt language processing is and how it differs from analytic language development Why GLP is not a diagnosis, just another natural way of acquiring language How to identify gestalt language processors, including those who are non-speaking What echolalia, echopraxia, and "jargon" might really be telling us Why gestalts are non-literal and how to uncover what a child actually means How to use Nicole's free Gestalt Tracker to share insights across a team Why WH-question goals are often a poor fit for early-stage GLPs How presuming competence changes what we see, hear, and teach Why AAC systems weren't designed for GLPs and what that means for us How following a child's deep interests opens the door to language and connection Key Takeaways Echolalia is meaningful communication, not background noise Gestalts carry emotional and experiential context — they are not literal Identifying a GLP starts with tuning in, not testing Children feel safer and communicate more when they feel understood The way the lead adult treats an autistic child sets the tone for the entire classroom Relationship comes first; strategies work because of connection, not in spite of it Asking questions a child already knows the answer to is a real and valid form of connection Following the child's special interest is not a distraction — it's the path Progress isn't always measurable on a SMART goal; look for magic moments Presuming competence is the most important thing we can bring to every interaction Try This Listen for repeated phrases with the same intonation and write them down Ask the parent where a gestalt might have come from — they often know Present language from the child's perspective ("let's play" instead of "do you want to play") Replace "are you okay?" with the language the child actually needs ("that was scary") Use the child's favorite songs, shows, and interests inside your activities Share gestalts and their meanings across the whole team, including paras Record sessions (with permission) so you can catch what you missed Look for "magic moments" of connection as real data, not extra data When we slow down enough to believe that echolalia is meaningful, everything changes — for the child, for the team, and for us. Links: Nicole's Instagram (The Child Led SLP): https://www.instagram.com/thechildledslp/ Website: https://childled.org/ Other Links You May Be Interested In: Autism Little Learners on Instagram Autism Little Learners on Facebook You can also join my free Visual Supports Facebook Group to "hang out" with like-minded educators and parents who want to take action and implement visuals at home or at school. Be sure to subscribe to The Autism Little Learners Podcast so you don't miss future episodes.  Plus, leave a rating & review on iTunes….this will help other educators and parents find this podcast! 

On today's episode, Dr. Yassmeen Abdel-Aty shares how collaboration with SLPs transformed her practice, turning her multidisciplinary clinic at USF into a powerhouse of comprehensive voice, swallowing, and airway care. Discover the benefits of integrating SLPs into every phase of diagnosis and treatment, from initial assessments to post-op therapy. Dr. Abdel-Aty reveals practical tips for building trust and flow in your clinic, emphasizing the power of real-time multidisciplinary discussions.Whether you're an SLP, a seasoned laryngologist, or just starting out, this episode offers strategies for transforming your clinic into a collaborative environment that enhances patient care and satisfaction.

What if you could build a private practice that evolves with you through rebranding, new niches, and even public speaking? Today's guest is back for her third appearance on the show, and every time she comes on, her practice looks completely different in the best way possible.I'm so excited to reintroduce you to Vanessa Alcala, a first-generation college graduate, bilingual speech-language pathologist, and founder of TheraVolve Wellness Co., a private practice serving children and adults across Tampa Bay through clinic, in-home, school, and telehealth services.Once told by a guidance counselor she wasn't "college material," Vanessa went on to launch her private practice the day she graduated in 2019 — LLC and all. But between a global pandemic, two high-risk pregnancies, and losing her grandmother, she realized the traditional track wasn't the vibe for her.So she built her own path.Switching from adult-focused care to bilingual pediatrics. Rebranding from Vital Therapies to the deeply meaningful TheraVolve Wellness Co. Growing from a solo clinician to a team with a beautiful clinic in Carrollwood. And most recently? Turning public speaking into a high-impact, high-income marketing tool earning her "Best of the Best SLP" recognition from the Tampa Bay Times in 2025.Vanessa Alcala is a bilingual SLP, healthcare entrepreneur, public speaker, and mentor. A former dementia caregiver, she's co-host of Sip & Social, the first multi-state networking event of its kind for SLPs and women in healthcare and creator of "Impact to Income," a course helping healthcare professionals transition from clinical work to speaking opportunities and diversified income streams. She's also co-founder of The Concierge Marketing Shop, offering customizable marketing templates designed specifically for adult and pediatric private practice owners.Outside of patient care, Vanessa is a mother of two who has navigated private practice through different seasons of life. She's passionate about helping other practice owners recognize their value and build businesses that support the life they want — not the one they're told to settle for.In Today's Episode, We Discuss:How her practice has evolved in ways she never expectedThe pivots that changed everythingHow she's using public speaking to grow her practice in a way most SLPs never even considerVanessa is proof that your private practice doesn't have to look the way you first imagined it. In fact, it shouldn't. She was told she wasn't "college material." She messed up. She rebranded. She expanded into populations she never planned to serve. She built a culturally responsive bilingual practice that earned public recognition. And now? She's speaking on stages and TV, running a team, and building a business that actually lets her breathe.Her story does not have to be the exception. You, too, can evolve your practice—if you're willing to start before you feel ready. Want to build a private practice that gives you the freedom to pivot, grow, and even speak on stage? check out the Start Your Private Practice Program over at www.StartYourPrivatePractice.com.Or, if you already have an existing private practice and you're ready to take it to the next level we'd love to support you inside the Next Level Private Practitioner. You can learn more at www.nextlevelprivatepractitioner.com.Whether you want to start a private practice or grow your existing private practice, I can help you get the freedom, flexibility, fulfillment, and financial abundance that you deserve. Visit my website www.independentclinician.com to learn more.Resources Mentioned:Follow Vanessa on Instagram: instagram.com/vanessaonthemic/ & instagram.com/theravolvewellness/Check out her website: www.theravolvewellness.comWhere We Can Connect:Follow the Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/private-practice-success-stories/id1374716199Follow Me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/independentclinician/Follow Me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jena.castrocasbon/

From comfort feeding to communication access, two SLPs discuss the important ways speech-language pathologists deliver services as part of palliative care teams.Sharing personal and professional stories, Brittany Horvath and Marissa James address informed consent, how SLPs can integrate themselves into palliative care teams, and more.Learn More:Dysphagia Management: Strengthening Skills, Overcoming ObstaclesASHA Voices: Changes and Trends in Dysphagia TreatmentAJSLP: Palliative Care Training for Medical Speech-Language Pathologists: A Multiple Baseline DesignOffering Comfort Feeding in Palliative CarePrioritizing Patient Voice and Choice in Dietary DecisionsTranscriptSupport for this episode of ASHA Voices comes from Ambu and Zanda.

This innovative tool is sure to support both your clinical heart and your practice as it grows.Guest: Meg Simione, PhD, CCC-SLP and Helen Cohen, BA, CLCEarn 0.10 ASHA CEUs for this episode with Speech Therapy PDWatch on YoutubeRegister for the FREE Empowering Providers PFD seriesThis episode of First Bite features Michelle Dawson, MS, CCC-SLP, CLC, BCS-S, FNAP, kicking off PFD and ARFID Awareness Month with Meg Simione, PhD, CCC-SLP, and her graduate student, Helen Cohen, BA, CLC, for an in-depth look at the PFD DAISI. Meg and Helen explain how the six DAISI factors, represented by the flower's petals, guide feeding assessment and treatment. They then dive into the four Social Spheres at the flower's core, highlighting their influence on a child's mealtime journey. They share practical tips for using the PFD DAISI in clinical practice, helping SLPs take a holistic, dynamic approach to pediatric feeding care.About the Guests: Meg Simione, PhD, CCC-SLP, is a clinician-scientist specializing in infant and child feeding, growth, and care delivery innovation. She serves as a research scientist in the Division of General Academic Pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a speech-language pathologist, and Instructor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.Helen Cohen, BA, CLC, is a graduate student at the MGH Institute of Health Professions, where she is pursuing a Master of Science in Speech Language Pathology with a concentration in Medical Speech Pathology. Alongside her academic work, she serves as a research assistant at the University of Rhode Island, conducting research on Pediatric Feeding Disorder, Family Centered Care, and Implementation Science.Show Notes:Contact Meg and Helen on LinkedInDownload the PFD DAISIFeeding Innovation Lab: @feedinginnovationlab on InstagramDr Brown's BottlesDysphagia Outreach ProjectFindHelp.orgThe Feeding FlockFeeding MattersLove Money: Support URISSHLA

You can't make more time, but you can stop spending it like it's unlimited. In this episode, I'm reframing work-life balance as a “time budget” problem (not a motivation problem), and sharing a simple way to audit where your time is actually going. You'll learn how to spot your biggest time/energy leaks and how to build basic weekly guardrails so your calendar supports your values instead of sabotaging them. If you're tired of living in “I'll feel better when I'm caught up” mode, this is your reset.What You'll Learn:✅ Why work-life balance isn't about trying harder, it's about having a plan for limited time & energy✅ How to do a simple time audit✅ 3 “time budget” buckets: non-negotiables, nice-to-haves, and leaks ✅ Common time leaks for SLPs (documentation perfectionism, context switching, email loops, people pleasing)✅ How to set 1–3 realistic “balance rules” that reduce decision fatigueKey Takeaways:

To all speech-language pathologists, Happy National Speech-Language-Hearing Month! We're kicking things off by welcoming back one of our favorite guests (and possibly a soon-to-be fill-in co-host), Elyse Gordon, MS, CCC-SLP. While Elyse has joined us on the podcast multiple times, we've never taken the time to break down her SLP origin story, and we have questions! Why SLP? Did she ever consider another discipline? Do all SLPs have big personalities? And why are telehealth and SLP such a perfect fit? If you're looking for answers, that's exactly why this week's episode is a must-listen. Let's officially kick off National Speech-Language-Hearing Month!

To all speech-language pathologists, Happy National Speech-Language-Hearing Month! We're kicking things off by welcoming back one of our favorite guests (and possibly a soon-to-be fill-in co-host), Elyse Gordon, MS, CCC-SLP. While Elyse has joined us on the podcast multiple times, we've never taken the time to break down her SLP origin story, and we have questions! Why SLP? Did she ever consider another discipline? Do all SLPs have big personalities? And why are telehealth and SLP such a perfect fit? If you're looking for answers, that's exactly why this week's episode is a must-listen. Let's officially kick off National Speech-Language-Hearing Month!

To all speech-language pathologists, Happy National Speech-Language-Hearing Month! We're kicking things off by welcoming back one of our favorite guests (and possibly a soon-to-be fill-in co-host), Elyse Gordon, MS, CCC-SLP. While Elyse has joined us on the podcast multiple times, we've never taken the time to break down her SLP origin story, and we have questions! Why SLP? Did she ever consider another discipline? Do all SLPs have big personalities? And why are telehealth and SLP such a perfect fit? If you're looking for answers, that's exactly why this week's episode is a must-listen. Let's officially kick off National Speech-Language-Hearing Month!

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Shame List Picture Show! On this episode, Michael is joined by his good friend and SLPS co-creator Nick Richards to discuss Francis Ford Coppola's sequel to his own masterpiece, The Godfather Part II.On this episode, we discuss whether or not a sequel can surpass the original; changes to the story & new characters; Michael's journey, both emotionally and physically; and much, much more.Intro Bumper - 0:00 - 0:07 MKE Film Fest Ad - 0:07 - 00:59Intro Music - 00:59 - 2:10Preamble - 2:10 - 15:46Movie Summary - 15:46 - 19:06Trailer - 19:06 - 22:07The Godfather Part II - 22:11 - 1:31:08Social Media Plugs - 1:31:08 - 1:34:04Outro Music - 1:34:04 - 1:34:57Outro Bumper - 1:34:57 - 1:35:17Edited by: Austin ProctorProduced by: Michael ViersTheme Music by: Austin ProctorOpening Narration by: Nick RichardsCredits Music by: Ten-SpeedLogo Design by: Amanda ViersFor more amazing shows like this, be sure to check out https://www.someonesfavoriteproductions.com/network

Approach supervision with greater clarity, intention, and sustainability.Guest: Alice L. Williams, BA, SLPAEarn 0.10 ASHA CEUs for this episode with Speech Therapy PDWatch on YoutubeRegister for the FREE 5 part PFD Series, April 30-May 28This course meets ASHA's Supervision PD requirement.In this episode of First Bite, Michelle Dawson, MS, CCC-SLP, CLC, BCS-S, FNAP, welcomes Alice L. Williams, BA, SLPA, creator of The SLPA Network, to explore the real challenges SLPs face when stepping into supervisory roles, including limited training and the constant pull between clinical responsibilities and mentorship. Alice breaks down how supervision requirements vary widely across states and settings, while highlighting the core principles that make supervision effective no matter where you practice. The discussion centers on "empowered supervision" as a way to build clinician confidence, strengthen professional identity, and support better outcomes for those we serve.About the Guests: Alice L. Williams, B.A., SLPA, is the creator of The SLPA Network and an experienced speech-language pathology assistant with over seven years in pediatric settings. Her work centers on professional identity, empowered supervision, and sustainable collaboration between SLPs and support personnel. Alice develops educational and leadership resources that support ethical practice, reduce burnout, and strengthen interdisciplinary teams across school-based, medical, and private-practice environments.Show Notes:Contact Alice: @speechwith_msalice and @the.slpa.network on InstagramSLPA NetworkAlice's Course: Foundations of Effective SupervisionGet 10% with the code: LEAD10 (Valid through 12/31/26)If Disney Ran Your Hospital: 9 1/2 Things You Would Do Differently by Fred LeeLove Money: Faith Christian Center Cross The Street Fund

Show Notes: slpnow.com/257Mixed groups are a reality for most school-based SLPs, and managing them well takes the right tools. In this episode, Marisha walks through how the SLP Now Visuals Binder makes it work, covering how to use it digitally in a pinch, how to test what works for your students, and why eventually printing and laminating your go-to visuals changes everything about session flow.The binder covers preschool through 12th grade with 95 pages of evidence-based visuals across early language, grammar, vocabulary, and later language skills. No prep required. Just open it and use it.Already a member? Contact us at hello@slpnow.com to access your binder bundle!Not a member yet? When you upgrade to a monthly or yearly membership, we'll send you the full bundle.Start your free trial: slpnow.com/pod

CPT 92507 Option B is officially in front of the AMA Editorial Panel, and this is the week that decides what happens next. In this episode, Jeanette Benigas, PhD/SLP, sits down with a private practice owner of 44 years, Mary Billings, MS, CCC/SLP, who has seen Medicare cuts before, and is sounding the alarm again. What's being proposed isn't just a coding change. It has the potential to reshape how SLPs document, bill, and treat patients across every setting, including private practice, schools, hospitals, Medicaid, and Medicare. No one is exempt.You'll hear exactly why the applicants submitted Option B, what's at risk if SLPs stay silent, and why this moment is so rare. Opportunities like this don't come around often, and once decisions are made, they can take decades to undo. If you care about your practice, your patients, or the future of this profession, this is the time to pay attention. This is the moment. Connect with Mary at Billings Speech Pathology Services or Function Focus AcademyThis episode is sponsored by Metro EHS, a growing, clinician-supported organization using a collaborative care model across disciplines. Learn more at metroehs.com.✨ Grateful to Chomper Champs for bringing so much positivity and fun to the pediatric SLP space. Follow the link to order the

  In this episode you will discover: Identity Is Shaped in Interaction — Narrative identity forms and reforms through relationships and stories shared with others — making connection a core ingredient of recovery, not a bonus Visual Methods Unlock What Words Cannot — Collage-making, photos, and art give people with aphasia a pathway into identity work that talk alone can't always reach. Identity Reconstruction Is a Long Game — People continue navigating complex, shifting identities for years after stroke. Our systems need to follow them farther into that journey, not stop too soon. Sit on Your Hands and Truly Listen — The most powerful thing you can offer is unhurried, attentive presence. Learning to wait and watch — rather than fill the silence — is a skill worth deliberately practicing. If you've ever felt like there's more to aphasia care than the therapy protocol in front of you, or wondered what identity-centered practice actually looks like in the real world, this conversation will give you both the framework and the practical insights you need. Welcome to the Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations Podcast. I'm Katie Strong from Central Michigan University and a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group — a community dedicated to supporting better aphasia care. Rianne Brinkman is a speech-language pathologist and linguist from the Netherlands whose PhD project "Who Am I Now?" explores identity changes in people with aphasia through storytelling and creative arts-based approaches. Before her doctoral work — supported by the Dutch NWO Teacher Research Grant — she spent years as a clinician in rehabilitation and aphasia centers, and that deep clinical foundation shapes everything she brings to her research. She teaches in the Speech and Language Therapy program at Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen and conducts her research at the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht. Today's conversation feels especially personal to me. Like Rianne, I came to doctoral work after years of established clinical practice, and my own research centers on narrative identity and aphasia through the My Story Project and the PULSE framework. So, when she sought me out at a conference in 2019, I recognized immediately that we were kindred spirits working toward the same questions from different corners of the world.   So, let's get into the conversation. Katie Strong: Well, before we dive into your work, I wanted to share something with our listeners. One of the things that drew me to this conversation is that we have a parallel story. We both came to do our PhDs after established clinical careers, and you're in the thick of that journey. I'd love to start with what made you decide to go back, and how did your clinical work shape what you wanted to pursue? Rianne Brinkman: I used to work in rehabilitation for a long time, and then I moved from one part of the Netherlands to another part, and there was not much work for me. So, I got the opportunity to help establish an aphasia center. And of course, if you look at the rehabilitation phase, that's far more deficit oriented, so that's very different than in the chronic phase, where an aphasia center comes into place. So, I really had to change my view of therapy. I had to establish a few groups on identity. I started reading on identity, on communicative participation, on how to do that in groups. So that's really where the interest came from. Katie Strong: I love hearing that. Sometimes as we go into a different phase or area of work, and it really re-shapes our thinking and how we engage with our clients or patients. Rianne Brinkman: Yeah, it does. And in those groups, I worked together a lot with creative therapists, and I learned so much from them, because then I realized that if you use narrative approaches, and you combine them with visual arts or arts therapy, that it can mean so much for somebody. They can get so many more means of expression. So, yeah, I learned a lot from that. Katie Strong: I love that! It is powerful. And I'm really looking forward to talking more about this. I was curious, you know, what the experience has been like from a clinician turned researcher, what you know, what's that actually been like for you? And has there been anything that surprised you most about the transition? Rianne Brinkman: I did not realize that much how much you yourself as a person influences the conversation with somebody with aphasia, you know that co-construction part. So that your identity aspects really influence how the conversation takes place and what somebody chooses to tell you or not. So that is really momentary, and so it's just a snapshot, really, when you do this. So, I became really aware of that. But also, your own norms and values and the way you listen and all those sorts of things. It's just a different way of doing therapy. And then you're doing it as research which is different. I think that's one thing, sometimes I'm a little bit too much the therapist, so I really have to be a researcher again, you know? So, you change between those roles.   Katie Strong: Yes, it is a shift, right? Rianne Brinkman: Yeah, exactly, exactly. Katie Strong: Yeah. And thinking about how those two roles are different or powerful, sometimes combined. Well, let's talk a little bit about the work that you're doing. And I want to acknowledge that what we're talking about today really all comes out of your doctoral journey, which is really remarkable. I thought we could first talk about your 2025 scoping review that really mapped the landscape of what we know about identity changes in aphasia, and it also laid the groundwork for everything that followed. Could you walk us through that narrative identity model that came out of the review?   Rianne Brinkman: Yeah. That was quite complex, because there's so much written about identity, and everybody defines it slightly in a different way, or uses different words. So, what we tried to do is really get a grip on that literature to see what was written on identity changes in aphasia, and what kind of theory was used. And what we saw was that everything is from a social constructionist perspective, really. But then there are many different philosophers and different authors that write about identity. So, what we tried to do was because, of course, Barbara Shadden, she's very foundational in this work. With her colleagues, she created the four domain interdisciplinary framework. So, we tried to use that in the model as one of the foundations. And then, of course, the work of Paul Ricoeur, who's a French philosopher who writes about that you only shape your identity through interaction with other people which gives meaning to the stories you share with other people. And the work of Bamberg, and he talks about dilemmatic spaces. So what it means, really, is that I think identity, you only shape in interaction, and we tried to visualize that in the model. So, there's an "I" part, and that's about you, the personal domains, and there's the "we" part, and that's about the social domains. We tried to visualize how those domains interact, including temporality, because you shape your identity in the here and now, but also through time. And then in the middle of the model, there's a head with interconnected gears, and that's where it all comes together. That's you at your identity, your narrative identity, a specific point in time. So that's the model in a nutshell. And then you've got, of course, all those personal domains, like your biography, agency and power, communicative abilities, your roles you fulfill in life. And then the social domains are, like your social situation, your cultural background, society and all of that works together, informing, shaping your identity. Katie Strong: It's powerful work, and it is complex. I appreciate the work that you led to be able to assimilate and give us this model for us to be really thinking about narrative identity in a way that takes all of those big thought leaders and helps it become more approachable to those of us that are interested in narrative identity as researchers, but also as clinicians. Rianne Brinkman: That's great. Thank you. Katie Strong: Thank you for that work. And then you have another recent paper. Congratulations, by the way! That paper just came out earlier this year in 2026 and I guess I should say to the listeners, we'll have both articles linked in the show notes, as well as some other resources that will be interesting to explore if you're into this topic. This 2026, article is really the first of its kind to look at identity in this early stage, six to eight weeks after admission to rehabilitation. So, I was hoping you could talk with us about who were these people and what were you doing together in these sessions? Rianne Brinkman: Yeah. So, it's the first session of a longitudinal study, so I'm following those people over two years. And so, there are 22 people with aphasia. Unfortunately, two of them couldn't continue as one of them, I couldn't organize the reflection session, and one of them, I just couldn't reach anyone. But the other 20 people are still in the study, which is really amazing! Katie Strong: That is really amazing! Rianne Brinkman : Yeah, that's really nice. They're all middle aged people who range in age from their 30s to their 60s until 67. They also have different severities of aphasia. Some people were still clinical inpatient, some of them already were outpatient. And then I tried to elicit their story with visual participatory methods in combination with the narrative approach. So those sessions are quite long, sometimes two and a half to three hours, so it's a lot of time. It's really nice to just sit with them and connect. During the first session I did collage making. I just took a lot of magazines with me and scissors and glue and everything, and then we just sat down. And then I just let them start leafing through those magazines and see what appealed to them, what kind of images, what kind of words, what it's reflected about them. And then they created their collage. And then, of course, you look at what kind of images do they choose, but also, how do they position them? How do they create their collage. Is there some kind of reason behind things? You discuss that, but also how do they get across what they do? You know, some people think for a long time and are hesitant to act. Some people start straight away. Some people tear the images. Some people cut them really neatly. So, everybody behaves in a different way, and that reflects something on your identity also. So, I always ask questions about that. And then when we finish the work, a proxy comes in and we reflect on the work of the person with the face yet together to get perspective. Katie Strong: That's really fantastic. So, you're, you're coming into either the hospital room or their home, is that where the work is done? Rianne Brinkman: Yeah, so usually the speech therapist, who's in charge books a room for me in the rehabilitation center. Or I just go to the homes of the people. Katie Strong: Well, I'm excited to talk about what you found out, but, but before we get into that, I just have to ask about the tattoo, because it's an integral part of this work. And it stopped me when I read it. And the title from the paper comes from the tattoo on one of your participants. So, could you talk to us about that?   Rianne Brinkman: Of course. There's one lady, and I was analyzing the session, because, of course, she will need to transcribe them. And then I saw her doing her hair in a ponytail, and I saw her arm, and I thought, "Oh, she's got a really nice tattoo there." So, I sent her a text, and I said, "What does that tattoo mean to you? What is it? "And then she told me that it was a tattoo that said, leave the thorn, enjoy the rose. And that's from a music play from Handel. And her father really enjoyed that. But her father passed away, so that tattoo was a memory tribute to her father, but also it reflects how she sees life, that you have to try to stay optimistic whatever happens. And I think that voice of positivity is a very important voice in all the stories of all the participants. Everybody said that. So, I thought, oh yeah. Even when something really bad happens, bad happens, people try to stay positive. So, it reflected a very important, yeah, result of the data, really. So, I thought, I'm going to make that the title. Katie Strong: It really is beautiful. So, so the rose bush. You develop this beautiful rose bush image to represent what you found across the participants. Walk us through that. And what does the rose bush capture about what identity looks like at that early stage of recovery? Rianne Brinkman: So, we used different methodology of analysis. So we listened to the voices that were reflected in the stories of people with aphasia, and then we realized that there are many contrapuntal voices, so it's very ambiguous. Really, very complex. So, we thought, we cannot just do a thematic analysis. We have to show that one experience can be both positive or negative or whatever. And that's why we came to those tensions and in that rose bush, so at the stem you see, for example, where you see the branches, and at the stem it's, for example, the tension between disconnection and connection. And connection is at the rose and disconnection at the stem, another tension is agency and disempowerment, and another one is living loss and personal growth. And then what we found was that people had coping voices and affirmative voices, but also challenging voices. And what we did was we put the challenging voices at the thorns and the coping and affirmative voices at the roses to reflect that they used that both to make sense of aphasia and of their identity, really. And so, they were moving along those branches, really. Sometimes they felt connected. Sometimes disconnected. Sometimes they grieved. Sometimes they cope by staying positive or focusing on the present. So that's how we tried to show that it's very complex that people move along those tensions, that it's never static. And those three existential tensions were really very tangible in the data. Katie Strong: It's just such powerful work. When I was reading it and I. I was talking with one of my students, she was saying she actually became pretty emotional when she was reading about all of that as well. It's really, really powerful work. And what I find so interesting, and you mentioned it earlier, but this role of the visual methods, the collage making, images as a way into identity. Could you paint a picture of what that actually looked like to sit with a participant in those sessions? Rianne Brinkman: Yeah. Well you really have to sit on your hands. And I learned a lot from my colleagues, creative therapists, because when I first did this…because sometimes people feel a bit awkward. You know that they all of a sudden have to draw something, or that they have to cut images from a magazine. And then you want to do something to help them feel less awkward. You shouldn't really. You should just let that happen and let that session develop. That's very important. So, I really learned to just tell them, "you are looking the magazines and you see what appeals to you. And I'll just give you some time to get into that" and then you just wait. And while you're waiting, you can just see, for example, if somebody finds it really hard, and then you can also see how long they look at an image, for example, if it means something to them. Or they stop on a certain page all the time. And then you can help them a little bit and say, "Oh, you're looking a long time at this image. Maybe, is this something that appeals to you for some reason?" And then you can help them. But also, very often, people just know what to do. I don't know. It's very intuitive. So first, they don't know what they will choose, or they don't know what kind of collage it will be. But it comes to them for some reason.   Katie Strong: Yeah, it's interesting. I think we had talked about this previously, but a person with aphasia and research collaborator that I worked with, Todd Berreth, and I did some, we called it. We the "cut-up" style using images to be able create a story about yourself and integrate those pieces. And it was so interesting to watch people who came to our workshop, and just as you're saying, like how they chose and what they did. Some people were very, "I know what I'm doing", and others were hesitant, or wanted to take their work home before finalizing it and everything in between.   Rianne Brinkman: Yeah, that's very that's very nice. You really get that extra layer, I think. And also, when people really can't talk very well, you know, they can maybe say yes or no and sometimes a word, you know, then it's very hard to talk about your identity. Using images then that really helps. So, I remember one lady, she couldn't talk very well, but she was very creative. And she started, you know, with those magazines, and then straight away, there was that butterfly symbolizing her mom, connection to her mother. And maybe, I think we would never have reached that trying to do this in words. So, yeah, very powerful.   Katie Strong: Thank you. Another thing I wanted to talk about is that you use something called the Listening Guide as part of your analysis. And I'm thinking that a lot of our listeners may not have come across this before. Could you give a sense of what it really means to listen in the way that that approach demands?   Rianne Brinkman: Yes. So, what you do is, first you well, you listen to the plot of the story. So, you listen to, what does this story contain? What's the big line of the story? And you write that down. And then you look again at the data, and then you look at all the "I" positions and I also look at the "me" positions. So, everything that's "I" and "me". You get that out and you create "I-poems". We created all those "I-poems" about certain experiences. I could give maybe an example of one. This one is a bit connected to, on the one hand, feeling very sad that somebody suffered from stroke and aphasia, and on the other hand, tried to stay positive. So, I've got one here. I was crying last weekend. I realized, Oh no, this happened to me. I have to deal with this. I have changed. I also stayed positive that I will be okay. I just say it will be okay and I won't think negatively. So, then you get an "I-poem" that reflects different voices, like, in this case, the voice of grief and positivity. Then you look at those voices. In the next step, you look at the contrapuntal voices, and like grief and positivity are very contrapuntal. So very often, I think also we as human beings do the same, you know, you talk to yourself in your head, you know. And you've got all those different positions towards an experience. And those are the contrapuntal voices. And what we tried to do, so we adapted this approach by Gilligan and Eddy, and we tried to incorporate the visuals, the visual data, and also embodiment, because sometimes people with aphasia do very interesting things. They give a lot of information, non-verbally. Also you want to be sure that you really understood the person, so checking if you're on the same page is very important also. Sometimes you have to interpret what somebody means, or you have to give words to what somebody says as a researcher, which is the ethical part, of course, which is hard sometimes, but you can't avoid that. So, yeah, so that's how we integrated all the data. And tried to get those stories out and get the depth of the depth of the story.   Katie Strong: I love it. That's really fascinating. And the "I-poems" are really powerful. And I think we'll put a link to the Listening Guide reference in the show notes if people are interested in learning more about that technique. You mentioned earlier that this is a longitudinal study that you're undertaking for your dissertation work, which is pretty amazing. I mean, very amazing. And you're, you're two years into this longitudinal study, and this paper we've been talking about is the six to eight week snapshot. What are you most curious about as you continue following those participants over time? And also, what do you want clinicians who are listening today to take away from what you've already found?   Rianne Brinkman: Tomorrow, I'm doing another two sessions. One of them is the last session with somebody with P5 and with another person, P4. I think I am about I'm halfway through. Well, I'm almost, I think I've got another year to go to have collected all the data. And what I see really is that it's very clear that identity formation and reconstructing, renegotiating your identity, is a very long and complex process, and that at different points in time, different things happen. You see different patterns also along those moments in time that I'm doing the sessions. What I also realize, I'm not sure how that is in states, but in the Netherlands, I think communicative access, for example, if you want to start working again, you know, to understand what all the letters you get the process, and that it's very hard. Also in health care. And people are really struggling with that, and get really a lot of stress from this, and that it's very unclear often, and that people feel very uncertain. And I think we've got to realize that we should take a longer role in this. You know, not stop too soon, or just at least keep, well, the finger on the pulse, like we say in Netherlands, just keep following people. I think that's very important. And I also realized that the combination of a narrative approach with visual participatory methods really gives you a lot of information. And I also think the listening skills, to really listen to that story and try to get that story out, that gives you such a powerful connection with somebody. So, every time I see them again, I'm really curious, and they're really happy to share their story again and to show me where they are at that point in time. Yeah, and then I'm working together with colleagues with aphasia also, which is really great because they learn from each other. You know, that's nice.   Katie Strong: I love all of that. And I think maybe one of the things I'd like to reiterate, or we could talk about a little bit more, is that what I think I hear you're saying is we know aphasia is a chronic change to their life and the way they communicate and how they can connect with others, and ultimately how that impacts who they are, as people, or their identity. And our health care systems, I know in the US, we're set up for lots of intervention, or maybe the most that they're going to get, even if it's just a little, early in that phase, and then having them have to navigate that process on their own, as they become farther from having the stroke. And this work showcases their journey along the way. But I just wonder is there something that a clinician who's listening could implement or do with their client, wherever they're seeing them, in the journey? Rianne Brinkman:  I think using creative arts is always a good idea. You could keep it really simple. You could just ask them to bring a special object or to show a photo that they're proud of, or make a collage, or use Legos to build with. So, I think that's a good possibility. And also, I think a peer contact is very important. So do that together with a little group or people that are interested in exploring and sharing their stories. And I think we should realize that it's important to check in. So even if you finish therapy with somebody, then it's a good thing after a few months, to ask how they how they are, and stand still with the process. That's something very important also. Katie Strong: And sometimes harder to do than it would seem, but I think, as you're talking it seems like connecting people with peers and following up. I know here in the states, making  sure they're a part of a support group so that they can have a community to be able to connect with. Rianne Brinkman: Yes, because what I've seen a lot is that after a while, there's that phase of uncertainty, really. You don't know if you can get your work back, maybe in a different form, maybe not. And then there's no therapy anymore. And then how are you going to navigate all that uncertainty? And I think that usually speech therapy has stopped. I think then it's hard, of course, because it's not always doable, but I think it would be a very good moment. So, after eight months to really start up something again and then really discuss the identity of somebody. Really use narrative approaches to help them renegotiate all those dilemmas that they're experiencing. Katie Strong: Yeah, and certainly, I guess you know, advocacy work on big levels to recognize that people should be able to access therapy whenever they feel like they need it. Rianne Brinkman: Yeah, definitely. Katie Strong:  We've got some work to do. I appreciate this conversation, and I just wanted to let the listeners know that Rianne and I have been in conversation since we met at the International Aphasia Rehabilitation Conference in Philadelphia in 2019 and what started as a conversation in a parking lot I might add, has grown into some real research and educational collaboration. And Rianne, together with Sabine Corsten and Bianca Spelker, we have been developing and studying training programs for future SLPs in life storytelling approaches across three countries, so the US, Germany and the Netherlands and Rianne, I was hoping you could tell our listeners a bit about what we're actually building together and what you're learning from that work about what students need most before they walk into the room and try to do this identity centered practice, style of work. Rianne Brinkman: Well, we based it a lot on your work, of course, and the My Story project and Narraktiv from Sabine. So, Katie you started this in the US, and then we thought, "oh, this would be great in the Netherlands and in Germany also." The students first of course, need to be trained in supportive communication techniques, because that's very important for them. I think in the Netherlands, it's maybe a little bit different than in the States and in Germany, because I work with students that are still in their bachelors. So they've had only one year of theory, and they haven't done their training or internship yet. Although some of them have. And then you see a very different student. So, but I've got the students that are really for the first time meeting someone with aphasia, for example. And they're very scared, because they think, "Oh, am I able to adapt my communication and what if somebody's going to cry, or what if that story is really going to touch me?" So, you really need to prepare them with a lot of information about what narrative identity is and also what identity work entails. We also must train on how you can really, truly listen. Active listening skills from that nice paper you wrote with Barbara Shadden on the power of story and taking the PULSE of people with aphasia. Appreciating their uniqueness, And also what we do in the Netherlands is practicing with them how they use visual methods, creative methods, to use in their sessions with the people with aphasia. And then once they start, I always say to them, "Well, at least the first session maybe is very exciting, but you're there, you're listening, you're engaged. That's already means so much to somebody if you do that, if you truly listen." And then after one session, they realize that, and then it goes really nicely.   Katie Strong: There's this that feeling very uncomfortable and not sure where to go. And then being able to let that person with aphasia kind of take you on that journey. Rianne Brinkman: Yeah. That's so nice because it contributes to both, to the person with aphasia who participates, and also to the students and their development. Katie Strong: I strongly believe you can't do identity, story based work without being influenced yourself, by the work   Rianne Brinkman: Yeah, definitely. Katie Strong: Well, before we wrap up, I would be remiss if we didn't talk about some tips or strategies, resources or readings for clinicians who are interested in implementing identity, focused story work into their practice. So, can you share a few things with us? Rianne Brinkman: Definitely. Yeah. When I started this work, I really liked the work of Carol Pound and her colleagues, and that's a book called Beyond Aphasia. It's very interesting theoretically, but also very practical. It really helped me to develop methods for my aphasia group to talk about identity. I really think that's a very good book. And then also the book of Barbara Shadden and her colleagues on Neurogenic Communication Disorders. There are some really practical cases in there, and it's very broad. It's not only about aphasia, but also a different neurogenic disorders. And I what I really like is it's such a nuanced theoretical perspective; they gather lots of theory, but they do that in such a good way. It's a very book. Katie Strong: Yeah, I agree, both Carol Pound and Barbara Shadden's work. It's approachable, but it does have the meat of the theory in it.   Rianne Brinkman: Yeah. So that's helped me a lot. And what I said earlier, the paper you wrote with Barbara on the power of story, I think that's very helpful to better understand what happens when you use narrative interventions, and what kind of interventions there are. And then, of course, the different interventions, like the work of Sabine Corsten on Narraktiv in your work, on My Story. And I have a book but it's only in Dutch. I attempted to share all those methods I created for the group, and it's very practice based. So that's why I started later on my PhD. But those practice-based methods are combined in a book, but it's only in Dutch. Katie Strong: It looks fabulous. I'm not able to access it with my limited language skills, but we'll make sure to have all of those references listed in the show notes so people can explore and take a look around it. And I think you know your book that you're talking about, Rianne even though it is all in Dutch, so maybe not accessible to everyone, but it's got beautiful graphics and photos and things like that you can get an essence of what it is that you're expressing. Rianne Brinkman: It's all, it's all painted or drawn by Reno Hubers. He's a Dutch person with aphasia, and he was in one of my groups. And then every time I was reading about something, he was just drawing it or painting it. And I thought, "Oh, I really need to ask him help me make the images for this book." So, it was together with him that we created this. Katie Strong: Beautiful. And what a great story. Thank you for being here with me today. And I don't know if you have anything else you want to add before we wrap up our conversation. Rianne Brinkman: Well, thank you for inviting me. But also, I want to say thank you to my team, because they really stimulate me to think differently about identity. I've got a very interprofessional team, and that's really helpful. And also, of course, our identity group meetings with you and Sabine and Bianca and Barbara. That's very helpful to shape my thinking on identity. And, of course, the participants of my research who are so open and vulnerable and want to share their stories. I would like to acknowledge that that's very important.   Katie Strong: For sure! We sure appreciate you sharing your experiences with us and look forward to what's to come from the longitudinal study. We wish you well in your studies as well. Thanks Rianne. What strikes me most about this conversation is how Rianne's work reminds us that identity reconstruction isn't a detour from aphasia care — it is aphasia care. And the tools she brings, the collage, the listening guide, the willingness to simply sit and wait, are more accessible than we might think. What began as a chance conversation in a parking lot in Philadelphia in 2019 has grown into something neither of us anticipated. Rianne, together with colleagues Sabine Corsten and Bianca Spelker, and alongside my own work through the Strong Story Lab, we have been developing and studying training programs for future clinicians in life storytelling approaches — across the US, Germany, and the Netherlands. It is the kind of international collaboration that only happens when people are genuinely working toward the same thing. On behalf of Aphasia Access, thank you for listening. For references and resources mentioned in today's show, please see our show notes, available on our website at www.aphasiaaccess.org. There you can also become a member of our organization, browse our growing library of materials, and find out about the Aphasia Access Academy. If you have an idea for a future podcast episode, email us at info@aphasiaaccess.org. For Aphasia Access Conversations, here at Central Michigan University in the Strong Story Lab, I'm Katie Strong.   Resources Brinkman, R. (2018). Bouwen aan identiteit. behandeling van afasie – met 25 werkvormen [Building identity. Breindok. Treatment of aphasia – with 25 methods]. http://refhub.elsevier.com/S0021-9924(26)00012-2/sbref0006  Brinkman, R., Cardol, M., Neijenhuis, K., Luinge, M., & Leget, C. (2026). "Leave the thorn, enjoy the rose" identity formation of people with aphasia in the early rehabilitation phase. Journal of Communication Disorders, 120, 106627. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2026.106627  Brinkman, R., Neijenhuis, K., Cardol, M., & Leget, C. (2024). Who am I now? A scoping review on identity changes in post-stroke aphasia. Disability and Rehabilitation, 47(5), 1081-1099. https://doi.org/10.1080/09638288.2024.2367606  Gilligan C., & Eddy J. (2017). Listening as a path to psychological discovery: An introduction to the Listening Guide. Perspectives on Medical Education, 6(2),76-81. https://doi.org/10.1007/S40037-017-0335-3  Pound, C., Parr, S., Lindsay, J., & Woolf, C. (2000). Beyond aphasia: Therapies for living with communication disability. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315169057  Shadden, B. B., Hagstrom, F., & Koski, P. R. (2008). Neurogenic communication disorders: Life stories and the narrative self. Plural Publishing. https://www.pluralpublishing.com/publications/neurogenic-communication-disorders-life-stories-and-the-narrative-self  Strong, K. A., & Shadden, B. B. (2020). The power of story in identity renegotiation: Clinical approaches to supporting persons living with aphasia. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 5(2), 371-383. https://doi.org/10.1044/2019_PERSP-19-00145   

Today on the podcast, host Lori Boll is joined Hallie Sherman, a licensed speech-language pathologist, author of the new book The Secondary SLP Roadmap, and the CEO behind Speech Time Fun, where she creates materials, training, and support for SLPs working with students in grades 4 through 12. After 17 years in New York public schools, Hallie learned early on what it really takes to motivate older students, build confidence, and help language skills transfer into real classroom progress. In this conversation, Hallie and Lori dig into what speech therapy can look like in the upper grades, the misconceptions that still linger, and practical strategies teachers can use right away to support language and learning.ConnectWebsite: Speech Time FunInstagram: Speech Time FunResources from Today's ShowBook: The Secondary SLP RoadmapDiffit: AI differentiation toolPodcasserole:Think InclusiveGetting Smart PodcastBetter Learning PodcastLiteracy Matters: Empowered ConversationsWhat School Could BeAn Imperfect Leader: The Superintendents and Leadership PodcastCOPAAThe Disability Almanac

In this episode of SLP Coffee Talk, Hallie chats with Allison Carpenter—elementary school SLP by day and telehealth provider by night—about what it actually looks like to work two jobs without running yourself into the ground. Allison traces her path from a private practice CF in small-town Texas to a school SLP in Dallas, and gets real about why burnout pushed her to make the switch. She breaks down exactly how she landed a part-time telehealth gig, how she structured her schedule to protect her energy, and why she keeps her private caseload at three kids and has zero interest in adding more. This episode is full of practical, permission-giving insight for any SLP curious about picking up extra income—on their own terms.Bullet Points to Discuss: Why Allison chose private practice for her CF—and why she doesn't regret it What burnout in private practice actually looked like for herHow a Facebook post led to a telehealth job she didn't even know she wanted How she structured her schedule across two jobs without burning out againHere's what we learned: Starting your CF in private practice puts you right next to experienced SLPs when you need them most. You control your private schedule. Decide your availability first and protect it like a meeting. A work from home day changes everything—and it's worth asking your district about. Teletherapy offers something in-person private practice can't always guarantee: consistency. Three kids, two days, done by 6:30. Know your number before your boss picks it for you.Shutting your brain off on weekends isn't a luxury—it's what makes the whole thing sustainable.Learn more about Allison Carpenter: TPT: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/store/miss-speech-alli Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alli.misspeech/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@alli.misspeech Learn more about Hallie Sherman and SLP Elevate:  

Have you ever had a client (or caseload) that made you think “I could do this so much better if I just have my own space”? For today's guest, building her own private practice wasn't just about clinical freedom—it was about finally doing therapy the way she always knew it should be done. And the best part? She did it all while keeping her dream role within the school system.I'm so excited to introduce you to Sheila Cina, a speech-language pathologist and a valued member of the Grow Your Private Practice Program. Sheila is the owner and founder of The Talking Place, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Sheila's journey into private practice is a masterclass in intentionality. Through a mix of side gigs, cold calls, and a leap of faith, she built a practice that not only serves her ideal clients but also allows her to mentor over 100 SLPs in her district.In this episode, Sheila discusses how she went from doing books in her husband's basement to building a thriving practice, all while maintaining a flexible schedule and a collaborative network of colleagues.She specializes in compassionate, research-aligned, stutter-affirming therapy for children, teens, and adults. Her work centers on helping clients feel safe and empowered—reducing struggle around communication while honoring each person's voice exactly as it is. She is also a certified life coach, bringing a unique perspective to her therapy sessions.In Today's Episode, We Discuss:Her fluency specialtyThe surprising benefit of keeping a 0.2 school position even after going out on her ownBuilding a collaborative community of SLPs who refer to each other instead of competingSheila's story is proof that you don't have to choose between clinical integrity and a balanced life. She has built a career that allows her to specialize deeply, consult widely, and still have dinner with her husband a few nights a week. We are so lucky to have her as part of our community, and her journey is an inspiring example of what's possible when you decide to create a job that fits you.Want to build a private practice that gives you the freedom to design your ideal week? Learn more about our Grow Your Private Practice Program at www.GrowYourPrivatePractice.com.Whether you want to start a private practice or grow your existing private practice, I can help you get the freedom, flexibility, fulfillment, and financial abundance that you deserve. Visit my website www.independentclinician.com to learn more.Resources Mentioned:Follow Sheila on:Instagram: instagram.com/thetalkingplacemn/Facebook: facebook.com/TheTalkingPlaceMNCheck out her website: ttpmn.comWhere We Can Connect:Follow the Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/private-practice-success-stories/id1374716199Follow Me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/independentclinician/Follow Me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jena.castrocasbon/

This episode is from the SLPS archive. As a little bonus for our couple of Patreon followers, Michael & Amanda were doing a show called Cage is the Rage, where they try to work through the entire filmography of Nicolas Cage. It was (and still is) a tall order, and life got in the way, and this episode was just sitting on Patreon. We had decided to get back into the swing, and before we do so, we wanted to unearth Cage is the Rage #3. On this episode of Cage is the Rage, we continue Nic Cage's career with a discussion on The Cotton Club (1984) and Birdy (1984). We also decided to get a little contemporary and talk about Renfield (2023).Edited by: Michael ViersProduced by: Michael ViersTheme Music by: The DirectionalsOpening Narration by: Zach McLainCredits Music by: Ten-SpeedLogo Design by: Amanda Viers

Rebecca Rowe joins me in this episode, as we explore what it truly means to provide neurodiversity-affirming speech therapy, with a focus on supporting families navigating an autism diagnosis. Rebecca shares how SLPs and OTs can guide and empower parents throughout the diagnostic process, while helping them find providers who align with neurodiversity-affirming values. We also break down key differences between ABA and OT/SLP services, and offer practical ways to support both yourself and your child with compassion, clarity, and confidence during this journey.Rebecca has over sixteen years of experience in the field of Speech Language Pathology. Her specialty is orofacial myology and she is a Certified Orofacial Myologist ( COM® ). She has owned ACT Therapy Services for ten years and enjoys leading a team providing play-based, neurodivergent therapy services to families and children. Check out her myofunctional therapy course for parents, mention this podcast and receive a 20% discount! Learn more here.Want to take your parenting journey to another level?⁠ Book your complimentary connection call now!⁠⁠⁠April 9, 2026Episode 320Neurodiversity Affirming Speech Therapy with Rebecca Rowe, SLPisAbout Your Host:Cara Tyrrell, M.Ed. is a mom or three, early childhood author, parent educator, and founder of⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Core4Parenting⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.⁠ A former preschool and kindergarten teacher with degrees in ASL, Linguistics, and Education, she created the Collaborative Parenting Methodology™ to help parents, caregivers, and educators understand the power of intentional language in shaping a child's identity, confidence, and future success.As host of the top-ranking podcast Transforming the Toddler Years, Cara blends science and soul to show adults how to “talk to kids before they can talk back,” turning tantrums into teachable moments and everyday challenges into opportunities for connection. She is also the author of the forthcoming book ⁠⁠T⁠alk to Them Early and Often⁠,⁠ ⁠a guide for raising emotionally intelligent kids who thrive in school and life.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Want to book Cara for your next speaking event? Find all the details ⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Practical insights into bottles, reflux, GI health, and the collaborative thinking needed to support safe, successful feeding.Guest: Britt Pados, PhD, RN, NNP-BC, IBCLC, FAHAEarn 0.10 ASHA CEUs for this episode with Speech Therapy PDWatch on YoutubeHost Michelle Dawson, MS, CCC-SLP, CLC, BCS-S, FNAP, sits down with Britt Pados, PhD, RN, NNP-BC, IBCLC, FAHA, the expert behind Infant Feeding Care, to explore the complexities of feeding in both bottle- and chest-fed infants. They discuss Britt's research on bottle flow rates and its ongoing clinical relevance, as well as the impact of gastrointestinal issues like reflux on feeding. The conversation highlights the use of the GIGER Scale to improve collaboration between SLPs and medical providers, and concludes with practical insights on conditions like FPIES and FPIAS, along with guidance for supporting lactating caregivers managing infant food allergies.About the Guest: Britt Pados, PhD, RN, NNP-BC, IBCLC, FAHA, and Trauma-Informed Professional at Infant Feeding Care in Massachusetts, where she provides clinical care to infants who are struggling with breastfeeding and/or bottle-feeding. She is also the owner of Infant Feeding Labs, where she conducts flow rate testing of bottle nipples.Show Notes:Infant Feeding LabsInfant Feeding CareRelated courses:The Power of PROM for PFDThe Medical Domain of PFDThe Gastrointestinal and Gastroesophageal Reflux (GIGER) Scale for Infants and Toddlers by Britt Pados, Christine Repsha, and Rebecca R. HillDr. Brown's BottlesDyphagia Outreach ProjectBowel Sounds: The Pediatric GI PodcastGut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ by Giulia EndersFindHelp.orgHospital-to-Home Systems ChangeSupport Feeding MattersMentioned in this episode:Register for the 2026 Autism Conference

Have you ever had a stretch of time where nothing is technically wrong, but everything feels off?You're more irritable, less focused, and not enjoying your work as an SLP or your time at home the way you usually do.Me too. In this episode, I'm sharing what was actually going on for me behind the scenes and the simple shifts that helped me reset without overhauling my entire life or business.What You'll Learn How to recognize when you're heading toward burnout (before it gets worse)  Why feeling “off” is often a signal, not the real problem  How your environment (especially social media + peer spaces) affects your mindset  The mindset shift that helped me feel more aligned and energized again  A simple calendar reset strategy to bring your work and life back into alignment If You've Been Feeling… Disconnected from your work  Mentally drained (even when you “shouldn't” be)  Frustrated or stuck without a clear reason  Pulled between your career and your personal life This episode will help you reset and move forward with more clarity and intention.Work With MeIf you're ready to stop feeling stuck and start building a career + life that actually feels good, let's talk.

What if you could build a private practice so strong, you could retire early—without letting go of the clients you love? Today's guest is a speech-language pathologist who turned decades of specialization into a thriving practice, a legacy plan, and a roadmap to hiking the Amalfi Coast while still staying connected to the field she's passionate about.I'm thrilled to introduce you to Maureen Neukirch, a speech-language pathologist and the owner of Little Speech Boutique in the greater Nashville area. Maureen provides in-home, preschool, and community-based services but she's not your average generalist.With over 25 years of experience across a variety of early childhood settings, Maureen's journey is built on a deep foundation. Her research background in sensorimotor integration, prerequisites for early reading success, and rural service delivery via teletherapy has always set her apart. After decades in the field starting in schools, transitioning to neurodegenerative work during COVID, and learning what kind of boss she never wanted to be — Maureen made a bold decision: she would specialize in Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS).That decision didn't just change her caseload. It changed her entire career trajectory.Now an early intervention specialist serving clients from 18 months to 12 years of age, Maureen works with children across varying degrees of severity related to speech development. Her expertise is nationally recognized. She is a Certified Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing (DTTC) Research Clinician, a distinction awarded by the Once Upon a Time Foundation, where she was selected for a prestigious research study and trained by leaders. She is also recognized by the Apraxia Foundation and Bjorem Speech as an Apraxia Trained Clinician. In addition to DTTC and the Dynamic Evaluation of Motor Speech Sounds (DEMSS), Maureen utilizes Rapid Syllable Transition (ReST) and has been trained in PROMPT, ensuring her approach is backed by the most current, evidence-based practices.In this episode, Maureen discusses how specializing in CAS helped her build a full caseload in a new city, why she confidently refers to anything outside her niche, and the legacy plan she's building as she looks toward retirement.Maureen is passionate about dynamic assessment, differential diagnosis, and helping families find clarity. She believes in going deep, not wide and that being a specialist doesn't mean struggling for referrals. Outside of client care, she's building something bigger: a network of clinicians and a vision for connecting Nashville's private practitioners so families can finally find the specialists they need.In Today's Episode, We Discuss:How specializing in CAS — one of the most specific niches in our field — actually made it easier to get referrals in a city where she had zero connectionsThe "splashy" marketing strategy she used to get noticed from day oneWhy she sees other SLPs as collaborators, not competitors (and the networking philosophy that's fueled her growth)The legacy she's building as she plans her next chapter — a community-wide referral network for clinicians and families across NashvilleMaureen is proof that you don't have to be everything to everyone. By going deep on what she loves, she's built a practice that serves her ideal clients, fuels her intellectually, and gives her the freedom to start thinking about what's next.And here's the best part: her story does not have to be the exception. You, too, can build a practice that lets you specialize, collaborate, and eventually scale whether that means hiring, retiring, or just taking more October hikes.Want to build a private practice that gives you the freedom to specialize, the confidence to refer out, and the vision to plan for your future—just like Maureen? The Start Your Private Practice Program gives you the roadmap, resources and mentorship where our mentors can help you overcome fears, build systems, and find your path to get started. Learn more at www.StartYourPrivatePractice.com.Whether you want to start a private practice or grow your existing one, I can help you get the freedom, flexibility, fulfillment, and financial abundance you deserve. Visit my website www.independentclinician.com to learn more.Resources Mentioned:Follow Maureen onInstagram: instagram.com/littlespeechboutique/Facebook: facebook.com/littlespeechboutiqueCheck out her website: littlespeechboutique.comWhere We Can Connect:Follow the Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/private-practice-success-stories/id1374716199Follow Me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/independentclinician/Follow Me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jena.castrocasbon/

A refreshing dose of encouragement and perspective for SLPs who wear many hats.Guest: Emily Bromer, MS, CCC-SLPEarn 0.10 ASHA CEUs for this episode with Speech Therapy PDWatch on YoutubeIn this episode of First Bite, host Michelle Dawson, MS, CCC-SLP, CLC, BCS-S, FNAP, sits down with Emily Bromer, MS, CCC-SLP to celebrate the many roles SLPs take on throughout their careers. They reflect on what makes a supportive and successful clinical fellowship, what graduate students should look for in meaningful practicum placements, and how diverse clinical experiences and strong mentorship can shape a fulfilling career path. They also tackle the reality of imposter syndrome, and offer practical perspectives for protecting your mental health, staying grounded, and rediscovering the passion that drew you to this profession in the first place. If you're feeling stuck, stretched thin, or simply need a reminder of why you chose this field, this episode is for you.About the Guest: Emily Bromer is a SLP based in Lynchburg, Virginia, who is passionate about increasing her community's access to quality therapy services and strengthening the profession she loves. She has been practicing for six years and currently serves as the Lead SLP for Appomattox County Public Schools. In addition to her work in public education, Emily is the owner of Hill City Speech Services, PLLC.Show Notes:Contact Emily: @hillcityspeechva on InstagramEmily's Private Practice: Hill City Speech ServicesSupport Miriam's House - Solutions to Homelessness

Communication isn't owned by one profession, it's something we all share and protect together.I'm joined by Dr. Lilith Reuter-Yuill "Dr. RY" for a thoughtful conversation about what it really takes to ensure communication access for every learner. We talk about her journey from sign language interpreter to dually certified SLP and BCBA, and how that shaped her passion for collaboration and innovation.We dig into some of the biggest friction points between disciplines, especially when it comes to AAC. One of the biggest takeaways is this, there is no one right tool or pathway. We have to start with the learner, the context, and the full communication repertoire. I also loved our conversation about moving away from quick fixes and toward meaningful, individualized support that actually generalizes.We also share a preview of her upcoming course inside the ABA Speech Connection, where we'll explore sign language, AAC, and how to thoughtfully select communication modalities that truly fit each learner.#autism #speechtherapyWhat's Inside:Why communication access must be individualized and context-drivenCommon misconceptions about AAC and over-reliance on high-tech solutionsHow collaboration between SLPs and BCBAs improves real-world outcomesMentioned In This Episode:BridgifyBridgify's CommunityIdaho ABA Conference 2026Earn CEUs with a community of peers. Join the ABA Speech ConnectionABA Speech: Home

Have you ever caught yourself spiraling about what someone might be thinking about you?Your boss…your clients…other SLPs…even your friends or family?I've been there—recently, actually—and in this episode, I'm walking you through what that spiral actually costs you (hint: it's more than just your peace of mind). More importantly, I'll show you how to get out of it so you can make decisions that actually align with you.What You'll LearnWhy trying to figure out what other people think is a losing game (and always will be)Subtle ways this habit keeps you stuck, second-guessing, and out of alignmentA powerful mindset shift that instantly takes your energy backUse comparison productively instead of spiraling into “compare and despair”How to start making decisions based on your values, not someone else's lensIf This Resonates:If you're tired of overthinking every decision and feeling stuck in your own head, I'd love to help you work through this.

Hallie chats with Lauren Catellier about how the 3:1 model supports school-based SLPs in managing burnoutIn this episode of SLP Coffee Talk, Hallie chats with Lauren Cattelier—school-based SLP, mom of two boys, and co-instructor and owner of Therapy Advanced Courses—about a model every overwhelmed SLP needs to know: The 3:1 Model. Lauren shares her experience using this workload approach in her former district, gets real about the difference she felt when she stopped using it, and breaks down exactly how to implement it, document it, and sell it to the admins and teachers who will inevitably push back. From wording it on an IEP to using that flex week for AAC training, parent coaching, and classroom push-ins, this episode is full of practical strategies, refreshing honesty, and a much-needed reminder that advocating for a better schedule is the same thing as advocating for your students.Bullet Points to Discuss: What the 3:1 Model is and why it's a workload approach, not a day off How Lauren's district got it off the ground and what made it stick How to explain the flex week to parents, teachers, and administrators without getting pushback All the ways you can use that indirect week to actually serve your kids better Why this model makes it easier to dismiss students when they're ready How to advocate for the model even when you're new and non-tenuredHere's what we learned: The 3:1 Model is a workload approach — it accounts for everything you do beyond face-to-face therapy. Plan how you'll use the flex week for each student before it arrives, not during it. Teachers need the most convincing — come prepared with specifics about how their students will still be served. Document every flex week so you can always show exactly how each child was serviced. If it's not written into the IEP, it doesn't exist — get it in there explicitly. Pushing into classrooms gives you context you simply can't get from a pull-out model. Spring is the best time to pitch this to admin — everyone's already thinking about next year.Learn more about Lauren Catellier: Website: https://www.therapyadvancecourses.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therapyadvancecoursesCourses: https://www.therapyadvancecourses.com/courses 3:1 Model ToolkitLearn more about Hallie Sherman and SLP Elevate:  

The world of myofunctional therapy is currently seeing a surge in "preformed appliances"—ready-made mouthpieces designed to guide dental growth and improve breathing. But are they a silver bullet or a systemic shortcut?In this episode, Hallie Bulkin is joined by the legendary Autumn Henning to pull back the curtain on these tools. From hygiene concerns like mold growth to the physiological risks of "cookie-cutter" treatment, this conversation is a must-listen for any therapist or parent considering an appliance-based approach. They dive deep into why a multidisciplinary team and a holistic view of the "Integrated System" are the only ways to achieve lasting functional outcomes.Key Topics & TakeawaysThe "Cookie-Cutter" Limitation: Why a one-size-fits-all appliance can lead to compensation rather than correction.The Hygiene Factor: A frank discussion on mold growth, dyes, and sensitivities in pediatric appliances.Airway First, Always: Why comprehensive imaging and evaluation must precede any device being placed in a child's mouth.The Multidisciplinary Team: Understanding the roles of SLPs, myofunctional therapists, and airway-aware dentists in a successful "Integrated System."Financial Reality: Assessing the cost, durability, and true clinical value of these devices versus functional therapy.Key Soundbites"Kids can bite through these appliances in 24 hours. We have to look at the durability and the 'why' behind that force.""We can't treat in silos; the system is integrated. If you move the jaw without looking at the airway, you're missing the big picture.""Don't dismiss treatment based on a diagnosis alone. Early intervention and the right team can change a child's entire facial development trajectory."Timestamped Chapters00:00 – Introduction and Guest Credibility01:54 – How Preformed Appliances Work vs. Case Selection06:16 – The Hidden Issues: Mold Growth and Appliance Hygiene10:01 – The Necessity of Comprehensive Evaluation and Imaging16:34 – Building a Multidisciplinary Team for Holistic Success27:20 – Sleep Disordered Breathing and Neurodevelopmental Impacts41:26 – Autumn Henning's Program Updates: TOTS Gold & Feed the PedsWORTH A LISTEN: CONTINUE YOUR JOURNEYWhy We Can't Ignore the Airway in Pediatric Feeding TherapyEpisode 309: 5 Airway Health Tips for Children with Hallie BulkinSTAY CONNECTED & GROW YOUR PRACTICE

If you work with four, five, or six-year-olds with speech sound disorders, this episode was made for you and this research will change how you document, advocate, and make eligibility decisions for your students. In this episode, we break down a brand-new 2026 open-access study that every school-based SLP, early childhood SLP, and preschool speech-language pathologist needs to save, cite, and have ready to go. Whether you're navigating a negative 2.0 standard deviation eligibility criteria, writing IEP goals for preschoolers with speech sound disorders, or advocating for a child who doesn't yet "qualify" on paper, this research is your clinical ammunition. This landmark study examined peer perceptions of children with speech sound disorders across ages four, five, and six: At age 4: Neurotypical peers already rate children with severe speech sound disorders lower across domains of intelligence, friendliness, and likability compared to typically developing talkers. At age 5: Children with moderate-to-severe speech sound disorders are rated lower across all social domains by their neurotypical peers. At age 6: Even children with mild speech sound disorders are rated lower and are seen as less desirable friendship candidates compared to neurotypical peers. The bottom line? Severity matters. Age matters. And the social stakes get higher every single year. Use this research study to support eligibility decisions when standardized scores alone don't tell the full story. Cite it alongside teacher observations, parent input, direct observation of socialization, and connected speech samples. Document the educational and social impact of the speech sound disorder, not just the score Know your state's eligibility criteria: some states require -2.0 SD, others -1.0 SD, and others rely on professional judgment of adverse educational impact Advocate proactively: a wait-and-see approach has real social consequences for your students Henry, M., & Bent, T. (2026). Let's be friends: Peer perceptions of disordered speech in preschool and early school-aged children. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 35(1).

How can a simple tool can strengthen complex clinical decision-making?Guests: Kelly Kleinhans, PhD, CCC-SLP, and Courtney Richards, MS, CCC-SLP, CLCEarn 0.10 ASHA CEUs for this episode with Speech Therapy PDWatch on YoutubeKelly and Courtney share how mind maps and case-based learning are used in graduate training to help learners organize complex information, recognize patterns, and connect assessment findings to meaningful intervention planning. Explore how these strategies can support diverse learning styles while also strengthening supervision and mentoring conversations. Use these tools to help students make sense of complex PFD cases and translate knowledge into confident, thoughtful clinical decisions.About the Guests: Dr. Kelly Kleinhans is a professor, program director, and clinical education enthusiast who is passionate about helping graduate students become confident, compassionate, and practice-ready SLPs. She leads the Master of Speech-Language Pathology program at Austin Peay State University.Courtney Richards, MS, CCC-SLP, CLC, is the Lead Feeding Therapist at Advanced Therapy Solutions (ATS) in Clarksville, TN, where she oversees the feeding program across three clinics. Show Notes:Bridging Pedagogy and Practice: Case-Based Learning and Mind Maps by Kelly Kleinhans, Courtney Richards, and Alison DesommaSupplemental Material APSU Speech-Language & Swallowing Community ClinicFeeding Therapy Sweatshirt - Courtney's Etsy Store Feeding Matters Power of Two ProgramSupport Feeding MattersRelated Course: Research to "Chew On" with Dr. Amy Delaney RAM ClinicsGut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ by Giulia Enders If Disney Ran Your Hospital: 9 1/2 Things You Would Do Differently by Fred Lee Mentioned in this episode:Register for the School-based Feeding and Swallowing Masterclass

Show Notes: slpnow.com/254The vast majority of school-based SLPs don't have perfectly matched groups, and that doesn't mean therapy has to be less effective. With the right structure and planning strategy, mixed groups can actually become a powerful way to target multiple goals, support peer learning, and simplify your workload. In this episode, we walk through a practical framework for running structured, efficient therapy sessions, even when your groups include different grade levels and goals.In this episode, you'll learn:How to segment your caseload so you can plan therapy more efficientlyWhy language-rich thematic units help you target multiple goals at onceA simple way to let students build on each other's responses in mixed groupsHow the "Check in → Assess → Teach → Practice → Wrap up" structure reduces cognitive loadThree small strategies you can implement immediately to make sessions easierIf you'd like help setting this up for your own caseload, you can explore the tools and units inside a free trial at slpnow.com/pod.

Interviewer info Lyssa Rome is a speech-language pathologist in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is on staff at the Aphasia Center of California, where she facilitates groups for people with aphasia and their care partners. She owns an LPAA-focused private practice and specializes in working with people with neurogenic communication disorders. She has worked in acute hospital, skilled nursing, and continuum of care settings. Prior to becoming an SLP, Lyssa was a public radio journalist, editor, and podcast producer. In this episode, Lyssa Rome interviews Jessica Obermeyer about group treatment for aphasia. Guest info Jessica Obermeyer, PhD, CCC-SLP, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her area of specialization is acquired adult neurogenic language disorders. Dr. Obermeyer's research interests include discourse production in aphasia, treatment efficacy, and the cognitive requirements of language production. Prior to earning her doctorate, she worked in a variety of clinical settings where she specialized in assessment and treatment of adult neurogenic populations.     Listener Take-aways In today's episode you will: ● Recognize the role of written communication in clients' daily activities, including texting, email, and online tasks. ● Adapt ARCS-W treatment components to match each client's preferred writing modality (handwriting vs. typing). ● Identify candidates with aphasia who are well-suited for discourse-level writing treatment. Lyssa Rome Welcome to the Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations Podcast. I'm Lyssa Rome. I'm a speech language pathologist on staff at the Aphasia Center of California, and I see clients with aphasia and other neurogenic communication disorders in my LPAA-focused private practice. I'm also a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration, and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources. I'm today's host for an episode that will feature Dr. Jessica Obermeyer, who was selected as a 2024 Tavistock Trust for Aphasia, Distinguished Scholar, USA and Canada. Dr. Obermeyer is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her area of specialization is acquired adult neurogenic language disorders. Dr Obermeyer's research interests include discourse production and aphasia treatment efficacy and the cognitive requirements of language production. Prior to earning her doctorate, she worked in a variety of clinical settings, where she specialized in assessment and treatment of adult neurogenic populations. Jessica Obermeyer, welcome to the podcast, and thanks for being here. Jessica Obermeyer Thank you. It's a pleasure. Lyssa Rome So I wanted to get started with a question we often ask, which is: How did you get into this? Was there an aha moment for you and what led you to research aphasia? Jessica Obermeyer That's a great question. I think it was more of a slow awakening and journey to realizing that this is how I wanted to spend my days. When I started studying speech language pathology, I knew I wanted to work in adult rehab with people with traumatic brain injury, stroke, and aphasia. But as an undergraduate and a masters student, I worked on a lot of research related to traumatic brain injury and cognition. But then I had some exposure to aphasia research, and as a clinician, I just loved working with people that had aphasia. I loved running aphasia groups. I started aphasia groups, and when I decided to go back for my PhD, that is what I wanted to focus on. I also had the opportunity to work in adult outpatient, so I got to see a lot of people that had aphasia and were at different points in their rehabilitation journey. And those experiences just made me want to continue and especially do research that could develop and evaluate different treatment approaches for people that had aphasia. Lyssa Rome One of the sort of through lines in your research has been discourse. And I'm curious about how you landed on that as the focus of your work, why discourse? Jessica Obermeyer It's how we talk. It was always, you know, something I was interested in. I think, as a clinician, I felt really daunted by discourse, because it is laborious, you know, it takes a lot of time to think about how you're going to analyze it. But I was always so fascinated by all the linguistic components that make up discourse as a clinician. And then I think as a researcher, I really appreciate how important it is. Everything we do in our day to day lives is often at a discourse level, and that looks so different depending on the type of discourse. So your text exchange is discourse, your emails, your conversations, the interaction with a barista. You know, every kind of functional way that we communicate is often at a discourse level. But it's so different depending on what that interaction looks like, and that's just endlessly fascinating to me as a researcher… challenging but fascinating. Lyssa Rome Challenging both to evaluate and, I guess, to some extent, to treat. One of the things that I really appreciate is that it's how we communicate in our daily lives, and so if we're thinking about life participation and sort of functional approaches to treatment, to my mind, discourse is kind of where it's at. So I'm really excited to get to talk to you more about it. So speaking of discourse, I thought we could talk about your work on ARCS. Maybe we could start by telling us a little bit about the origins and how you became involved in researching. Jessica Obermeyer Yes, I'd be happy to. I started doing research with ARCS as a doctoral student. So it's been a long time, but the origin of ARCS, or Attentive Reading with Constrained Summarization, started with Yvonne Rogalski and Lisa Edmonds, and they published the first paper, I think, in 2009, but someone should go back to check that, and it was originally for someone that had primary progressive aphasia. And then there was another paper published for two people with Wernicke's aphasia. So in the original version, it's based on constrained summarization, and constrained only in that you're giving someone guidelines for how to summarize so they have to read through a segment of text. Usually it's a current event article, but clinically, you could use pretty much any written text. And I've actually done it with someone listening as well. Typically with ARCS, you would have someone read a segment of written text and then summarize it with the constraint or guideline to be specific. So avoid words like it, stuff, thing, he, she. So use that really intentional word retrieval. That's not what we typically do. We often use non-specific words, but it's that therapeutic, like try to go for the really precise and specific word exercise that retrieval and to also stay on topic, so try not to add a tangent, or, you know, additional information that's not related to what you're reading. And then in my work, I've added an additional guideline that's just based on what that person needs. So if they're repeating a lot, then that might be part of the guideline. Often, the guideline is to try to include the essential information that you've identified already. So that's the origin of ARCS. And as a doctoral student, I really wanted to do treatment research. I became really interested in cooperative learning theory, in how people can work together in their learning, collaborate to improve learning. And when I was doing that, reading and thinking about cooperative learning, writing seemed like such an excellent tool for that, because I think one of the hard things about spoken language is that it's just gone. You say it, it's gone. It's very hard to monitor, which I'm acutely aware of right now in this recording. But with written text, you have this wonderful record of what you've produced, and that can be really helpful for thinking about language and planning, especially in an approach like ARCS or ARCS-W that emphasizes this planning, process-driven component, where you're thinking about, "What do I need to include in this discourse? What's important? What's not important? And what have I actually produced? Does that meet, you know, the guidelines I've tried to meet?" So that's how writing actually got pulled into it. And I wanted to keep the spoken language because, I don't know that I've ever met someone with aphasia who told me they didn't want to continue exercising their spoken language, but the writing was just I think, an important addition, because there are so few written discourse treatment options. And it allowed for this emphasis on monitoring and planning and some of the cognitive components of discourse that can be hard to address. Lyssa Rome And maybe you could say a little bit about what you found when you've studied ARCS-W, so the Attentive Reading and Constrained Summarization-Written. Jessica Obermeyer Well, people have improved, which is great. So the one of the things about ARCS and ARCS-W that's maybe unique when we think about aphasia treatment as a whole, is that it's not a treatment with trained items, so no items are repeated. You're working on the process of discourse production, this process of monitoring and trying to be specific, be efficient, you know. In written discourse, people have made improvements in correct information units or CIUs. So at the word level in discourse, the amount of informative and correct information that they're producing, people have made improvements at the utterance level, where they're producing more relevant utterances and more utterances that have a basic sentence structure, and then this hasn't been looked at in all of the studies, but for some of the participants, where we've measured things like main concepts, the amount that the person is conveying the main ideas or concepts in the discourse has improved for some people as well. And then at this spoken discourse. So ARCS-W, it's half spoken, half written. Basically, people have also made similar improvements. So it's been encouraging so far, ARCS-W I would say, compared to ARCS is for people in the more mild aphasia end of the spectrum, especially with the writing component. Any clinician who's worked with people with aphasia will know that writing is often a stressful thing for people with aphasia. So it's for people that are writing at a phrase level already. It doesn't mean that their spelling is perfect, but if they're really struggling to get out a single word, this is probably not the ideal you know treatment for them, but for folks that are more on the mild end who want to work on spoken and written discourse, we have seen some positive results in their spoken and written discourse production. Another thing that I think is really important for this treatment is that it is so multi-modality. When we write normally, we're reading as well. You know, we're not just writing in a vacuum. A lot of the time. We're rereading our text, we are reading that text message and then responding to it. So I like that. I like multi-modality treatments. I like that this is a treatment that allows people to address multiple types of language goals, while, you know, keeping it pretty simple and low tech. Lyssa Rome I think that that really hits on one of the reasons that I like using ARCS-W in my work with people is that It can be used with so many different kinds of texts. So I've used both, you know, work emails, if their goal is to get back to work, newspaper articles that interest them, simplified newspaper articles that interest there's so many possibilities. And anyway, it's exciting to hear you talk about that. Jessica Obermeyer Yeah, I think that as a clinician, that's why I liked ARCS. It was so flexible, so easy to implement. And that's definitely one of the things I like about ARCS-W as well. Make treatment work hard for you. Lyssa Rome So that is interesting to people as well. Where are you going next with your ARCS research? Jessica Obermeyer Great question. I'm writing up results from about six people we ran over the last couple years, so that, I hope, gets submitted for publication soon. And I would really like to adapt this treatment a little further to use more assistive technology for folks that are really wanting to write, but aren't wedded to handwriting or typing in a traditional sense. So can we use speech-to-text? I always mix it up. And can we use methods to support people producing written language that are, you know, different than just typing it? Because people have really different needs in their life. So if that is a way to meet their writing needs, excellent, and I'd like to do that in the future. Lyssa Rome I think that gets back to this idea that it's so flexible, right? You could adapt it in so many different ways. I think that that's really exciting, because it sort of further underscores the flexibility of this approach. And we were talking earlier, before we started recording, about using the same ARCS framework, or ARCS-W framework for material that clients have listened to, things like podcasts or TED Talks. So it seems like it's so adaptable, which is part of what I think makes it really exciting. Jessica Obermeyer I think that's a great idea. We actually did use listening and then summarization for one of the participants in the first arc study, because that met their profile. That's how they wanted to interact with the treatment, and it worked out really well for them, and it's a great way to incorporate people's different interests. Not everyone wants to read, so being able to listen is a great option. And in the treatment for everybody, they always select their writing modality so they can either hand write or type, depending on what's relevant for them. In the population of people that have aphasia now, and I know that this will change over time, people have really different comfort levels with technology and with typing. So if someone says, "No, I never typed. I want to handwrite," then we can do that. And if, if it's the other, we can type. So I think listening is just another way to make it meet someone's needs better. Lyssa Rome I was hoping that you could talk a little bit more about the similarities and differences between different types of discourse. So spoken and written discourse, typed and versus handwritten discourse. Tell us a little bit more about that. Jessica Obermeyer Yeah, of course. Well, I should, I guess, start off by saying, working on the ARCS-W treatment research, I recognized just how little information is out there on written discourse and the majority of discourse measures that we use in aphasiology are based on spoken discourse production. But there are differences in how we speak versus how we write. So in spoken language, we've already talked a little bit about this, it's temporal, it's just gone. So writing is tangible. You have a record of your writing, and that can be really beneficial for people with aphasia. But of course, there's there's other things that can make writing more challenging as well. With spoken language, of course, we have the suprasegmental components of what we're saying. So we have our tone and our facial expression and things that allow us to impart meaning without actually saying it, and we don't have that in writing. Although things are shifting with text messaging technologies, we can add emojis and memes that help us communicate information. But I think when we're thinking about traditional writing, it doesn't have those additional components, and therefore people have to be more explicit with their word choice and a little more clear in what they're trying to say. People are often more efficient in writing. They use fewer words than they would in speaking. So those are some of the differences. We can't automatically correct our written output because we see that our partner doesn't understand. Because in writing, there's this distance between when we're writing versus when we think someone's reading it. Even in more instant platforms like text messaging, we don't know exactly when someone's reading something or how their face looks when they read it, in the way we know with speaking. So those differences do impact how we complete the task. And of course, the context of writing changes it dramatically. So you write notes to yourself really differently than you write a research paper or a work email. And that's not so different from speaking, right? The context is still going to impact how we speak or write, very much. So in my work, I've looked at how writing and typing are the same or different. And this is a pretty new area. There's a couple papers out there on it now, and I think it's gaining traction, which is great, because most people write through typing in their daily life now. What I found is that at a group level, it's pretty similar. Writing and typing look pretty similar for people that have aphasia. But individually it can be very different. So an individual person with aphasia might have a strength or weakness in handwriting versus typing for lots of different possible reasons, like their experience, or hemiparesis, their desire to do one or the other. But it's not, the patterns aren't completely clear. I think clinicians are probably really used to hearing that every individual with aphasia has the potential to be different. So I think that keeps with written and typed language output, handwritten and typed. Some of my recent work has been related to looking at different writing modalities for people with aphasia. So are there differences in their handwritten versus typed discourse production. There's a couple papers out on this now, and hopefully there'll be even more as it gains traction. And I think it's getting more attention in the research literature because of how important writing is in our daily lives now. I mean, most activities of daily living are now completed through, you know, the virtual world, so banking, shopping, lots of messaging are completed through reading and writing now. So that's kind of why I became interested in also working with ARCS-W and having people handwrite versus type, depending on their interest and comfort level. It was always interesting to me why certain people picked one or the other, and kind of what I was seeing. There is some research out there that shows that handwriting is advantageous for learning. So the specificity of how we're moving our fingers to create letters is helpful for retention and learning items, but when we're thinking at the discourse level, when we're not using the same items necessarily, things could potentially be a little different. So I was interested in just exploring some of those differences and patterns that might emerge, and if there was anything I could figure out that might be driving a pattern. So if someone's better at typing than handwriting, is there a reason that they're better? So what I have found so far, and it's it's pretty preliminary, is that at the group level, handwriting and typing look very similar for people with aphasia, so oftentimes, there's not a big difference in the total words that they produce, and that's been confirmed by a larger study as well from Jaime Lee and colleagues. But then when we look at the individual level, that's when you can start to see differences. And I don't think any clinician would be surprised to hear that people with Aphasia are variable or different. So we know that that is common, but it's been pretty interesting and striking in my own work to see how at the group level, these differences just totally even out. But then when we look at individuals, you do see that, you know, someone is more proficient with typing, someone else is more proficient with handwriting. So in a study I did, I think from 2024, we had people fill out this historical information about their typing experience and exposure, we knew about if they had a hemiparesis or not, and so were they able to use both hands or one hand for handwriting or typing? And like I said, we did find these individual differences for some people, but there wasn't a really clear pattern in what was driving those differences? Was it that they hadn't worked with a keyboard a lot? Was it that they only had the use of one hand? And we just didn't have enough data potentially to discern any specific patterns? Lyssa Rome We've talked a little bit about different types of discourse, written, spoken for written, typed versus handwritten. But I wanted to kind of come back to how we measure and analyze discourse, and wanted to ask about a more recent paper and have you describe a little bit about your work on discourse measurement and training clinicians to measure discourse? Jessica Obermeyer That paper is a perceptual rating paper. We've talked a lot about discourse in this chat, and I think probably one of the first things I might have mentioned was how daunting discourse analysis can be. So researchers are aware of that, and always kind of thinking that discourse is so rich, it provides us so much information about someone's linguistic ability, but also their success with communication in a way that other levels of language don't necessarily tell us. So how can we benefit from that rich information in a way that clinicians can do. Because with discourse analysis, you know, in the clinical session, it might not take that long. You're having someone participate in 10 minutes of conversation—that is not a lot of time in your session. The time is all backlogged. The time is after the session is over, and you're trying to transcribe what they've said and then identify discourse measures that you're interested in. And another thing that makes discourse just complex and dynamic is that there's not one measure, you know, there's not a measure of word retrieval and discourse. There are lots of measures that can give you insight into word retrieval and discourse. So this project I did with my collaborator, Marion Lehman, who also works on discourse, and especially conversation. We wanted to see if it was possible to train people to rate conversation samples from people with aphasia on linguistic measures, so measures of language ability. So there are other perceptual rating scales, but a lot of them might be looking at speech acts like initiation or presence or absence of errors. And we were really interested in if these, if perceptual ratings, could map on to the things we're doing in our labs, so you know, correct information units or the degree of informativeness, utterances that have basic structure, coherence, you know, these measures that we are spending many hours, you know, coding line by line, or even word by word, for some. So she and I developed this training and introduced—so the paper that's published, we used research assistants in our research labs, and we exposed them to the linguistic measures that we were interested in. Had them watch some practice videos, and then told them how we had coded them. So what was the value based on our lab coding? And then we did five test samples, so there were four linguistic measures. The training lasted about three hours, and I did five test samples. And we got some really good feedback from the RAs who did the training and rating samples. We had some promising results for especially two of the measures that we used in their training, and now we're really interested in extending that work with clinicians. So the people that were in the study before had very limited experience listening to people that had aphasia. They hadn't worked with people that had aphasia, they hadn't done extensive clinical training. We're hopeful that if we can use their feedback to fine tune the training and rating procedures and recruit some clinicians to participate, that hopefully we could get even better results and hopefully provide a tool to clinicians where they can be thinking about linguistic components of conversation in a way that's more feasible to their schedule and their workload, because we recognize how much time it takes. And I think it's, it's just a barrier to entry, even, because if someone is feeling like, "I can't do this, I don't have time to do this," then it's hard to even learn about or get started. Lyssa Rome Yeah, I'm so happy to hear that you're that you're focused on the feasibility for clinicians who have productivity requirements, who don't necessarily have a lot of time at the end of the day to do that kind of really in depth analysis. I think it's exciting. Jessica Obermeyer Oh, for sure, and clinicians, I think, work a lot of extra hours, but they have a whole caseload, you know, so balancing everybody's needs and being able to to provide excellent care to everybody is, is always a challenge, and hopefully, hopefully we'll, we'll be able to continue this work. We're trying to get some funding for the project because we want to be able to pay SLPs who participate in the research. Lyssa Rome As we start to wrap up, I'm wondering what you would like clinicians who are listening to this podcast to take away from what we've talked about today, from your work. Jessica Obermeyer I think one takeaway would be for clinicians to think about incorporating handwriting and typing into their existing treatment practice. So I've talked a lot about ARCS-W. ARCS-W is not for everybody. It is a very specific treatment approach for people that have mild aphasia who want to work on discourse-level writing. But there are so many ways to have people engage with handwriting and typing that will serve them in their daily life. So we've talked a lot about how literacy is just such a big—it's a bigger part of our lives than it was 20 years ago. People can achieve a lot of independence and autonomy if they're able to interact with reading and writing and complete it successfully. So I would really encourage clinicians to think about how they can incorporate reading and writing into their existing treatment. A study I was involved with— Liz Madden surveyed SLPs on their practices assessing and treating reading and writing, and one of the take-homes from that project was that clinicians evaluate writing more than treating it. And especially handwriting, versus typing. But I think that given the way society is moving, asking people like, "What's important for you, handwriting or typing?" and let's make that our practice. Lyssa Rome I appreciate how person centered and flexible that advice is right. We're trying to meet people where they're at and recognizing that our treatment can be tailored to the person who's sitting in front of us. I'm curious to hear what is coming next for you. What are you excited about in your work? Jessica Obermeyer That's actually a great segue about how we can tailor treatment, because that is one of the projects that I'm working on now, how we can think about treatment in terms of what are the things that make it work, versus things that maybe aren't essential components of the treatment? With the last study I did with ARCS-W of the things that we were really trying to understand better was: Did it matter if people hand wrote or typed? Did they have the same kind of level of generalization to the other writing modality? And in that study, it doesn't seem that they did. And I think there's really specific reasons for that, because we're working at this discourse level without repeated items. And so you might not see the same impact of that handwriting learning boost, because we're not repeating things as often. That's one of my real interests is thinking about how we work on treatment, how we deliver treatment, how clinicians can deliver treatment. Because I am very guilty of this. Working on writing takes a long time. It takes a long time for people with aphasia to produce written discourse level text. So in the ARCS W studies, it's an hour-and-a-half treatment session where we only work on ARCS-W. But I know I recognize that that's like not most clinicians' daily life, and it doesn't mirror what therapy many people with aphasia receive. So thinking about treatment in a more component-based and mechanistic way that makes it easier for clinicians to adapt to their their practice is is one of the things I would like to flesh out in the future. And then continuing to work on this training and perceptual rating protocol. One of the things my colleagues and I would like to do is create a training that can be shared freely, where clinicians can easily get access to it, and then collect more robust data. I mean, only if we get good results, of course. If we don't, we will not be sharing it. But those are the big things I'm thinking about in the next couple of years, and then beyond that, even more. Lyssa Rome Well, I look forward to reading more of your work and to seeing what comes next as well. Dr. Jessica Obermeyer, thanks so much for talking with us. I really appreciate it. Jessica Obermeyer It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Lyssa Rome And thanks also to our listeners for the references and resources mentioned in today's show. Please see our show notes. They're available on our website, www.aphasiaaccess.org. There, you can also become a member of our organization, browse our growing library of materials and find out about the Aphasia Access Academy. If you have an idea for a future podcast episode, email us at info@aphasiaaccess.org. Thanks again for your ongoing support of Aphasia Access. For Aphasia Access Conversations, I'm Lyssa Rome. Resources Obermeyer, J. (2024). Using and modifying standardized restorative treatments in aphasia: Clinician perspectives. American Journal of Speech‑Language Pathology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2024_AJSLP-23-00349 Obermeyer, J., Leaman, M., & Oleson, J. (2025). Feasibility and preliminary data for a training protocol and perceptual rating scale of linguistic conversation measures in aphasia. American Journal of Speech‑Language Pathology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_AJSLP-24-00420 Obermeyer, J. A., Rogalski, Y., & Edmonds, L. A. (2021). Attentive reading with constrained summarization-written, a multi-modality discourse-level treatment for mild aphasia. Aphasiology, 35(1), 100-125. Obermeyer, J. A., & Edmonds, L. A. (2018). Attentive reading with constrained summarization adapted to address written discourse in people with mild aphasia. American Journal of Speech‑Language Pathology, 27(1S), 392–405. https://doi.org/10.1044/2017_AJSLP-16-0200 Obermeyer, J. A., Leaman, M. C., & Edmonds, L. A. (2020). Evaluating change in the conversation of a person with mild aphasia after Attentive Reading with Constrained Summarization–Written treatment. American Journal of Speech‑Language Pathology, 29(3), 1618–1628. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00078 Obermeyer, J., Edmonds, L., & Morgan, J. (2024). Handwritten and typed discourse in people with aphasia: Reference data for sequential picture description and comparison of performance across modality. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 33(6S), 3170-3185  

Working with people with dementia and their care partners can be complicated and confusing. What does the evidence say is the best approach? Is it rehabilitative or habilitative?? In this episode, hosts Erin Gallardo, PT, DPT, NCS and Claire McLean, PT, DPT, NCS interview occupational therapist and Dementia Collaborative founder Rachel Wiley, MS, OTR/L about her approach to working with people with dementia and their care partners. Rachel shares how past experiences with conflicting recommendations between professionals—and the confusion and mistrust this caused for families—motivated her to create a more advanced, evidence-based program that gets teams using the same language and approaches, especially around topics like rehabilitation vs. habilitation, assistive devices, responsive behaviors, and fall risk. She explains her practical, detective-style framework for understanding and managing responsive behaviors (like waking at night or agitation) by identifying triggers and using strategies such as acknowledge–reassure–redirect and meaningful routines. The episode also touches on the complexities of billing, maintenance care, and determining medical necessity in a progressive condition, emphasizing person-centered, ethical care that balances evidence, function, safety, and the realities of caregiving. Rachel recently launched the beta cohort of her new Certified Dementia Clinician (CDCn) Course, a 20-module, interdisciplinary training designed for OTs, PTs, SLPs, social workers, and other clinicians working with people living with dementia.  www.dementiacollaborative.com www.daybydaydementiaconsulting.com www.rachelwileyot.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-wiley-ms-otrl-cdp-80521079/

Show Notes: slpnow.com/253If you had five extra hours this week (completely protected from meetings, paperwork, and emails), how would you use them? Many school-based SLPs say they'd spend that time collaborating with teachers, analyzing student progress, planning more intentional therapy, or simply taking a real lunch break. In this episode, we explore why those meaningful parts of the job often get squeezed out + what you can do to start reclaiming that time.In this episode, we discuss:Why the gap many SLPs feel isn't a competence problemHow reducing rework can save hours of therapy planning each weekSimple ways to batch decisions and reduce decision fatigueWhy tracking your “invisible work” can help advocate for a more manageable workloadIf therapy planning, paperwork, and prep are taking over your evenings and weekends, you can start your free trial at slpnow.com/pod to explore tools designed to help you streamline the process and get that time back.

Many experienced SLPs think they just need to plan better.Tweak the activity. Adjust the visuals.Try a new printable or protocol.But what if none of that is the real problem?What if your sessions are already so skillful that no one else can reinforce what you're doing?

How can we strengthen and mentor the next generation of clinicians?Earn 0.10 ASHA CEUs for this episode with Speech Therapy PDWatch on YoutubeMichelle Dawson, MS, CCC-SLP, CLC, BCS-S, FNAP welcomes Belinda Daughrity, PhD, CCC-SLP, Anita Fitzgerald, PhD, RN, AGNP, and Sharon Konrad, DNP, RN, ACNS-BC, CNE to this episode of First Bite for a powerful conversation on mentoring a healthy professional identity in future colleagues. Together, these SLPs and nurses demonstrate why interprofessional education across allied health professions is not optional, it is essential. The conversation unpacks what “professional identity” really means in clinical education, why it matters for long-term career resilience, and how intentional mentoring shapes confident, ethical SLPs.About the Guests: Belinda Daughrity, PhD, CCC-SLP, Anita Fitzgerald, PhD, RN, AGNP, and Sharon Konrad, DNP, RN, ACNS-BC, CNE are a powerhouse group from California State University Long Beach who bring research from the fields of nursing and social work and pour that wisdom directly into speech-language pathology to strengthen how we prepare and mentor the next generation of clinicians.Show Notes:Read the journal article, "Professional Identity in Speech-Language Pathology Students"Support The National Student Speech Language Hearing Association (NSSLHA)Support your local Domestic Abuse ShelterSupport Beach Food PantryMentioned in this episode:Register for the School-based Feeding and Swallowing Masterclass

In this episode of SLP Coffee Talk, Hallie is serving up some real talk about IEP goal writing—and it might just change the way you look at your entire caseload. If you've ever stared at a goal and thought, wait, why am I even working on this? This one's for you. Hallie introduces the “so what?” test—the one question you should be asking before you write any goal—and breaks down what functional actually means for different students. She's covering how to write curriculum-linked goals without crossing into ELA territory, how to squeeze more mileage out of every session, and why our role as SLPs is way more powerful than we sometimes give ourselves credit for.Bullet Points to Discuss: Why not every language skill on an assessment is worth targeting in therapy.The “so what?” test: the one question that should guide every goal you write.How to define “functional” based on the individual student in front of you.Writing curriculum-linked goals the SLP way—without becoming the ELA teacher.How to use one resource across a mixed group and hit every student's goal at once.Here's what we learned: If you can't answer “so what?” clearly and confidently, that goal might be more fluff than function.Functional isn't one-size-fits-all—a college-bound student needs self-advocacy; a life-skills student needs to know how to tell the bus driver where they're going.Overlapping with academics is fine—just do it through a language lens, not a reteaching one.One good goal can target syntax, vocabulary, comprehension, and organization all at once. Therapy charcuterie board—one activity, all the skills, everyone eats.We're not tutors and we're not ELA teachers—we're the language experts. Writing functional goals is how we step into that power.Learn more about Hallie Sherman and SLP Elevate:  

Moving from understanding to healing in pediatric feeding care.Earn 0.10 ASHA CEUs for this episode with Speech Therapy PDWatch on YoutubeIn this episode of First Bite, Michelle Dawson, MS, CCC-SLP, CLC, BCS-S, is grateful to host Lauren Thompson, MEd, CCC-SLP, CLC, for a powerful conversation about trauma and Pediatric Feeding Disorder (PFD). Healing trauma takes time, compassion, and the willingness to move through fear in order to better understand what “trauma” is, especially as it relates to pediatric feeding. Together, Michelle and Lauren differentiate between “trauma-informed” and “trauma-sensitive” care, and Lauren offers thoughtful, practical strategies to help SLPs create trauma-sensitive feeding environments for those they are called to serve.This is part one of a two-part conversation. Part two will be released in April 2026.About the Guest(s): Lauren Thompson, M.Ed., CCC-SLP, CLC, is the owner of Well Fed Feeding & Swallowing Therapy in Londonderry, New Hampshire. Since 2012, she has supported infants and children with PFD, dysphagia, lactation challenges, ARFID, and feeding-related trauma across inpatient rehabilitation, hospital-based outpatient care, Level II and III NICUs, and public schools. Lauren blends trauma-sensitive care, connection-focused interventions, and play-based approaches to help families build safe, joyful, and pressure-free mealtime experiences.Show Notes:Contact Lauren: @laurenteetheslp on InstagramLauren's Private Practice: Well Fed Feeding TherapyLove Money Cause: Feeding MattersRelated Course: Allyship and Advocacy in Pediatric Feeding Disorder with Tracy Camille JohnsonMentioned in this episode:Register for the School-based Feeding and Swallowing Masterclass

Show Notes: slpnow.com/252School-based SLPs don't struggle with planning because they're disorganized; they struggle because their workload is overflowing. And when something has to give, therapy planning is often the first thing sacrificed. But thoughtful, structured planning is what actually makes therapy more efficient and effective.In this episode, you'll learn:A simple 5-step session structure to reduce cognitive loadHow to use goal-aligned materials to plan in minutes (not hours)Why thematic units dramatically cut decision fatigueA 30-second habit that makes future planning easierHow structure improves student progress and behaviorIf you're ready to make therapy planning sustainable, start your free trial at slpnow.com/pod and put these systems into action.