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!)

An open letter to the world..on behalf of "My parents"

Posted by Dani, Speech-Language Pathologist

Dear parents everywhere,

Let me first state that I am not yet a parent. More specifically, I am not a parent of child with special needs and/or interfering behaviors. That being said, I have gained significant experience in counselling, educating, and collaborating with parents who raise children with a range of diagnoses including Autism and PDD-NOS ("my parents"). I give credit to my amazing coworkers who I continue to learn from every day, the strong and loving parents who share with us their most vulnerable states and rawest emotions regarding raising a child with special needs/interfering behaviors, and most of all, I accredit the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (it's science! it works!)

 I can't even begin to describe the strength and perseverance I see in so many of my parents. I assure you that my parents come from ALL walks of life. I assure you that despite socioeconomic, cultural, and religious differences-- my parents have MANY things in common. The obvious commonality is the fact that they are parents of children with special needs. More importantly, they all love their children deeply and enter into Early Intervention for that very reason-- to try and find the best and most effective way to help their children.

Let's Get Related!

Posted by Dani, Speech-Language Pathologist


Hello everyone and thanks for reading my second blog post! The goal of my blogs is to inform the reader but keep it social so that everyone can enjoy it :)  A significant number of kiddos that I work with are missing the pre-linguistic skills of communication (pre-linguistic = before speaking).  Relatedness is a prerequisite to functional communication. What is relatedness?

I'm just an SLP livin in an ABA world... :)

Posted by Dani, Speech-Language Pathologist

Hello everyone! This is my first time blogging so hang in there! I am a part of a dynamic team of amazingly intelligent and passionate women who kick some major butt at their jobs (to quote Heather from Real Housewives of New York City- "HOLLAA!!") and I represent the "Speechie" of the group.

Like many speechies, I was groomed against ABA (applied behavior analysis) during my undergrad and graduate years (I more specifically remember my grad school childhood language professor emphasizing the unnaturalness of using ABA for language development). All in all- I was taught that ABA is this terrible old school way of teaching children.