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…
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EP 74: Therapists are leaders in disguise
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…
EP 73: Why “work-life balance” is unattainable (and what to do instead)
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…
EP 71: DLD, CAPD, dyslexia, and hyperlexia and supporting literacy
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;…
EP 70: How to make syntax instruction useful for the real world
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…
EP 69: What’s really causing “topic maintenance” issues?
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…
EP 68: Why I don’t use language therapy goal banks
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…
EP 67: Defining Vocabulary: It’s more complicated than you think
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…
EP 66: Language therapy: Managing info overload and misinformation
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…
EP 65: Rerelease: Burnout, boundaries, and systems
In episode 65 of the Are They 18 Yet?® Podcast, 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…