Howdy all,

Well I am now the proud mother of two beautiful children. Our little boy Liam was born on the 30th of March and he has certainly been a lovely addition to our family. Though I can hardly say ‘little’ as he weighed in at 4.45 kg, which is nearly 10 pounds! Eek…poor me

Anyway we are enjoying him immensely as there is nothing quite like a cuddle form a newborn baby.

In my last blog post we looked at some of the main things to think about and some key questions that you should ask any speech pathologist before employing their services to help your child with autism.

After you’ve been working with your therapist for a few months you’ll want to know if the therapy is actually making a difference and that you child is making some real progress. This depends greatly on how good a ‘match’ your therapist (and the therapy) is for your child.

So today (as promised) I’d like to share with you some of the warning signs that may indicate that it’s time to find another speech pathologist who is ‘a better match’ for your child.

If you haven’t read my previous post about why this is so important please read it now.

As you know, time is precious and no parent wants to waste it when treating their child with autism! This is particularly true for early intervention. So it’s very important that you are able to determine as early as possible whether the therapy your child is receiving is effective or not… otherwise days will turn into weeks that will turn into years…and before you know it time is slipping away.

But fear not

Here are some tips to help you determine just how effective your child’s speech therapy really is… and whether you should continue with your current therapist or start looking for another one…

1. Does your child have a good connection/relationship with their speech pathologist?

Please remember that without a warm, trusting and fun relationship your child will not genuinely want to interact or learn from their therapist. This is essential for creating a solid foundation for all future learning.

2. Is your child enjoying their therapy sessions?

Two of the primary ingredients for learning new things and laying down memories are ‘fun’ and ‘motivation’. So for speech therapy to be effective is must be fun and motivating for your child. It’s crucial that your therapist incorporates your child’s interests into their therapy sessions. If your child is attentive in the activity because it ‘pushes their buttons’ then the quality and rate of learning will be far greater. So if after several months of therapy, if your therapist is not incorporating highly motivating activities into your sessions (easy to spot because your child will be bored and disinterested 8 out of 10 sessions)… or worse still, they may not even be aware of what activities actually motivate your child, then it may be time to move on.

3. Are there noticeable improvements in your child’s Social and Communication Skills as a result of the goals that are being targeted in speech therapy?

Can you notice a difference in day-to-day functioning of your child? Can others notice a difference?

The reason that I ask you this is because sometimes speech therapy sessions can seem to be going well ‘in the clinic’ but these improvements do not necessarily translate to the everyday functioning of your child…. and let’s face it, this is what is really important!

This can happen if the goals that are being set are not very meaningful and important to the child’s existence. In my opinion, the best way of speech therapists creating practical and meaningful goals is by doing home and school visits that clearly show the therapist what is important to target in intervention. If a speech therapist is simply creating goals as a result of carrying out some formal language tests then there is a good chance that the goals will not be practical and meaningful and perhaps will not target the social aspect of communication development. Instead they will just end up teaching splinter skills (i.e: following instructions, answering questions, requesting things etc) without addressing their application in day to day life.

4. Are you clear at the end of each therapy session what goals you are targeting in therapy and what you need to work on and practice before the next session?

I know you already know this but an hour or so of speech therapy weekly or fortnightly is simply not going to create the huge breakthroughs you want for your child. Whenever possible you need to be following up and working with your child at home. It only needs to be for half an hour or so but it must be regular.

Therefore it is crucial that your speech therapist is including a lot of parent training and education in your sessions so that you feel confident on how to apply what you’re working on at home (another really good reason why your therapist needs to understand what goes on at home so they can give you practical activities and exercises that actually work in the home environment). By doing this you will gradually learn how to make every interaction with your child a fabulous learning opportunity… which is when you start to see the big breakthroughs!! So if your therapist is not helping you achieve this then I’d suggest that you’re not getting the most out of them!

5. Lastly. Trust your own intuition as a parent!

Some families will say to me “I knew for a long time that the therapy was not right for my child and I felt like I was just handing over my money at the end of the session and not achieving very much”. If it doesn’t feel right to you then it’s probably not! But make sure you give something new a few months before you decide to stop.

A final thought…

Please do not waste your precious time and resources on therapy that you feel is ineffective or not a ‘good match’ for your child. Constantly review and challenge the effectiveness of your therapist’s intervention and make the necessary changes by trusting your intuition. I can’t tell you what a buzz it gives me to see parents who feel so capable and confident to trust their intuition because they have spent a little bit of time every day training and empowering themselves to better understand their child’s needs.

Please keep these things in mind at your next session!

If you would like further assistance in building your knowledge and practical skills to help your child on a daily basis and to become better at assessing the effectiveness of their therapy sessions then I think you’re really going to get a lot out of my Autism Essentials In-home Training Program.

As always, I’d love to hear about your experiences and stories that you may have on this issue.
Please leave me your comments below.

Till next time
Monique

P.S: If you liked this article you can always subscribe for free (top right of this page) and each time I create a new article I’ll let you know via email so you’ll never miss a thing!

Related posts:

1. What you should know before choosing a speech pathologist for your child with autism
2. Effective Speech Therapy… what works and what doesn’t
3. Is Your Child’s Therapy Team Really Working Together?

I’m now past my due date for our baby boy to arrive and since I’m just sitting around waiting for him to come I thought I’d quickly take a few minutes and share some more thoughts with you…

It’s very important when finding a speech pathologist for your child that you get the ‘just right fit’.

Here’s why it’s so important…

Just as there are many areas of specialty for doctors (orthopedics, pediatrics, geriatrics, cardiologists, neorologists, etc) the same applies for speech pathologists. Areas of specialty can include stuttering, articulation, literacy, hearing impairment, language disorders, voice disorders, strokes, laryngectomies etc, etc… the list is very extensive!

But the thing that completely baffles me is that some speech pathologists say that they have 5-8 or more “Areas of Specialty”! To me this suggests that they do not specialise at all, and are more of a ‘generalist’ speech pathologist (like a GP is a generalist doctor). Some therapists even say that they ‘specialise’ in autism when they may have treated only 10-20 children on the autism spectrum.

In my view, you’re only a ‘specialist’ if you work exclusively on just one thing and only one thing… and as a result, you tend to become quite good at it
Heck! I’ve been specialising in autism for over 12 years and I’m still learning things with every new client I treat.

As we know, children with autism are ALL incredibly different and unless your child is seeing a speech pathologist who’s caseload is predominantly children with autism, there’s a good chance that the therapist would not have had the time or experience to truly equip themselves with the knowledge and skills needed to really help your child with autism.

If I had a child with autism…
Here’s a list of key questions I would ask any speech pathologist before employing their services:

1. How many children with autism have they treated before?
   Anything below 50 is really quite a small number. If they are just starting out that’s ok, we all have to start somewhere, but I would fully expect them to be mentored by a senior therapist with well over 50 clients under their belt.
2. What percentage of the children that they treat are on the autism spectrum?
   This will give some indication of the therapist’s level of commitment to treating children with autism and may also indicate the amount of professional development that the therapist has done in the field of autism.
3. Have they treated children on the autism spectrum with your child’s specific diagnosis (eg: Mild autism, severe autism, PDD-NOS, Aspergers)? How many?
   Some therapists may not have had experience working with the full spectrum of autism.
4. What age range do they mainly treat?
   Some therapists may only specialise in either early intervention or school aged children.
5. Is there a possibility of having home or school visits?
   I firmly believe that it is essential to get into the homes and schools (the main social and communication environments) of children with autism so that you can get a ‘true picture’ of what is going on for the child and family. Sometimes home and school visits are not always logistically possible for every session but I would certainly favour a therapist who was willing to do them now and again.
6. What style of Speech Pathologist are they? Is the therapy play based or structured learning at the table, is it adult directed or child directed?
   I very much believe in a play-based, child-directed and practical therapy approach where building a relationship with the child that is based on fun, trust and respect is pivotal to successful treatment. If a solid, trusting relationship is not present then your child will not build their desire to interact or learn from the therapist and the effectiveness of therapy will be compromised.

   A relationship builiding approach to speech pathology ensures that we are not only working on the ‘Communication’ element of the triad of impairment but also the social part. This is essential when treating speech and language skills and MUST NOT be ignored because social skills development drives communication development!!

   Some speech pathologists use a skills-based approach where they set the agenda for the child’s learning and carry out ‘structured teaching’ sitting down at a table drilling them on certain concepts or commands. This type of learning can often be very unmotivating for the child and often does not tap into what learning is important and meaningful for the child.

Now obviously it would be an ideal world if every child with autism could be matched with the right speech pathologist (and you should absolutely keep striving for this), but the practical reality is often quite different. Specialist services can often be hard to come by and most of the time parents will settle for ANY help rather than none! And even when you manage to get ‘a good’ therapist, it takes time and a few sessions to determine whether they are ‘right’ for your child.

This is exactly why parents need to be able to step in and fill in the gaps and to recognise when things aren’t working as well as they could be and to make changes in their child’s program that will result in positive outcomes for the child.

How do you do this? By knowing your child better than anyone else (including their therapists). You need to understand what they need, what motivates them, how they learn best and what type of therapy approach is going to get the best results for them.

If this is kind of making sense for you and you’d like to have a greater understanding of all these things about your child so you can feel more empowered and confident to make these sorts of decisions for them then I’d really suggest that you check out my Autism Essentials In-home Training Program.

I hope you’ve found these tips helpful. Just make sure to keep them in mind when choosing a therapist for your child.

I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts and stories on this.
Please leave me your comments below.

P.S: Don’t miss my next tip…
I’ll be talking about the warning signs that will help you know when it might be time to find another speech pathologist who is a better match for your child.

Related posts:

1. Effective Speech Therapy… what works and what doesn’t
2. Improving Speech and Language in Children with Autism using Video Modeling
3. Is Your Child’s Therapy Team Really Working Together?

Hi everyone,

I have to say I’m finding video to be a great way of explaining all of the concepts and techniques that I have to share with you and also for bringing to life many of the examples that will help with applying these tips to your own situation. So I hope you’re enjoying them too!

This week’s tip focuses on how you can improve your child’s articulation and speech clarity skills using a technique called Video Modeling. There are many ways to improve articulation, but Video Modeling is one technique that I’ve found to be very effective over the years with the children I treat.

So anyway, I created a quick, step-by-step guide to show you exactly how you can use Video modeling to help your child’s articulation and speech development. So if your child is struggling with this then I think you’re going to find this video tip particularly helpful.

It goes for about 10 minutes.

P.S: Please share any thoughts or stories you may have about this video by leaving your comments in the box provided below.

Related posts:

1. Part 2 – Why ‘Play’ is SO Important for Children With Autism
2. If you want more language you need to expand your child’s world
3. 7 tips for disciplining children with autism