Schools sometimes make parents believe that speech and language issues disappear by 4th or 5th grade when they no longer want to provide specialized speech and language services; however, that is not true. Language needs increase and change in complexity over time, so in fourth and fifth grade the increase in complex language demands are …
Category Archives: Language
Following directions: Where do I go?
I recently completed jury duty, and it was interesting watching people follow directions, or maybe I should say not follow directions. Jury duty begins when you arrive at the court house and are assigned a number. Â At 8:30am a court officer greets the awaiting jurors and shows a video. On my day of service after …
Speech therapy and motherhood
As a speech therapist, becoming a mom has been the second greatest learning experience of my career. Motherhood helped me understand, the far reaching impact of poor verbal expression and the role of speech therapy. It’s not just about whether you acquire vocabulary, but about learning to use language in a flexible way in order …
AANE conference: Functional Implications of Adaptive Behavior Deficits
Functional Implications of Adaptive Behavior Deficits in Higher Functioning ASD’s: Eye Tracking Paradigms to Screen for Infants at Risk for ASD by Celine Saulnier Ph.D ( notes by Kai Long, MS SLP CCC from AANE conference on Current Autism Research) Researchers are looking for a way to screen infants at risks for ASD so they …
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Autism: Lower preference to attend?
Current research: Implication for the Asperger Community, a conference hosted by AANE in March presented quite a few speakers.  The research that struck me as the most relevant to what I see in my practice was given by Nancy Kanwisher, Ph.D. Her presentation was called Attention in Autism: Different Preferences, Not Different Abilities. Her research was intriguing …
Reading words or learning to read? Part III
It is a fact that students with language-based learning disability require more intense structured instruction over a longer period of time in order to acquire many aspects of language.
Reading words or learning to read? Part II
I’ve been frustrated this year with the level of reading instruction my daughter has received. What did I notice about my daughter’s reading abilities? She skipped words she didn’t know, and she confused small words like “of” and “off.” When I asked her indirect questions about stories she had read, she’d fall out on the floor screaming. Okay, I …
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Reading words or learning to read? Part I
My daughter’s reading instruction at school has been frustrating this year. She is a fluent reader, but when you ask her what she has read. Her answer is sometimes, “I don’t know!” Her comprehension is not equal to her fluency level. Is this normal? Yes, she has been working on learning to read the words, …
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Tutoring vs speech language therapy
Recently I worked with client on the autism spectrum who received A-and B’s on his papers at his traditional high school.  In his papers his vocabulary was redundant, he had little sentence variety, and at times the content of his papers mirrored, the model provided so closely that it had little original thought. This student …
Moving toward independence…
Coaching clients in social language through Skype at college is a new and exciting way to help build social skills and help students be successful at school. What is involved in this coaching approach? Initially the specific problems are indentified, such as how do I identify the kind of person I would like as a …