If you’re a school therapist, you’ve likely been asked to do a lot of things within the school system that don’t seem totally relevant to your role as a clinician. Yet at the same time, you may often feel siloed off, like you’re not a part of the school team. That’s why in episode 88 of the De Facto Leaders podcast (formerly “Are they 18 yet?®”), I wanted to talk about what school therapists can do to feel more included, respected, and valued within the school community. Specifically, I talk abo...
Dec 07, 2022•32 min•Ep. 89
In this episode, I’m excited to officially announce the new direction for the podcast! The show is now called “De Facto Leaders” (it was formerly “Are they 18 yet?®”) I’ve been hinting at this for a while and have slowly transitioned the types of topics I’ve covered over the last year, but in this episode we’re making the official switch! When I originally launched the podcast, I did so in the parenting category; and aimed to share advice that would be helpful to parents and professionals of K-1...
Nov 30, 2022•31 min•Ep. 88
Part of a school therapist’s job is getting buy-in from the entire IEP team, but that can be difficult to do when team members don’t agree on what’s best for a student. That’s why in episode 86 of the “ Are they 18 yet?®” podcast, I walk through several case studies from my mentoring group to share how to handle it when this happens. As you listen, you're going to find that building relationships is essential to providing effective therapy services, and that with a couple key shifts you'll be ab...
Nov 23, 2022•39 min•Ep. 87
One of the most powerful ways to provide comprehensive services for K-12 kids is by collaborating with other therapists and teachers… Which is why it’s frustrating when team members can’t come to a consensus about what’s best for kids. When you’re working together as a team, at least some conflict is inevitable. That’s why I wanted to share some case studies and Q & A sessions where members of my mentoring program for clinicians shared some real-life scenarios they were working through. In e...
Nov 16, 2022•39 min•Ep. 86
If you’re a pediatric therapist or service provider, chances are you do some form of “supervising”, whether it’s in your job title or not. Part of being an effective clinical leader comes from working as a team and training others to do what we do, so kids can get support across settings. That’s why it’s important for you to think about how to supervise and mentor others, even if you’re not in an official clinical supervision role. That’s why in episode 85, I talked about how to navigate clinica...
Nov 09, 2022•55 min•Ep. 85
One of the biggest challenges for pediatric therapists is making sure their caseload has support across the day and across settings. This becomes incredibly difficult to do with limited direct therapy time and when service providers are working in silos. That’s why one of the most important things you can do to serve your caseload is think about service delivery before you get stuck in the weeds of IEP goals and therapy worksheets. Zooming out and looking at the bird's eye view is the first step...
Nov 02, 2022•35 min•Ep. 84
A lot of your clinical training taught you how to be a good clinician. But often it doesn’t teach you how to "work the system" and get your kids what they need. The truth is, you can't make an impact without autonomy over your time, without adequate tools, without the right people, support, and financial resources. In the system you're working in, these things are limited. You may not have enough of these things right NOW to make the impact you want. But you can change that by putting yourself i...
Oct 26, 2022•23 min•Ep. 83
In episode 82, I sit down with my friend and mentor Stephanie Hayes and talk about comfort zones. I share my experiences within the context of my personal business, but this applies to therapists as well. Specifically, I share how the pandemic impacted the way I provide services and online education; plus some “convenient” excuses I used for avoiding work that felt scary or uncomfortable. Ultimately, everyone has that “thing” (or things) that causes discomfort. In this episode, I share what mine...
Oct 19, 2022•47 min•Ep. 82
In the School of Clinical Leadership , I’ve devoted an entire suite of programs to educating professionals on executive functioning. Even though the focus of the program is about career development and leadership, I believe that any professional working with K-12 kids needs extensive knowledge of executive functioning in order to lead effectively. I’ve likely given away the “quick and dirty” answer to the title of the episode; because I think supporting executive functioning is everyone’s job. T...
Oct 12, 2022•46 min•Ep. 81
In this episode, I’m sharing a special conversation with my mentor, friend, and business consultant, Stephanie Hayes. Stephanie specializes in building businesses from the ground up by focusing on creating assets that allow small business owners to earn income and serve in a way that feels aligned and fulfilling to them. Even though she is technically like a “business coach/consultant”, many of her clients say that working with her is more like having a business partner. What she’s really amazin...
Oct 05, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 80
There’s often a typical expected career path for pediatric clinicians, regardless of the discipline. It can often feel a bit constraining, especially if it doesn’t fully align with your strengths; or if the system you’re working in limits the way you serve your caseload. But what if you weren’t limited to the typical model, or the traditional job postings? What if you could design a clinical career on your own terms? This idea is exciting…but scary. Especially if you’re in a job that you enjoy a...
Sep 28, 2022•31 min•Ep. 79
A lot of the clinicians I work with feel very “boxed in” when it comes to the typical career path for therapists. They’re boxed in by the way they have to provide services within the system, which often dictates how, when, and how often they see students/clients. They may feel boxed in by their schedule, their setting, or even their earning potential. Usually, they enjoy what they do, but have a nagging feeling that they could be doing more for their caseload, their field, and their community. W...
Sep 21, 2022•42 min•Ep. 78
There are a lot of challenges that we face as therapists; but not all of them need to prevent us from delivering quality services. By facing our problems head on, often we can mitigate them or eliminate them completely. This doesn’t happen from avoiding or ignoring them. Instead, we need to get them all out on the table to figure out how to minimize them. This is also key in determining if you’re on the right career path, or if it’s time to pivot. I talk about how to think through this risk miti...
Sep 14, 2022•36 min•Ep. 77
When people talk about assets, they’re often thinking about personal finance. They’re talking about things like real estate, index funds, crypto and other things aimed at giving you some kind of return on your investment. But I want to talk about how therapists can apply this concept to what they do, because it's the key to making a bigger impact. When we make the “leadership shift” and start thinking about service delivery in the broader sense, we have to start thinking about how to coordinate ...
Sep 07, 2022•42 min•Ep. 76
One of the most common questions I get is “What am I supposed to do in therapy with students/clients?” Many of my readers want to know what strategies and techniques they need to do in therapy in order to help move their students forward. They’re very focused on “planning for therapy” or “lesson planning”; especially if they’re in the school systems. I think it makes sense to focus on these things some of the time. The way we’re trained often focuses on that “medical model” of service delivery. ...
Aug 24, 2022•37 min•Ep. 74
Therapists and teachers (and anyone else in a “helping people” profession) always have to take care of OTHER people…which is hard to do if you’re burnt out all the time. But most of the advice they’re given about “self-care” and achieving a “work-life” balance is unhelpful. There are a lot of “tips and tools” out there for stress relief and productivity. In the self-care realm, it ranges from reasonable suggestions like gratitude journaling or meditation to more questionable things like “crying ...
Aug 17, 2022•44 min•Ep. 73
Therapists and educators supporting K-12 literacy have a lot of diagnoses and labels to navigate, and some of them are controversial. In some debates, the diagnosis itself is in question; Central Auditory Processing Disorder being one example. With hyperlexia, some people suggest that there is a certain way hyperlexic people need to learn to read; but the verdict is still out as to whether there is one specific method that is more effective for them. Diagnoses and labels can give us a roadmap. B...
Aug 03, 2022•48 min•Ep. 71
Schools often get criticized for not teaching enough “real world” skills to kids, and there’s a lot of truth to that statement. Most of the therapists I work with are worried that what they do in therapy isn’t functional enough to transfer to day-to-day skills; and this is a legitimate concern. A lot of the clinicians I mentor have somewhere between 30-40 minutes with students; which means they have to make every second count. Some of them wonder if the traditional “pull out” therapy model is ev...
Jul 27, 2022•52 min•Ep. 70
Topic maintenance is a skill I’ve seen on many language therapy IEPs in the category of “pragmatic language”, but often it’s a surface-level symptom of something else. When we’re talking about “topic maintenance” we’re often referring to someone’s ability to stay on a topic during a conversational exchange. Yet when we focus only on what we’re seeing externally, intervention can end up being unproductive. In some cases, it can even reinforce a negative self-image. That’s why in episode 69, I wan...
Jul 20, 2022•33 min•Ep. 69
I get a lot of questions about how to write language therapy goals… I ALSO get a lot of questions about whether I offer goal banks in any of my courses. I do offer a version of a “goal bank” in Language Therapy Advance Foundations, my course that teaches SLPs a framework for building metalinguistic awareness and independent word learning...but it’s not a goal bank in the traditional sense. In my opinion, goal banks do both students and clinicians a huge disservice. While I understand that clinic...
Jul 13, 2022•25 min•Ep. 68
When people ask me where they should start in language therapy, I usually say they should start by building vocabulary. That usually results in a couple raised eyebrows and questions...mostly because they aren’t really sure how I’m defining “vocabulary”. That’s why in episode 67, I wanted to talk about what I actually mean when I say we should “work on vocabulary”, and why it’s so important to giving kids the skills they need to thrive. Specifically, I share: ✅Why vocabulary is much more than na...
Jul 06, 2022•31 min•Ep. 67
Back when I first started practicing, I found language therapy to be super overwhelming. There were so many peer-reviewed articles, books, and seminars, and it was hard to sift through it all and determine how to apply it to therapy. These days, we not only have to sort through lots of quality information…we have to ALSO sort through lots of inaccurate information. This can make it really hard to make it hard for professionals and parents to figure out how to support kids' language and literacy ...
Jun 29, 2022•37 min•Ep. 66
In episode 65, I take a break from the regular content to talk about burnout and boundaries; and specifically how I use systems to help me set healthy boundaries and reduce burnout. Back when I started working as an SLP in 2004, I found there was one area of my life (work-related) that caused an exponentially larger amount of stress than other things in my life. So much, in fact, that this ONE thing was impacting me in other areas of life outside of work. Like health and relationships. That’s w...
Jun 22, 2022•28 min•Ep. 65
In episode 64, I share a Q & A from the Language Therapy Advance Foundations members’ group about working on complex sentences with students in early elementary school. Part of the framework I teach focuses on building skills like morphology (e.g., knowledge of word parts like prefixes & suffixes) as well as syntax (the rules of how sentences are put together). These skills can not only boost a student's ability to decode what they’re reading, they can also have a positive impact on thei...
Jun 15, 2022•28 min•Ep. 64
In episode 63, I share a Q & A from the Language Therapy Advance Foundations members’ group about dyslexia diagnosis and treatment, as well as working memory goals. I get a lot of questions about who is qualified to diagnose and treat dyslexia; especially when it comes to the SLP’s role in the process. Understanding the process of dyslexia diagnosis in the schools vs. medical settings can be especially confusing. That’s why I wanted to share this Q & A session with my LTA members where I...
Jun 08, 2022•40 min•Ep. 63
There’s been an increase in depression and anxiety in kids in recent years, which is why I wanted to have an expert on the show who’s had years of experience working with childhood trauma and anxiety. In this episode, I talk with Dr. Ambroes Pass-Turner, who has worked in mental health for over 20 years and has experience working with children and adults. Dr. Pass-Turner is an expert in working with behavioral and emotionally disturbed children, adults, families, and offenders within the crimina...
Jun 01, 2022•54 min•Ep. 62
I get a ton of questions about how to support kids who have weak word-retrieval, so I wanted to share a powerful technique you can use to address this. When kids have poor word-finding skills, it’s often because they’re not engaging in the internal dialogue needed to pay attention to important features of words and store that information efficiently. The key to boosting these skills is to help kids develop this internal self-talk needed to learn words independently. As an SLP or other profession...
May 25, 2022•35 min•Ep. 61
When it comes to supporting autistic kids, I’ve come across a lot of resources that help with the home and school environments. But many families aren’t sure how to navigate unexpected and novel situations with their kids; which means travel is often out of the question. That’s why I wanted to interview special needs travel columnist and author, Dawn Barclay. Dawn’s book on traveling with autistic children will be available August 2022, she interviewed hundreds of families and experts in the pro...
May 18, 2022•54 min•Ep. 60
When it comes to working on executive functioning and “social skills”, one of the biggest complaints I hear from therapists is that their clients don’t generalize. That’s often because when it comes to working on these types of skills, direct therapy alone isn’t enough to help kids apply skills. I often encourage SLPs to think beyond just direct therapy when it comes to designing services. That’s why I invited Lori Melnitsky to come on for episode 59. Lori is a private practice speech-language p...
May 11, 2022•56 min•Ep. 59
How do you know if an intervention is neurodiversity affirming and evidence-based? Are child-led interventions actually in a child’s best interest? What’s the right way to build social skills, “pragmatic language” and social communication skills? I’ve done a lot of soul-searching surrounding this topic. The typical pragmatic language interventions that focused on preaching the “right” way to act in social situations never felt right to me. Yet I didn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwat...
May 04, 2022•40 min•Ep. 58
