Tag Archives: CCC-SLP

It Takes a Team: 4 Steps to Building a Stronger Therapy Team

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For students on the Autism spectrum, having a strong and reliable therapy team to support individual needs can be an important factor in student success. When members of a therapy team are collaborating seamlessly, a student is more likely to have high quality support across all areas of development (communication, social, cognitive, play, motor, and adaptive skills).

mixed working group looking at laptopThe pervasive nature of ASD across these areas means that multiple disciplines are necessarily involved in effective intervention (Donaldson and Stahmer, 2014). When we work together and have a narrow focus, we can help our students make a great deal of progress. Gone are the days of a Speech Language Pathologist, Physical Therapist or Occupational Therapist taking a student away for traditional pull out therapy and leaving no time for debriefing with the classroom team.

Who comprises the therapy team is determined on a case-by-case basis. You may be wondering where to start with this sometimes daunting task of building a strong and supportive team. Below I will discuss some strategies that are evidenced-based and the ways that I incorporate them into my busy life as a speech language pathologist.

Pairing
One of the first things that I always try to do is build rapport with staff, which is known as a behavioral principle called pairing. It is important to build rapport and/or pair with team members, especially if you are new to the team or if other new members have joined. It may sound like very basic advice, but as clinicians we are very busy and sometimes we feel that we do not have time for this piece. I am urging you to put this time with staff on the top of your priority list. Once you have a good rapport with team members, it allows you to share ideas and collaborate more easily and more effectively.

Sharing
The next tip I have is to share the goals your student is working on. If you are the teacher, share the student’s IEP goals with the paraprofessionals and explain why you are teaching particular tasks. Knowledge is power! If you are the occupational therapist, please share your student’s therapy goals with the team. Therapy takes place all day, across settings and across instructors. If the team does not know what the goals are, they will have no idea how to address them across the school day.

Reinforcement
Students and professionals benefit from reinforcement! People feel good about the work at hand when they receive positive reinforcement. Let the paraprofessional know that they are doing a great job with their student(s). Everyone likes to get praise for a job well done!

Data
Another way that we can assure that our collaboration is helping the student is by collecting daily data on skills from all domains (i.e. behavior, academic, communication). When we, as a team, create a data sheet that captures the skills and specific targets we are addressing, we can use this across the student’s day. When we take this data and analyze the progress, we can all make informed decisions about a student’s programming needs. I have included a free team-based daily data sheet from Stages Learning. You can use this data sheet to track a variety of skills.

In my 14 years practicing in the field, the majority of people that I encounter are driven by a desire to see their students. However, even with the best intentions, we may face barriers in collaborating with other staff members. Follow the tips mentioned above and reach out to colleagues who seem to need additional support. I try to continually assess the needs of the teams I work with throughout the year. Maybe the team needs a refresher on a certain skill area – see if you can work this into your yearly professional development time. When we work together as a team, we can help so many students achieve their goals!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

rosemarie-griffin-headshotRosemarie Griffin, MA, CCC-SLP, BCBA is a licensed speech language pathologist and board certified behavior analyst. Currently she splits her time between a public school system and a private school for students with autism. She is passionate about lecturing on effective communication services for students with autism and has done so at the local and national level. Rosemarie also enjoys spending time with her family, playing the harp and shopping.

Article originally posted on Stages Learning Materials Blog.

Q & A: Margery F. Rappaport

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Margery F. Rappaport, MA, CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist in private practice in New York City. I feel very fortunate to have a colleague as experienced as Margery that I can turn to for advice and guidance.

So, I thought I could share some of her wisdom and experience with a three part ‘Question and Answer’ post. This is only the first question folks. Stay tuned for more!

I am always interested in learning what has drawn a person to a particular field or occupation. What led you to a career as a Speech-Language Pathologist? And how did you find yourself working with children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders in particular?

A lifetime spent in helping people find their own voices may have, in my case, been preordained (if you believe in that sort of thing). After all, more than one psychic has told me that I was born under a ‘communication star’.

As an infant, 11 months of age, my mother suddenly left for a year due to severe illness. At this preverbal age, I learned the torment of being unable to communicate ones feelings and questions in words. As an adolescent with creative tendencies, I studied music and dance, and majored in theatre in college, setting out to become a professional singer. Along this path, I struggled with vocal cord nodules and was put on complete voice rest several times. As I began to question my show business career choice, which was feeling increasingly unsatisfactory, fate intervened. On a flight from New York to Boston, I chatted with a charming, articulate woman in the seat next to mine. Before landing, she said, “You realize, of course, that I am a severe stutterer”. When I registered my amazement since I had detected no signs whatsoever of a speech problem, she said “Well, I have had a lot of therapy”. Astonishing thought! People who were unable to easily express their feelings, fears or questions can change. With help and guidance they can be released from this exile. Her situation reminded me of Jean Paul Sartre’s play, No Exit, where the characters are confined in a room in hell. This woman had been trapped within herself, with no avenue of escape until she received this therapy.

Being able to communicate is so much of what it means to be human, and this notion, that impediments to communication, even severe ones, could be helped, resonated within me on many different levels. To learn more about the field, I found a secretarial job in the philosophy department of Columbia University’s Teachers’ College which allowed me to take free courses at the University. After one year and two courses in the Department of Speech-Language Pathology, I was accepted into the program on a full scholarship plus a stipend to pay my rent and buy groceries. Once in the program, I began to see how Speech Pathology allowed me to tap into dimensions of my personality that show business never had. I found great satisfaction in helping people free their expression. I was enormously stimulated intellectually by the study of neuroanatomy, linguistics, child development, psychology and the evolution of language. I came to specialize in working with children because I found they were ‘in the present moment’ and intrinsically imaginative and creative. I enjoyed working intimately with mothers on the most cherished thing in their lives, their child’s well-being. Like work in the theatre, I enjoyed the comradery of working on a team including the child, the parents, doctors and a multitude of other therapists toward one powerful goal. All these aspects of the work tapped into my essential being. I had found my life’s work. I recall a day towards the end of my training, standing in line for afternoon tea at a resort hotel in the mountains. The beautiful day room was filled with afternoon sunlight and as I thought about my impending graduation, I clearly remember thinking that I was born to do this work.

After working in clinics, hospital child evaluation units and then the Head Start program, I opened a private practice at about the time that the autism epidemic began to explode. With more good luck, I connected with professionals who were establishing groundbreaking interventions for children with autism, thus deepening my understanding and passion for helping children with severe communication challenges.