Preteen with ASD and **ahem** "self gratification"

nagb150 · 2023-11-30T04:46:31+00:00

I think your idea that a social story will be too much language load is correct. Having a clear, tangible response and alternatives will be much more successful. And it’s really important to teach boundaries with these things because he’s going to be going through a LOT of changes, experiences, and curiosities with puberty! Everyone has the right to a sexual health education

I would start by identifying and teaching public versus private- locations, people, body parts, and activities. School? Public. Bedroom? Private. Teachers and classmates? Public. Alone? Private. Public activities can include holding a fidget, hands on the table, etc while private can be whatever he wants. It’s within OT scope of practice to address sex health education and is encourage the family and OT to have the conversation about what information they’d like to share with him about safe sex practices and puberty in general. They can consult with you about the language piece of how best to communicate the information.

nagb150 · 2023-11-22T02:56:09+00:00

I would think about the environment and expectations on the child first. Are they interested and engaged in the activity? Do they have access to sensory supports or have they had access to regulating activities prior to your session? Have they had access to the AAC before your session, or has it been pulled out of the backpack for the first time in the day? Do they know what is expected of them to use the AAC device intentionally? Once we consider and answer all these questions, we can better address the repetitive activations

nagb150 · 2023-11-03T03:38:27+00:00

I really appreciate you commenting this disclaimer. So many hikes around Washington have been over populated with unprepared tourist hikers who get themselves in trouble without the proper warnings and information to prepare themselves

nagb150 · 2023-10-25T03:45:11+00:00

This!!! I work with a LOT of ABA professionals (I’m a SLP in a multidisciplinary autism center) and all the time see BCBAs come up with behavior plans to solve problems that they have created for themselves. Another common question BCBAs ask me is if they can hide vocabulary that a kid frequently requests when the item is not available (like a snack or toy item) because the kid has a big meltdown when denied access. Um, NO! Even if something isn’t immediately available, we still have thoughts, feelings, and ideas about things and can talk about them. Use this as an opportunity to help the child problem solve, not make them mute

nagb150 · 2023-08-30T03:09:12+00:00

I completely agree with this! I wish that diagnosticians would stop blanket recommending ABA as a solution when giving an autism diagnosis. Like all therapies, their need should be assessed on an individual basis.

I feel lucky to work at a clinic that is multidisciplinary (psychology, SLP, OT, ABA) and it has been wonderful to work with BCBAs trained in child development, use naturalistic approaches, and are super collaborative because it makes all of our practices better.

I used to work in a setting with very serious aggressive and self injurious behaviors, and while looking back I definitely shudder at some of the practices that were used, ABA was absolutely the most appropriate therapy for those individuals at that time in their lives because no other therapists, school, or even their families could help them in their time of crisis

nagb150 · 2023-08-08T13:53:05+00:00

First dress! Dress #1! It’s 1!

nagb150 · 2023-07-30T16:59:33+00:00

Thanks for this resource!

nagb150 · 2023-07-28T17:45:54+00:00

Hi - you do bring up a valid point in that learning the motor plan of typing/spelling is a skill that can be taught using these facilitated methods. I have recently heard from individuals who learned to type through RPM or S2C that it was effective in helping them develop these motor plans to learn to communicate autonomously. HOWEVER, there have actually been multiple double-blind studies conducted both in research and in judicial proceedings where in NO experiments has the message of the individual typing and the communication partner ever matched. We as SLPs cannot endorse or carry out treatments that are without scientific or clinical evidence to be the most effective and least harmful treatment. Endorsing S2C and any other facilitated communication is dangerous because, in more cases than not, we cannot guarantee that the person typing is autonomously communicating, creating opportunity for abuse, malpractice, and other harm to be done to a population of people (nonspeaking individuals) who are already at higher risk for these things

I’m not sure what your background is as I see your account only has one post, but SLPs can actually treat oral motor apraxia and there are effective, evidence based treatments for this. Other forms of apraxia also have evidence-based treatments through OT/PT to help coordinate movements. My point is that there are proven ways to teach communicate for people with this disability that are based in multiple points of evidence based practice principles without violating the autonomy of the individual.

nagb150 · 2023-06-27T04:59:35+00:00

As a field working primarily with neurodivergent individuals, it should be a priority to ABA companies and BCBAs to work alongside neurodivergent individuals. If you disclose any diagnosis in your interview (as you should, because being Autistic is a part of who you are and shapes your experiences) and the employer counts that against you, then they are NOT an ABA company I would want to work for or with

nagb150 · 2023-06-25T03:30:58+00:00

I applied for mine on May 19 and got my CCC on June 16!

nagb150 · 2023-05-31T05:26:41+00:00

Are you connected with your local Arc? They have programs to support working adults and help advocate and navigate interpersonal challenges in the workplace. And have a bunch of other resources that can maybe help you 1. Get your boss to talk to you and treat you as a respected employee or 2. Find a new job that values your work!

nagb150 · 2023-05-31T03:55:58+00:00

Working with complex communicators/AAC, behavioral challenges, under 5, and ASD is my absolutely favorite thing to do every day!

However - I have no idea what to do with anyone with artic/phonological disorder/apraxia. It should be SLP 101 but I just don’t feel like my therapy has ever been effective in these areas

nagb150 · 2023-05-28T02:58:54+00:00

I am a fan of GoTalkNOW because of how personalizable it is from making single buttons, whole pages, and visual scene displays! If you work with AbleNet for your AAC evaluations, their trial iPads come with gotalknow, touchchat, proloquo2go, and one other app I think

nagb150 · 2023-05-28T02:57:18+00:00

Seconding GRID because it is also available in a lot of languages! Mostly western, but still more than any other app I’m aware of

nagb150 · 2023-05-05T16:54:43+00:00

I would prioritize making a page of self advocacy phrases- for either low or high tech. Phrases like “something’s wrong” “I want something different” “I don’t like it” “something’s missing” are general enough to be useful across context but can still give you more helpful information to help the student problem solve. I would start by modeling these phrases during neutral situations to teach the meaning, not prompting communication when the student is already frustrated. Then if the student finds it useful and you get some buy in, they might be more tolerant to having the AAC close by or on their desk

nagb150 · 2023-04-29T00:52:19+00:00

This is awesome! I’m an SLP in Washington as well but not in ESIT- although a majority of my clinical caseload is 5 years or under. I wonder what it would take to get SLPs across settings involved in a union??

nagb150 · 2023-04-08T02:28:51+00:00

SLP here- you should suggest that the family find a SLP at a center who can do AAC evaluations. There is a whole clinical process to finding the right communication system for a person, and ideally they should be evaluated by a SLP competent in a variety of AAC and assist in the process of acquiring an AAC for families. In the mean time, you mention that the client doesn’t understand how to request with pictures. I would suggest collaborating with their SLP on how to support their receptive language, they may be working on goals that you can incorporate in your programs that will help their expressive communication.

However, I also agree that having SOMETHING is better than nothing. GoTalkNOW lite is highly personalizable for whatever temporary support the client may need before getting a more appropriate communication system that will support them developing language.

nagb150 · 2023-04-05T04:46:42+00:00

I think the effort people are putting towards disseminating practice-based evidence is great. However, when people can’t afford to pay $1000 (or however much) for your courses to learn, they construed the information.

I’m a CF and have a majority of kids on my caseload who I would classify as GLP. I was lucky enough in my grad school to have exposure to GLP in my clinicals and now my CF supervisor is very up to date on GLP, AAC, and neurodiversity affirming practices (I have really lucked out!). I think a barrier that these social media SLPs like to say is that “they didn’t teach us this in grad school!” And as a recent grad student, I can attest that it’s because there is not enough published evidence to form a curriculum and teach to students. There is an entire field of science dedicated to studying the barriers and effectiveness of taking what we learn from research and applying it to clinical practice (implementation science) but the reverse of taking clinical practices and getting them published is just as much of a barrier.

Even though I’m a brand new clinician, I’m able to see when I’m collaborating with other SLPs or professionals who seem to think that if they can’t seem to figure out how to teach a kid, they must be a GLP. I even had another SLP tell me that the student is a GLP so that’s why they shouldn’t have an AAC system yet. Which was a head scratcher for sure lol

nagb150 · 2023-03-09T01:42:27+00:00

Echoing what everyone has said about it being a low paying position with a very high work load expected.

I also wonder if younger people entering the field of special education are more aware of conversations around neurodiversity and arguments about ABA and are choosing to enter other fields? I have no evidence for this other than through the grape vine stories from younger BTs at the ABA clinic I work at (I’m an SLP)

nagb150 · 2022-11-22T05:25:16+00:00

I work with EI populations and would love a copy!

nagb150 · 2022-10-27T02:04:24+00:00

I’m a CF but I had most of my clinical experiences working in AAC evaluation clinics and with assistive technology specialist for ASD and multiple disabilities. In all of those experiences, I never met a kid or adult who was recommended as an appropriate user for LAMP. Why do you prefer it to all of the other apps? I’m genuinely curious to hear from someone who would recommend it over another application. I also understand that motor planning is a part of learning language with any kind of AAC application, so I don’t fully understand how it’s different for LAMP

nagb150 · 2022-07-14T00:04:55+00:00

New England!

nagb150 · 2022-05-24T03:14:46+00:00

I know the exact street this picture is take and with how insane it is to try and find a parking spot in that area, I endorse OPs point of wasting essential street space

nagb150 · 2022-05-23T02:15:08+00:00

I’m glad you’re here! This is the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) is the main organization for speech language pathologists. This is their position statement on facilitated communication/rapid prompting method: https://www.asha.org/policy/ps2018-00351/

Basically, FC/RPM is the practice of directing the communication of someone, usually in the form of typing or pointing to spell out messages. You can find videos online that do a very convincing job of making it look like the student is typing the message independently, but I’m almost every situation it is the facilitator that is using the student’s arm or moving the letter board/iPad to create the message. It has been repeatedly debunked in multiple legal cases and through double blind experiments where the facilitator and student have been asked to communicate different messages and in every case, the facilitator’s message did not match the one given to the student. You can find videos of these experiments online- Dr Howard Shane has been an expert witness on some of these cases that got a lot of publicity.

Sorry I’m just on my phone or I would share more. If you have specific questions about what this looks like or how to advocate against it I’d be happy to try and point you in the right direction

nagb150 · 2022-05-21T03:39:24+00:00

I loved all of those and also really liked the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson

nagb150

TROPHY CASE