#001: Welcome to Autism Outreach

One of the most meaningful moments I had as a speech therapist was as I was watching a mentor work with a student over the age of 18. She was teaching him to use a static device to request the things that he enjoyed, and it was such a joy to watch him find a way to communicate with the world.

In this podcast series, I’m going to teach strategies that help children with autism learn to communicate. As a Speech-Language Pathologist and a board-certified behavior analyst, I love working in both public and private settings. It gives me an opportunity to see many different kinds of situations and students and adjust my communication techniques to reach each one.

Whatever setting a Speech-Language Pathologist is in, you can find them working on a variety of tasks like:

• Teaching augmentative communication
• Creating functional IEPs
• Taking meaningful data
• Working together as a team
• Helping students engage in therapy

No matter the tasks, the setting, or the age of a patient, if a topic touches on communication in any way, I’m going to address it here with my guests. Don’t miss the preference assessment that I use to engage with my patients who are on the autism spectrum that immediately helps you connect with them.

What's Inside:

• Why I love speech-language therapy and my goals for this podcast series.
• The education and training I received formally were fantastic, but stepping into a real-world practice has made me realize that I want to teach other therapists about learning new skills that will reach the variety of children and adults that they’ll see.
• My number one strategy for engaging hard-to-reach children, and how you can implement it in your own practice.