| Description |
Many children with autism and other developmental disabilities live with little or no verbal skills. The inability to communicate even basic requests creates a high level
of frustration and can lead to many challenging behaviors, including self-stimulatory and self-injurious behavior. Traditional intervention approaches are often ineffective
for this population.
Presented by a practicing Speech-Language Pathologist who has also become a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, this seminar draws from multiple treatment frameworks to gain insight into reasons that some children make minimal progress and provides specific methods for enhancing the effectiveness of your treatment approaches. The seminar shines a light on the challenges in working with children with autism and other developmental disabilities and provides outside-the-box teaching strategies to reduce problem behavior, to promote functional communication, and to increase early vocal skills in this population. Building on current treatment methods from the field of Speech-Language Pathology as viewed through the eyes of a behavior analyst, this seminar provides real world examples of practical and easily implemented interventions that can be applied across contexts. Emphasis will be placed on the use of Skinner’s behavioral classification of language, which refocuses and refines the teaching of functional communication. Methods for effective transfer of skills from imitative to spontaneous requesting will be presented. Procedures to systematically shape functional verbal and/or manual communication will be addressed, including
utilization of the K & K Sign to Talk teaching tool and Kaufman’s system of a hierarchy of vocalizations (word shells).
Focused on practical strategies, dozens of video clips illustrating treatment methods are integrated throughout the day. Past participants have described this dynamic seminar as “inspirational” and “empowering.”
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