Banish Bad Therapy!

Posted by Ashley, Special Educator

In a previous post, "Not All Therapists Are Created Equal," I discussed the qualities of a good therapist.  That post focused on the idea that, regardless of qualifications on paper, all therapists have different strengths, weaknesses, and experiences.  Therapists who look the same on paper may not be the same in practice.  Clinical judgement is a difficult thing to teach.  The sad truth is that there are some bad therapists out there.  I hope my previous post has helped our parent readers to evaluate their child's therapists.

Because I have previously provided my thoughts on what defines good and bad therapists, I think it is now important to discuss what this means for your child.  This sounds like common sense, but I think it is worth saying anyway: bad therapists will provide bad therapy.  I will not go into extensive detail about what makes a bad therapist or what defines bad therapy because that information is available in "Not All Therapists Are Created Equal."  This post will focus on the effects of bad therapy.  

What I want you to know is that bad therapists and bad therapy can have detrimental effects for your child.  If you have identified that your therapist is not right for your family, please make a change--and do it quickly! I know that requesting a change in therapist can feel awkward or intimidating, and can even come with feelings of guilt.  For any parents out there who find themselves struggling with this decision, I write this post for you!  I want you to know the effects of bad therapy so that you can make an informed decision for your child.  What you are about to read may sound frightening.  It is not my intention to scare you, but I do want you to know the truth so that you and your family can receive the best therapy possible.

MiliWHO??

Posted by Dani, Speech-Language Pathologist MA CCC-SLP

Milieu! Milieu teaching is pretty much the most accurate way I can describe the way I do therapy given my population and their needs.  

I subscribe to the Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research and I received an article that caught my eye the other day. Long story short, it led me to a really old article (1993, I was only in 3rd grade!) entitled "Facilitating Prelinguistic Communication Skills in Young Children with Developmental Delay" (Warren, Yoder, Gazdag, Kim &Jones, 1993).

OK don't worry this isn't going to be a boring journal article post but the speechie geek in me got really excited while reading this. Why? Because it literally describes EXACTLY how I do my therapy!! Specifically the article highlights the effectiveness of milieu approach to teaching prelinguistic (before speaking) communication skills. So get ready to learn a new word and feel smart: MILIEU! (To all my professors and speechies, yes this word rang a bell from the days I spent studying, just never stuck with me so meaningfully!)

What is ABA?

Posted by Hiroe, Special Educator

I’ve been working at an agency that provides services through the Early Intervention Program (EIP) as a teacher and behavior analyst for the last several years.  Before I became a teacher, I worked as a service coordinator for the EIP.  As service coordinator I met many parents who opted against Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) services for their children.  In my experience, parents often made this decision because they were misinformed by people who did not fully understand ABA.  Unfortunately this is very common in the field!  ABA is arguably the most misunderstood science.  I hope that this post, and this blog as a whole, will help to clear up some of those misconceptions.  Before discussing what ABA is, I think it might be helpful to discuss what ABA is not.