Leading Change in Continuing Education SLP NERDCAST We’re like a conference—in your car, gym, laundry room… wherever! Podcast Course: Stuttering Therapy: A View from Both Sides of the Table This course is offered for .1 ASHA CEUs (Introductory Level, Professional Area). "Thank you for making this excellent, research-based learning opportunity that is both extremely accessible and affordable. This is the best kind of PD: it’s one hour at a time so I can learn and then have time to synthesize and apply. It provides information I can apply to my practice immediately; and I can listen and learn while I drive, fold laundry, etc. thanks for the research and resources!" -Johanna H. Get this course and more with an SLP Nerdcast Membership MEMBERSHIP INCLUDES: Unlimited access to 100+ courses for ASHA CEUs: All SLP Nerdcast Memberships get you unlimited access to courses for ASHA CEUs that go in your ASHA Registry and can count towards an ACE Award. Access to conferences, live events and exclusive content All SLP Nerdcast Memberships get access to live events and exclusive content, including two annual conferences, SLP Linked and LEAHP. Unlimited Access to our Resource Library Upgrade to our All Access Membership and get unlimited access to our Resource Library that includes therapy materials, course handouts, and resources you need to save time. Introductory 1 hour 13 mins Offered for .1 ASHA CEU (1 Hour of PD) Podcast Course Watch the course for free below or listen on your favorite podcast player Post-test included in SLP Nerdcast Membership Course & Instructions Podcast Course & Instructions: Stuttering Therapy: A View from Both Sides of the Table Post-Test Post-Test Learning Objectives After participating in this session participants will be able to: Describe at least two ways that clinician experiential learning improves long term outcomes in stuttering therapy. Identify at least 3 roadblocks to therapeutic alliances and how to overcome them. Time Order Agenda: 10 MIN: Introductions and Disclosures 30 MIN: Descriptions of how clinician experiential learning improves long term outcomes in stuttering therapy 30 MIN: Descriptions of roadblocks to therapeutic alliances and how to overcome them 5 MIN: Closing, Discussion and Questions What's Inside: 2 Lessons Course Description: Stuttering has the ability to raise fear in those of us lesser trained in the specialty. Between the rabbit holes that arise from Google searches and the mental blocks we put up from a lack of confidence, many SLPs find themselves stuck when it comes to stuttering therapy. However, as our guests shared in this week’s episode, staying stuck in a mindset of, “I don’t know anything about stuttering,” has the potential to negatively impact you, sabotage your therapeutic relationships and outcomes with your students/clients. Tune in to learn how to do fabulous and effective stuttering therapy, without knowing, “all the things,” about stuttering. In this podcast course, you’ll explore the importance of experiential learning in your SLP practice with the best guides available - husband and wife duo, Lee and Nina Reeves. Nina and Lee come to the table to offer two perspectives of the stuttering experience - that of a person who stutters, and that of a person who supports people who stutter. Lee shares his personal stories of the clinicians who made the biggest impacts in his life and stresses that it wasn’t their understanding of the definition of stuttering that helped him most, but rather some surprising soft skills that you likely have in your back pocket right now. Nina shares practical strategies to help you break down the mindset and logistical roadblocks that may interfere with your ability to develop mutual trust, partake in experiential learning, and benefit from therapeutic alliances within your work settings. Customer ReviewS This was a very information and eye opening presentation on the perspective of stuttering therapy from both a clinician and a person who stutters! Yvette This was a great podcast. I loved Lee's perspective as a person who stutters. Meredith Hearing from both Lee (a person who stutters) and Nina (a stuttering expert) was so helpful to gain educations from both sides of the table. I have so many ideas now to implement with my students! Tara Choose the Membership that's Right for You Options that save you time and fit your budget Learn More Basic Unlimited Access to Courses & Content Experts All Access Unlimited Courses, Content Experts, & Therapy Resources Business Great for groups, departments, and organizations Meet Your Instructors Nina Reeves, M.S. CCC-SLP, BCS-F, ASHA Fellow Nina Reeves, M.S. CCC-SLP, BCS-F, ASHA Fellow is a board-certified specialist in fluency disorders. Nina is staff fluency specialist for Frisco ISD and fluency specialist consultant for San Diego Unified Schools. Nina is a nationally recognized workshop presenter in the area of fluency disorders and is an author of clinically based materials. She is co-owner of Stuttering Therapy Resources. Nina is a recipient of numerous awards, including the ASH-F Van Hattum Award for outstanding contributions to public schools, and recently was awarded the 2019 ASHA Certificate of Recognition for Special Contributions in Preschool-Grade 12 Education Settings. Kate Grandbois (she/her) & Amy Wonkka (she/her) SLP/BCBA; SLP Kate and Amy are co-founders of SLP Nerdcast. Kate is a dually certified SLP/BCBA who works primarily as an "AAC Specialist". She owns a private practice with a focus on interdisciplinary collaboration, argumentative alternative communication intervention and assessment, and consultation. Amy is an SLP who also works as an "AAC Specialist" in a public school setting. Amy's primary interests are AAC, typical language development, motor speech, phonology, data collection, collaboration, coaching, and communication partner training and support. Lee Reeves is a retired veterinarian having practiced for over 45 years. Dr. Reeves is a person who stutters and has been actively involved with self-help and support individuals and families affected by stuttering for over 40 years. He has served as a public member of the ASHA Specialty Board for Fluency Disorders and the ASHA Council for Clinical Competence. He has also served on the Texas State Board of Examiners for Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology and is the past Chairman of the board of Directors for the National Stuttering Association. Lee is the CFO for Stuttering Therapy Resources, Inc. He is the recipient of mutiple awards including the Distinguished Service Award from the American Speech-Language Hearing Association, the Public Service Award from the Texas State Sppech and Hearing Association, the Distinguished Consumer Award from the International Fluency Association, the Hall of Fame Award from the National Stuttering Association, the Charles Van Riper Award from the National Council on Communicative Disorders and the Distinguished Alumnus Award frin the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine. Lee Reeves, DVM Speaker Disclosures Kate Grandbois Financial Disclosures Kate is the owner / founder of Grandbois Therapy + Consulting, LLC and co-founder of SLP Nerdcast. Amy Wonkka Financial Disclosures Amy is an employee of a public school system and co-founder for SLP Nerdcast Nina Reeves Financial Disclosures Nina is part owner & COO of STR, Inc. (ownership interest and royalties, intellectual property). Lee Reeves Financial Disclosures Lee is part owner & CFO of Stuttering Therapy Resources, Inc. Kate Grandbois Non-Financial Disclosures Kate is a member of ASHA, SIG 12, and serves on the AAC Advisory Group for Massachusetts Advocates for Children. She is also a member of the Berkshire Association for Behavior Analysis and Therapy (BABAT), MassABA, the Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI) and the corresponding Speech Pathology and Applied Behavior Analysis SIG. Amy Wonkka Non-Financial Disclosures Amy is a member of ASHA, SIG 12, and serves on the AAC Advisory Group for Massachusetts Advocates for Children. Nina Reeves Non-Financial Disclosures Past volunteer for both National Stuttering Association and Stuttering Foundation of America Lee Reeves Non-Financial Disclosure Past volunteer for both National Stuttering Association and Stuttering Foundation of America References & Resources There were so many important references and resources from this course that we gave them their own PDF! Download the free PDF handout above with a list of references and resources from this episde. Course Details Where Listen to this course on your favorite podcast player, on our YouTube channel, or using the video above. Course Number ABJE0101 Transcript Available A transcript may be available for this course. Click here to visit our blog and read the transcript. Email ceu@slpnerdcast.com for transcript help or accessibility needs. Available on demand When Course Disclosure Financial and In-Kind support was not provided for this course. Learn more about corporate sponsorship opportunities at www.slpnerdcast.com/corporate-sponsorship Disclaimer The contents of this course are not meant to replace clinical advice. SLP Nerdcast hosts and guests do not endorse specific products or procedures unless otherwise specified. READ MORE COURSE POLICIES Additional Information All certificates of attendance and course completion dates are processed using Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). UTC is 5 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time (EST) and 8 hours ahead of Pacific Time (PT). If you are using SLP Nerdcast courses to meet a deadline (such as the ASHA Certification Maintenance deadline) please be aware of this time difference. Your certificates and course completion dates will reflect UTC not your personal time zone. Closed captioning and transcripts are available for all courses. If you need additional course accommodations please email ceu@slpnerdcast.com Refunds are not offered for digital products, downloads, or services Certificates of attendance are only awarded to participants who complete course requirements Please email ceu@slpnerdcast.com for course complaints Thank you to our Contributing Editors Episode Summary provided by Tanna Neufeld, MS, CCC-SLP, Contributing Editor Audio File Editing provided by Caitlin Akier, MA, CCC-SLP/L, Contributing Editor Promotional Contribution provided by Paige Biglin, MS, CCC-SLP, Contributing Editor Web Editing provided by Sinead Rogazzo, MS, CCC-SLP, Contributing Editor

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This transcript is made available as a course accommodation for and is supplementary to this episode / course. This transcript is not intended to be used in place of the podcast episode with the exception of course accommodation. Please note: This transcript was created by robots. We do our best to proof read but there is always a chance we miss something. Find a typo? Email us anytime . [00:00:00]   Intro Kate Grandbois:  Welcome to SLP nerd cast your favorite professional resource for evidence based practice in speech, language pathology. I'm Kate grant wa and I'm Amy  Amy Wonkka:  Wonka. We are both speech, language pathologists working in the field and co-founders of SLP nerd cast. Each  Kate Grandbois:  episode of this podcast is a course offered for ashes EU. Our podcast audio courses are here to help you level up your knowledge and earn those professional development hours that you need. This course. Plus the corresponding short post test is equal to one certificate of attendance to earn CEUs today and take the post test. After this session, follow the link provided in the show notes or head to SLP ncast.com . Amy Wonkka:  Before we get started one quick, disclaimer, our courses are not meant to replace clinical. We do not endorse products, procedures, or other services mentioned by our guests, unless otherwise  Kate Grandbois:  specified. We hope you enjoy  Announcer:  the course. Are you an SLP related [00:01:00] professional? The SLP nerd cast unlimited subscription gives members access to over 100 courses, offered for ashes, EU, and certificates of attendance. With SLP nerd cast membership, you can earn unlimited EU all year at any time. SLP nerd cast courses are unique evidence based with a focus on information that is useful. When you join SLP nerd cast as a member, you'll have access to the best online platform for continuing education and speech and language pathology. Join as a member today and save 10% using code nerd caster 10. A link for membership is in the show notes EpisodeSponsor 1 Kate Grandbois:  Hello,  everyone. Welcome to SLP Nerdcast. We are very excited for today's episode. My co host, Amy, is not joining us today, but I am not alone. I am here with another SLP Nerdcast teammate, Ana Paula [00:02:00] Souza Mumi. Hello, Ana Paula.  Ana Paula Mumy:  Hello. I'm so happy to be here.  Kate Grandbois:  We're really excited to share your wisdom you are here to talk to us a little bit about supervision and what you very eloquently called the supervisory alliance. Before we get into all that, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?  Announcer:  Sure.  Ana Paula Mumy:  I am a program director and associate professor at a small private university, but really prior to this position, which is what, um, or the experience of the clinical supervisory experience that I have that I'm going to be talking about, um, today, uh, comes from my work, uh, prior to this position where I was a clinical assistant. I'm a professor, um, and was the, um, supervisor for a preschool program, um, at the University of Kansas. So that's  Announcer:  where  Ana Paula Mumy:  I was before and, um, I'm excited to just talk about my experience there.  Kate Grandbois:  I have learned so much from [00:03:00] you in the time that you've been on our team. I'm very excited to. As I said, share everything that you know. Before we get into it, we do need to read aloud our learning objectives and disclosures. Uh, so here we go before we get into the good stuff. Learning objective number one, identify key components of the supervisory alliance. Learning objective number two, explain attitudes, behaviors, and practices that contribute to an effective supervisory alliance. And learning objective number three, describe the impact of a positive supervisory alliance. Disclosures, Annapala's financial disclosures. Annapala is employed at East Texas Baptist University and serves as the ASHA administrator for SLP Nerdcast. Annapala's non financial disclosures. Ana Paula is the president of Spiro Stuttering Incorporated, which is a non profit organization. Um, my financial disclosures, I am the owner and founder of Grand Bois Therapy and Consulting LLC and co founder of SLP Nerdcast. My non [00:04:00] financial disclosures, I'm a member of ASHA SIG 12 and I serve on the AAC advisory group for Massachusetts Advocates for Children. I'm also a member of the Berkshire Association for Behavior Analysis and Therapy. Alright, now that the boring stuff is behind us, I would love to hear a little bit more about the Therapeutic Alliance. I've used the term, I've heard the word alliance before, obviously, but never in the context of supervisors and supervisees or even really in therapy. So what can you tell us about that to kind of set the tone for the conversation?  Ana Paula Mumy:  The Therapeutic Alliance is really, uh, A way to think about three different areas that are important in the, um, therapeutic, uh, relationship. And so the first being that client clinician bond. So thinking about, um, your belief in that, um, client, their ability to make changes, whatever changes are important to them. Um, and then also, [00:05:00] That positive regard which includes, uh, supporting them, um, their, their values, their beliefs and, um, and really just, you know, walking alongside them, uh, in whatever, uh, goals that they have for themselves, which kind of leads to the next one, which is really agreement on goals. So thinking about, are we dictating what goals they want, right, or are we listening to our clients in what is it that they want to see different, right? How is. What is their communication disorder or difference impacting them negatively and what are some goals that would help them achieve greater quality of life, right? The third aspect being agreement on what are the tasks or what are the processes, um, to accomplish or reach the goals, right? That are set. And so, uh, having the, uh, ability to experiment, exploring ideas or [00:06:00] techniques or strategies or whatever that might be, but. Um, so that's in a nutshell just what that Therapeutic Alliance, um, consists of. And I don't know if you want me to go ahead and go into like how I have now framed it into the supervisory, um, or, or thinking about the supervisory role that I was in for a really long time. Um, and I will say that I, I started supervising students from the moment I became eligible after getting my C's. I just, I loved working. With students, I, uh, I was at, I was in Wichita and there was a university there that was looking for, um, um, individuals that, you know, wanted to work with students. And I'm like, yeah, I'd love to. And so I started right away, um, as soon as I could. And then I've, I've done a lot of. Um, both as a, at that time, I was an external supervisor taking in students and then also CFs at times, um, supervising clinical fellows, [00:07:00] um, but then, of course, within my role, um, at my previous university, I, that's, that was my primary, um, role was to do clinical supervision, and so I, I just began thinking, you know, how There were parallels, right, between, like, how we function as clinicians and thinking about, oh, yeah, I, I have to keep these things in mind, how does this translate, right, to the, uh, supervisor, supervisee, or, um, the clinical supervisor, clinician, um, relationship. And so. That's where I just began, uh, thinking about this, you know, paradigm, if you will, and so, uh, and then realizing really, you know, they're, they're essentially the same, right, just having that supervisor student clinician bond, how, you know, my belief in that person, right, my belief in them as a student and their ability to, uh, grow and learn, um, in this profession, and then, you Um, also, [00:08:00] what are their learning goals? So, of course, I have learning goals or things that I want them to achieve, but at the same time thinking about how they also, um, have goals for themselves, you know, things that they want to achieve, uh, and, and how they want to grow. And then what are the tasks and the processes to reach those goals? So. I, again, as the supervisor, have some ideas of what those tasks might be, right, and what that process might look like, but at the same time, getting their buy in, um, into, you know, this is what we're doing in order to help you, um, move to that next level. Kate Grandbois:  What I love about this parallel that you've made, so first in thinking about the therapeutic alliance with our clients, this is very much our patient centered care model, right? So the third of our evidence based practice triangle, um, client perspectives and values, um, you know, walking with the patient, letting them have, you know, making sure that our goals and objectives are aligned with their values, what's meaningful to [00:09:00] them, um, What I love about this in, in mapping this on to the supervisor and supervisee relationship is it puts the supervisee in a position of empowerment to be a contributing partner in their learning journey. And as many of us have had, as many of us have experienced in the past, when you have a supervisor that is just, as I say, shitting all over you, like, well, you should do this and you should do that and you should do this and you're not given space to be who you want to be, or to, to challenge your own thinking, or to work towards your own goals. It can feel really, maybe I'm speaking from my own experience, but it can create a lot of tension. And I love that you've put the supervisor, and I love that you've put the supervisee In a position of empowerment through this alliance because at the end of the day, if you're in a learning environment, you have to feel safe to be vulnerable [00:10:00] to make the mistakes and do all of those things. I, I, I love that parallel. I think it's awesome.  Ana Paula Mumy:  And if you think about in the same way with a therapeutic alliance, um, it's all about the relationship, right? It's building rapport and having this relationship where, um, you are, listening and you are, you know, open. And I think in the same way, um, with clinicians or students, it's about the relationship. It's about building, um, that rapport with them as well, where they feel like, yes, you're on my team, right? Like you, um, are going to be giving me Feedback that maybe will be hard to implement or maybe that will be hard to take at times or whatever, but when they, I think, believe that you believe in them, right, and that there is that relationship, um, that's, uh, reciprocal in a sense that, um, then it's easier to navigate, you know, especially when they are maybe having challenges or when there are struggles [00:11:00] or, you know, they're overwhelmed or, um, I think the relationship is really at the center in both situations, right? Kate Grandbois:  You also, in a lot of your talking points here, use the word bonding, which I think is a great word. What do you, what can you, how can you elaborate on that for us?  Ana Paula Mumy:  You know, I think within this concept of bonding is, um, I think the, the first thing that comes to my mind is We're both humans, right? We're both living this human experience. So yes, maybe I'm in a position of power because I'm the supervisor, right? But I'm also a human being. I'm a mother. I'm a wife. I'm a friend. I'm a colleague. I'm all these things. And I also have Experiences where I struggle or experiences where I maybe doubt myself or feel inadequate or, you know, there's all these things that I think. Um, [00:12:00] so bonding in the sense that, you know, I try to be a person first, right, to them, to say, I am here to, to listen, I'm, I do care about you, I want to get to know you, so it's not just about this clinical relationship, but it's also, I want to invest in getting to know who is this person in front of me, right, and, um, what are their interests, and what are the things that they're excited about, or, you know, do they have a family, do they have, you know, Most of our students generally aren't married, but the ones that are, you know, are they married? Do they have kids? You know, so just really kind of getting to know the person and then allowing them to get to know me as well Of course, you know, there's still boundaries within that relationship, but I think just seeing each other as humans, right?  Kate Grandbois:  I, I have to imagine that Many people who are listening to this episode are in either in a position of of power so you're a super you're [00:13:00] listening and you're a supervisor and or maybe you want to be a supervisor or Maybe you're listening and you're a supervisee and you feel grouchy feelings about your suit or or you know, you already have a supervisor and you're reflecting on your supervisor supervisee relationship One of the things that you just said that we've talked about on this podcast before, and I promised not to get on my own personal soapbox about it because it's a passion topic for me. But one of the things that you brought up that I love so, so, so much is that if you are in a position of power, if you are in a position where there's a power differential and you, one of the most important things that you can do is embrace, this is my favorite term, Embrace professional humility. So understanding that no one knows everything. There are things that even you need to still learn checking, checking your ego at the door, being comfortable in your discomfort, right? Those things [00:14:00] can create such examples of strength, um, and, and create a lot of much more comfortable feelings for others around you. And I think it is such a, um, a sign of strength and a sign of leadership and such a wonderful quality to have when you are in those positions. So tiny little soapbox. I just wanted to say, here, here, I completely agree. And I love that you brought that up because it's so important. And thinking about that in the context of bonding is awesome because how are you going to develop one of those, you know, wonderful relationships if you don't approach it with, Curiosity and humility. Right?  Ana Paula Mumy:  Right. And I think that goes hand in hand also with, um, vulnerability. So just being willing to be vulnerable. And, uh, I know for me, um, for example, in team meetings or in, in different situations where I may share, you know, my own mistakes, um, in my clinical development as a therapist, right? Where, [00:15:00] This happened or that happened and being able to, uh, just share, you know, here's how I learned something the hard way, right? Or, or even, you know, talking about my emotional responses to, um, client situations that maybe I wasn't prepared for or, um, Ways that, you know, I grew in that sense or, um, and I guess bringing it back to like the human piece of, you know, difficulties with work and home balance and, you know, other challenges that, you know, I have faced, you know, as a professional, as a, an SLP. And so I think just that openness, that vulnerability just to be a person in front of them and say, you know, yeah, I've, um, and, and. Like you said, I'm always learning like that lifelong learner. That's not just a cute term. Like I'm literally a lifelong learner. I have much to learn yet. And so [00:16:00] just, I think modeling that for them is really important. Kate Grandbois:  I totally agree. And I'm wondering how all of these things, all of these wonderful philosophical guide posts that we've mentioned, I wonder how that contributes to the experience of someone. What can you tell us about. Different variables like this and different elements that can contribute to a positive supervisory experience. Ana Paula Mumy:  I would say, um, again, central relationship, right? That's key. Um, and in a practical sense, I would say that, um, there are some things that I think about. So, for example, um, For, for the student to be successful, you know, clear expectations have to be present. So they have to know what it is that they're expected to do. And it's our job, right, to make sure that we're communicating that in a very clear way. Um, and then [00:17:00] also thinking about, you know, what are the students. Um, or that's particular students. What's their level like they're coming in at a certain developmental level or, or experiential level, right? So just thinking about, um, our expectations are matching in a sense, you know, their level. So where are they at? Because of course, students come to us with different, um, experiences and at different levels. So you just have to be really aware of that. Um, and I would say just being able to Scaffold. You know, they're learning and, um, giving them constructive feedback, um, at different, um, points, you know, within their journey and, but making sure that they're also frequent, right? So making sure that we're being really mindful that students, even though sometimes feedback is hard to receive. They [00:18:00] want that feedback. They need that feedback. And so, uh, just being able to, you know, provide that with frequency, um, and, and then creating a safe space for them to make mistakes. Right? So knowing that mistakes are opportunities to grow, right? We learn when we make mistakes. Actually, somebody was asking me the other day about, um, how have I learned in my new role as a program director to, Um, you know, such and such or whatever. And I said, honestly, from the mistakes that I made, and that's how I've learned, you know, the most. And so just really being able to view those as a positive thing and just those learning opportunities that come with it. Kate Grandbois:  And I, something that you said just then resonated with me about how every student comes to you with a unique set of skills, a unique learning level, um, unique needs of support. And I think that's so true. And you have a quote in your talking points that really resonated with me and I'm going to read it. The [00:19:00] quote is, we must teach the students we have and not the ones we wish we had. And that is a quote by Tony Holland from the book Establishing Leadership Mindset, a guide, a guide to using the power of the human brain to motivate learning. And one of the reasons I love this quote is that You know, as clinicians, we are trained to meet our learners where they are, right? So you do an evaluation, I'm in pediatrics, so that's the example I'm going to use. You do an evaluation on a child, you have a good understanding of where they are in their language learning, and you write goals and objectives to meet them where they are. Adults are learners too, and we often forget that we need to meet all learners where they are, including our students. And I have had this experience myself just as a supervisor feeling, oh, you know, this, this person I'm supervising is, I'm feeling frustrated because they really don't know X, Y, or Z. And this really [00:20:00] seems to be a concept that they're having a difficult time grasping. And that is. Not a great reaction because I need to adjust my expectations to meet them where they are, as opposed to having expectations that they fall short of. Would you say that that's a fair, that's a fair statement?  Ana Paula Mumy:  Yes, and I think, um, I love that quote as well, and it's one that I, repeat to myself often, right? Because of course, you know, when students struggle, then there is more work, right? That's involved in whether it be like you said, you having to realize like, oh, I need to adjust here, or I need to do more of this, or, you know, it does take more effort and intentional, um, Changes, right, that you have to make to the environment. And, um, but at the same time, you know, it's like honoring who's the student in front of me, right? So realizing [00:21:00] they're going to come with different, you know, personal factors, personalities, cultural experiences, um, even experiences, um, clinical experiences, right? Because some grad students have had, um, clinical experiences at the undergraduate level. Some have not, right? So some of them come with maybe a little bit more preparation than another. Um, they also come with different insecurities and different, um, questions or doubts, right? About themselves. And so there's just so many variables that are at play that you really just have to almost like. Just be willing to say yes, I'm going to accept you as you are. You come to me, right? It's the students I have not the ones that I wish I had in the sense that you know Of course like when we get those You know, the, the type A, like go getters, you know, who, who are just, you know, independent and, you know, all this, of course, that's easier, right? It's, [00:22:00] um, I think about, you know, raising kids, you know, it's easier when you have the, the perfectly compliant and never questioning whatever child, right? And yet that's not reality. And, and it's, so just being able to look at them and say, okay, this is, this is what you come to me with. And. We're going to figure out how to walk this, you know, together and, um, and being willing to go the extra mile to, um, brainstorm, you know, when, especially, of course, this comes up when they're struggling. Right? So when they are struggling, why are they struggling? And why are they having a hard time? Responding to the feedback or what is it that is creating, you know, those barriers or do I need to be more explicit, which I'm going to say the answer is always yes. Yes. I need to be more explicit, right? Which we'll talk about a little bit later. And how do we make things explicit, um, in terms of expectations and what we're asking them to [00:23:00] do, giving them examples. Um, so just, I think that answers your question, but, you know, I, I just think that we have to. Um, just leave our expectations at the door in the sense of like, oh, I, I want you to be this and just really be willing to, um, grow with them. Right?  Kate Grandbois:  I also think that, you know, I can see the role of the relationship there. Right? So if you are in a position where you're getting to know the student, you're realizing that they're having a harder time, you're concerned that their, the feedback isn't given, being given in a way that's well received, or you need to be more explicit. If you have a good relationship, or if you have spent the time investing in that relationship as a human with kindness, I have to imagine that those other points of conflict are going to be. You know, improved upon or those points of conflict are going to become [00:24:00] less contentious and less negative because you have this great foundation,  Ana Paula Mumy:  right? Absolutely. Yeah, I agree. Um, I think that usually, you know, when there's resistance. in any way due to whatever, you know, factors might be present. Um, there, there's usually, um, an explanation, right? Like there's something there and just being willing to, you know, uncover what that might be. And, um, and in the context of that relationship, it's certainly easier. Kate Grandbois:  So what are some of the Challenges that we face in terms of adult learners and, you know, aside from probably the obvious, like restrictions on time in the workplace and, you know, some of the infrastructure barriers that we all inevitably, but up against, what are some of the general challenges in your experience that you see in a supervisory [00:25:00] role? Ana Paula Mumy:  I would say that the two, um, if, if I was to put students into two categories, um, um, When there is conflict that's present, usually it's either because, um, there's under dependence on the supervisor where they think they have it. They've figured it out, right? I don't need supervision. I've got this, um, or over dependence where, um, they lack confidence, you know, they're afraid to, uh, jump in and do what you have equipped them to do, you know, and there's again, self doubt or, um, Insecurities for whatever reason. And so dealing with, you know, underdependence, uh, where maybe they, they feel like they know more than they know. Um, that's probably harder, um, because there's maybe ego involved or some, you know, a pride factor, maybe, you know, and it's just, I think, [00:26:00] gently being able to, Um, for them, like, here's what I am wanting you to learn from this experience, or maybe just explaining the why behind something. Like I'm asking you to do it this way, even though I know that you might want to do it this way, but I'm asking you to try this in order to X, Y, Z, right? So like giving that the reason behind something, um, and, and then on the other side when there's maybe lack of confidence or. If they're afraid or whatever is getting down to like, why is that right? And what is it that you need? So, for example, sometimes, um, so in the preschool program that I was, um. In where I supervise students, they had gradual, um, expectations in terms of like how they moved along, um, in how much they were leading. So, um, they had one on one interaction with their [00:27:00] clients that they were assigned to, but then they also were leading things like story time or opening circle because, you know, we were in a preschool setting. And for some of those students, even though, you know, your, your audience is three, four and five year olds, you know, they still were terrified, right, because they had to essentially run, you know, that segment of the day. And that can be scary, you know, and there I remember being terrified. I remember being absolutely terrified. And you think, hey, it's a forgiving audience, right. They're three year olds. They're not going to mind. They're not going to notice, right? And, um, but I would say that to them. I would remind them and say, Hey, um, these are, you know, you have a forgiving audience. They're going to love you regardless of what you do. They're never going to notice that you made a mistake, right? So just, I think sometimes affirming those things and saying them out loud and being able to tell them and always reminding them, like this is a safe space for you to make mistakes, especially when. You're talking about [00:28:00] a preschool classroom. It's a very safe space to make mistakes, even though they don't feel. And pick  Kate Grandbois:  your nose. I'm just kidding.  Ana Paula Mumy:  Yes. It's a preschool classroom. Right? In a preschool classroom. Right. Um, but just reminding them, like, you know, there is no expectation of perfection. There is no expectation that you're gonna get it, you know, the very first time that you try or that it's going to go beautifully. Um, because even the most well planned, well thought out, um, Whatever activity that you come up with, you're talking about engaging with, you know, 3 year olds, 4 year olds that are going to do what they want to do. Right. And so just reminding them, like, even though you may be prepared, things are going to go different a different way, or they may not respond, you know, and. It always happens that, you know, the things sometimes that you plan that you think, oh, they're going to love it. And then it just kind of like falls flat. And then the things that you were like, not so sure that they just adore, right? So like, just having that tolerance for, um, not [00:29:00] knowing, you know, and, and, but I think the more we talk openly about those things that they can expect, like, It's going to happen, right? And, or you're going to have to deal with behavior issues, or you're going to have to deal with the child who maybe occasionally wants to bite somebody, or the child who wants to, um, you know, run around the room or whatever, you know, so just talking about like, here, here's what to expect, like, it's organized chaos, you know, in many ways, of course, I'm talking about the preschool setting, but in whatever setting that you're in, you know, preparing them for work. Transcribed The variables that are, are there and helping them realize like, okay, I, it's not going to go perfectly. And that's okay. I don't have that expectation. And I tell my students all the time, I would tell them, you know, I just want to see that you're growing. I just want to see that from day to day that you're here from week to week, from month to month, that I'm seeing progress. And as long as that's happening, I'm happy, right? And I want, [00:30:00] um, and I'm just going to continue to support you, but I just, I want to see that you're, you know, building rapport yourself with your clients and building rapport with the other students and, you know, um, being just a part of this, um, you know, therapeutic environment that, of course, in a preschool setting is very naturalistic, you know, which makes it a little bit challenging too. Kate Grandbois:  Sure. So in turn, going back to those two general categories where, you know, you may have a student who is overly confident in their skills and feels that they need less support or is under, you know, and has a lack of confidence and is feeling like they need more support than they actually need. It's just, it's, it's making me, I feel like I've met other professionals who are non students who have the same profile. So I feel like this, you know, how to approach a learner based on these two general categories is probably very helpful for anyone listening who is supervising [00:31:00] even, you know, not even necessarily grad students, but newer grads or CFs or, you know, people who are earlier in their careers. And I'm wondering if you have suggestions for what support strategies are more or less helpful across those two categories. Ana Paula Mumy:  Gosh, I don't know that I, um, would necessarily divide them based on the two categories because it Um, I don't know, because I think it applies maybe to all, but just at different levels. So if I was to say, you know, what are like the three things that I think are just essential, you know, when it comes to supervision, um, I would say, um, macro affirmations is one. So thinking about, um, which I'm just going to read the definition because I, I feel like I'm going to butcher if I just try to talk through it. Um, it's defined as tiny acts of opening doors to opportunity, gestures of inclusion and caring, and graceful acts of listening. So, [00:32:00] in that sense, it's, you know, asking for student input. You know, being willing and curious about what do they think and what ideas do they bring, right? And then recognizing their achievements. So, um, Naming the things that you notice, right, being a good observer about the positive things that you see, um, which is also good parenting, right? I'm thinking about my kids as I'm saying this. I'm like, oh, noticing the positive and, you know, stating it out loud. Right, right, right. Um, but, uh, and, you know, taking an interest in their lives and, um, just affirming them, you know, in different ways, giving credit to their ideas. Um, I think all these things contribute to just them feeling affirmed, right, as an individual and as a clinician. So I think either, either student, you know, in either category are going to respond to that. Right. And [00:33:00] then clear expectations. I cannot state this enough, you know, just clear, explicit, explicitly clear, yeah, assignments. Having, you know, cleared deadlines and, um, giving them examples of, you know, like, for example, and I'm going to tie it back to the preschool 1 component of what we did during opening circle was, um, we would. Make a word come to life. So we had these, you know, words, target words that we were teaching that tied to the story time that were tier two words that, um, we were trying to help them learn, um, but also infuse into our natural interactions and infuse in different opportunities. And so anyway, there was just a very specific way that we would instruct them to kind of make these words come to life. They could use different things. They could use video or. Tangible things or audio, they could really present the word in any way, but [00:34:00] it had to be very, um, interactive, right? And of course, you know, students would, um, struggle sometimes because one, you have to, if you're defining a word, you know, for a preschooler, it has to be very child friendly. It has to be very, um, uh, you can't use unknown words to describe an unknown word, right? Like there's things, the factors that you have to think through. And, um, And I would, you know, model for them what that might look like, um, but then I realized, like, they need a script. They need a script that they can look at so that when they're coming up with their own way, they realize, like, oh, this is what she means. Right. And I would show them, like. You're going to introduce the word, you're going to give the child friendly definition, you're going to repeat it several times, you're going to model it or demonstrate it in some way, you're going to do it, you know, and by giving them that script of, um, that would [00:35:00] Show them like here's what it's supposed to look like, you know, then when it's their time to do it, they can do it right. And they know exactly what's expected. Um, and I literally began doing that for every single segment that they had to lead. Um, so we did it for story time. We had very clear. Guides and, um, scripts when necessary of like, okay, here's what we want it to look like, um, music time, even, you know, it's like music time, especially in a, uh, a language rich environment. It's, we're not just singing, you know, twinkle, twinkle, little star, like there's, We want clear targets for the songs that are chosen. We want it to be age appropriate because these are little ones. We want it to be repetitive. We want it to be this. So then again, like I gave them this framework for what's music time supposed to look like, you know, and sometimes you feel like it's overkill, like, Oh my gosh, like, do they really need all this? But they really do [00:36:00] like, and that just helps with giving them those clear expectations. Um, and even, you know, in practical, Other practical ways of, um, meeting schedules that are clear. Like, when are we meeting? When are we not meeting? Like, not being, you know, like, all over the place with deadlines or, um, you know, all of that. And then, so, like, I'm big on, you know, cheat sheets or. Guides, you know, whatever, just, I'm, I probably go overboard when it comes to, you know, making sure that they have a model or if it's, let's say a report that they're supposed to write, that they have a model of like, here's one that has been written. This is what we're looking for, right? So that's the second component. And then I would say the third would be feedback. So fair, specific, timely feedback, making sure that we are being consistent with that. Um, and for me, I felt like written feedback, even [00:37:00] though I would sometimes give them verbal feedback to that written feedback that they can go back. To and look at and reread and ponder. And so just, I would sit sometimes in the classroom and have my little, you know, I had my iPad and I would just be writing, writing, writing, writing, and then I would clean it up and just making sure that, you know, it was clear, but it was very time intensive. However, um, my students. Really, um, benefited from that. And they would say, because sometimes like in our, our team discussions, I'd say, you know, what resonated with you the most, you know, um, from the feedback or what did you learn and say, Oh, my gosh, that was so, you know, it just helped me see this or, you know, just, um, One, I wanted to make sure that they were reading my feedback, but also, you know, right, making sure that it was, um, helpful to them. And then I would ask them, like, is there [00:38:00] a way that you would prefer? Or would you prefer feedback in a different way? Or is this helpful to you? Is there more that you need or less that you need? You know, so just. Seeking their feedback, um, on, you know, is there something I need to add, um, to and, um, and then of course, you know, just helping them build on their strengths and then grow in their areas. That they're struggling. So I always always always start with I love that you did such and such or I really like seeing such and such and so just starting with the positive and then for anything where areas of struggle I would say you might try this or I noticed that you did such and such Maybe you know, it didn't go so well. I wonder if you know, so Even though I'm saying you really should try this. I'm also suggesting like And bringing their attention to this didn't go so well, what can we do to make it better? You know, so that I'm not [00:39:00] saying like, no, that's wrong. You're horrible. That's terrible. You know, but I'm saying, I noticed this. So just having, um, that observing language, if you will, of, Here's what I saw. Let's try something different and see if they might respond better. You know, so I think feedback is crucial. And then the feedback component also, I think, ties to, you know, just what are the necessary tasks and the processes. So where do I go from here? Right? Because we have, um, I also talk about, um, the cycle, right? Of feedback and practice. And what does that look like? And I don't know if you want me to go into that now, Um, Yeah.  Kate Grandbois:  Yeah. I would love to hear about that. I also, I think the only comment I wanted to make was as you were talking, I had this kind of moment putting two and two together, going back to what you said earlier, making parallels between us as clinicians and our clients. Because when [00:40:00] we are working as clinicians, we are taught explicitly to set our clients up for success, right? To provide lots and lots of support because it is very easy to peel away the support once it's there. But if you don't want to set up, you know, create any alliance or any therapeutic situation where you're setting someone up to fail, letting them fail and then intervening with the supports. And I can see this parallel here where It was when you said you don't think that they need that much support, but they do even if you don't think they do providing it as part of your regular modus operandus, you know of supervision and then removing it more slowly or as they need it just sets us sets a supervisee up for so much more success, um, than just kind of Waiting and seeing, you know, you don't, I can't imagine that you'd want to wait and see. I just wanted to make that comment because those light bulbs went off for me, um, while you were talking, but I would [00:41:00] love to hear about the cycle of practice and feedback.  Ana Paula Mumy:  So I'm again, very explicit about, you know, what is the purpose of what we're doing? Um, so. With practice, of course, you know, anytime that they're with a client, um, whether it's one on one or within the preschool setting, um, they're getting to practice, right, their clinical skills. So we talk about how, you know, practice leads to that observed performance. So I'm going to be observing their, and I hate to use the word performance because it's not like they're performing, but essentially we're evaluating them, right? We're, we're observing and we're giving them. Um, feedback. Um, and so that observed or observing of their skills leads to or allows for that targeted feedback. So you're giving them that feedback, which then, of course, the hope is that it's going to guide their further practice. So there's this cycle of, you know, practice to being observed to that feedback [00:42:00] back to practice, right? And of course, the goal in the end is that one, Maybe they're needing less and less of that targeted feedback because they're getting it. They're, um, they're learning, they're making changes, they're growing in their skills as clinicians, um, but still, so of course, your, your feedback is going to change over time, but, um, it's just crucial that that cycle just be continuous, that there's just always, you know, and of course, at the beginning of the semester, you're Uh, I'm going to be doing it way more often than, you know, towards the end of the semester, or if not, there's a problem, right? Like, if I, if I'm giving the same level of feedback at the end as I was at the beginning, then we know something did not go well. Um, but for most students, of course, you know, you, you are. changing the way that you provide that feedback. Maybe they don't need it as often, [00:43:00] um, or you don't have to be as detailed, or it can be that you're giving a lot more of just those positive notice, the positive noticing, like, I love that you did this, or yes, you got it, like, you know, this went super well, and you are really attuned to the students in that moment, or, you know, you really, um, Infused or, you know, incorporated such and such that we talked about in our discussion the other day, you know, because at least for, um, the preschool each week, we would have, um, these 2 hour team meetings where we would discuss, you know, what's going well, what's not going so well, um, brainstorming about clients, um, but then also, um, we would read, we would have readings that we would cover, um, that would relate to different aspects of what we're doing. So. Literacy type, you know, like readings related to literacy or vocabulary growth or, um, language [00:44:00] facilitation strategies, um, within a naturalistic environment, right? So we were, um, all of our discussions related to things that they needed to know and learn and utilize, right, in their day to day, um, as clinicians within this particular, um, setting. And so when. You see them putting into practice, right? Some of the things that we've discussed. It's like, yes, you know, you're getting it. Um, and then, you know, and you can affirm that. But then, of course, if you don't see it, then it's. Pointing them back to remember when we talked about, you know, such and such, you know, this is what I want to see, or, um, we did a lot with dramatic play, um, so that was huge, you know, within a naturalistic setting of how do we, um, uh, help children, preschoolers grow within the context of these dramatic play experiences, you know, that are very much, um, free and, you know, there, there's, Not necessarily a [00:45:00] script there, but you know, you can be very attuned to what's happening and how can you facilitate language in that context? And so, um, 1 thing that I would do sometimes. Related to language facilitation is I would take, like, a 10 minute block of time where I would observe them and I would jot down, like, how many times they either, like, recast it or expanded or, um, use, you know, 1 of the strategies that we've talked about narrated or whatever. And of course, towards the beginning of the semester. It's like, you know, zero, one, maybe two, or, you know, whatever, and then they're like, oh my gosh, and they also generally use a ton of closed ended questions where it's just, you know, prompting for these yes, no, or one word answers. And of course, we know that that's not really good for language facilitation. And so it's, it's a very eye opening exercise where they're like, Oh, wow, I didn't know this. [00:46:00] Like, I really. need to, you know, beef up some of the other things that we're doing. And so then we talk about, okay, so what is a language facilitation strategy that you want to focus on and increase, right, for this week? And then maybe, you know, two weeks down the road, I would do it again. And then inevitably, you know, most of the students, they're much more self aware and they're using more of those strategies, right? So, but, The, the exercise of, you know, sitting down and logging it, it's not to shame them. It's not to say, oh, you're not doing enough. It's to say, here, you know, become aware of what you're doing currently. And then what do you want to do more of? What can you do more of? What can you learn to naturally do more of within this context, right? To facilitate language. And then obviously they're always proud of the fact that within a couple of weeks to three weeks, they're doing more of it. And they're like, yes, I'm, you know, I'm learning. And so it's not, it's never meant to be a negative [00:47:00] of noticing like the bad. It's just like, okay, here's where you are. And here's where we want to get.  Kate Grandbois:  And not again to make that analog, but we take data on our clients learning. Right. I mean, this is your data collection strategy to measure progress. Um, you know, and that. I think that, you know, it's science has proven that measurement is an effective strategy for behavior change across everything, across smoking cessation, across fitness, across, you know, you name it, there is some measurement strategy and a quote that I love actually, I think it's from like the business realm, but, uh, what gets measured And I think that this is a very, very good example of that. I'm wondering, I mean, you've, you've reviewed feedback strategies. You've talked about the cycle of practice and feedback loop. Um, you've talked about, All of the key components of a supportive environment, investing in the [00:48:00] relationship, professional humility. Um, I'm wondering if you have any words of wisdom for when things are not going well. If there is conflict, you know, you have, you've spent the time investing in the relationship, you've Approached a problem with professional humility, but there is still a sense of your feedback is not being received well, or there are clear points of friction or the therapist, the student or, um, or supervisee doesn't think they deserve your feedback or is affronted by it or insulted. You know, there is some point of friction. What do you do in that situation? That's a  Ana Paula Mumy:  hard  Kate Grandbois:  question to  Ana Paula Mumy:  answer,  Kate Grandbois:  but  Ana Paula Mumy:  I didn't mean for it to be a trick question. No, it's just that, you know, there's just so many variables that create sometimes that conflict. Right. And so I think the first, um, thing that would come to my mind is communication is approaching that [00:49:00] student to say, Hey, We're struggling, right? You know, or there seems to be, um, conflict or that, you know, we're, we're not communicating very well or whatever, you know, just to be able to say, let's. Have a discussion, right? So just to, um, give them a chance to, um, maybe communicate what it is, you know, are, are there, um, external challenges that you're not aware of? Or is there, um, are there insecurities that they're dealing with? You know, and I, I think if you start with. I just want to hear, you know, what do you feel is going well? Okay, so what do you feel is not going well? Um, do you feel that you have a sense of why? Or, you know, just really being curious, you know, but not, um, judgmental in that curiosity of, like, what's going on, right? So just to, um, [00:50:00] give them room to express. Um, I also think of, like, motivational interviewing in the sense of, like, you know, Figuring out like where they are. So like, where do they rate themselves in X, you know, whatever, maybe area where there's struggle and then, okay. So what do you think you could do? Let's say that, um, they're really struggling with giving feedback to the client, right? So just say, okay, on a scale of one to 10, you know, where do you find yourself? Oh, I think I'm, I'm at a five, you know, of in terms of like, I'm giving really great feedback is, you know, one end and it's horrible feedback on the other end. Right? So like, okay, I think I'm at a five. So what do you think you would be doing? To be at a six right to get to a six, or maybe it's even a half step, you know, to get to a five and a half, like, what would you do differently in helping them kind of find their own solutions, you know, to what it is that.[00:51:00]  They could do differently or that they could try so that it's not you saying you need to do blah blah blah right but where they can say, Oh, yeah, you know, I could probably try such and such, or I could maybe change this, you know, or Yeah, I think my preparation or maybe my planning, that's where I'm faltering, you know, because I'm not giving that planning component enough time or, you know, so then it's, it's more you listening to them work it out in front of you, right? Um, and then you're like, yeah, that's great. Great plan. Let's do it. You know, um, that's maybe how I would approach it.  Kate Grandbois:  Um, I also what's coming to mind is something. That we also that we learned on the podcast, I think last season, uh, we welcomed to have, I think it was three or four guests who talked about mental health in speech pathology graduate students, because there was some research showing that, um, speech pathology [00:52:00] graduate students have some of the highest stress rates, uh, than, uh, compared to like I can't remember what the research says, and someone can write in and remind me. It's also in our show notes for that episode, uh, but we have some of the highest, um, stress related, um, issues, you know, some of the most struggling mental health compared to all grad students across allied, allied health. Um, and I, I think just based on. Some of your previous advice about being a human first, just taking a second to consider, hey, is this, if there is this like true conflict where they're upset or they, they, they're, you know, there is, you know, they're, your conversations are contentious, just taking a second to be curious about them as a person. In case there are additional things going on with them or the stress of graduate school is, you know, really wearing on them and this is the last straw, you know, we've all been there like where you telling me not to give [00:53:00] feedback for the client is the last straw and now I'm crying and yelling at you because So because this is so undeserved, you know, um, not that it, things get that dramatic necessarily, but, um, I think it's just worth holding space for that and, and all of your suggestions as well, because sometimes things are challenging. And again, just another vote for your original advice, which is investing in that relationship and being a human first, because that's going to facilitate a much better outcome. And I have to also assume. I assume prevents some unwanted discomfort and conflict because if you do have that great foundational relationship, then they may come to you before they get overly stressed or you know, they, there's that safe space for vulnerability and asking for help, um, which is so important. Ana Paula Mumy:  You, when you were talking about mental health and just really any condition that, that student is facing, one [00:54:00] thing that came from sometimes, um, instances where students were struggling, um, again and again with something and you're like, okay, why are you not getting it? Um, it's. Leading them to other resources that would allow them to figure out. So, like, for example, 1 student, um, did not have an autism diagnosis and she. Eventually through some conversations and just reflection and, um, she ended up going through like a, uh, an evaluation and, um, and then she realized, like, oh, my gosh, like, this is why I've been struggling my whole life because I have this undiagnosed, you know, condition that I never knew. Right. And she always thought why can't I get it? So helping them identify, like, are there other things going on? Do you need support in another way? Whether it's ADHD or whether it's, um, autism or whether it's, you know, just something [00:55:00] else, right? Like, sometimes there are other. Um, co occurring things that they have not identified, right, for themselves. And so, um, helping them along. I remember, um, and this doesn't have to do with a condition, but it had to do with a bilingual student who, even though she grew up in a bilingual home, because she had lost her expressive language in that language, she did not see herself as bilingual. But she wasn't processing her challenges or difficulties that she was having with language To that, and it was like me walking alongside her and we even like ended up doing some testing and talking through different things to realize like, Oh my gosh, like, yes, you are an English language learner. You may not feel that because you don't speak that language anymore. She still had receptive, um, skills in, in that home language, but she felt so far removed from it that she wasn't viewing herself [00:56:00] with that lens. And so it was almost like. Cause she was experiencing all kinds of like communication apprehension and rehearsing things that she needed to say because she was afraid that it was going to come out wrong. Like there was just like all this mental, like cognitive load. Yeah. Happening, um, in meetings and whatever. And then as we talked about it and as we like probed and I helped her identify some things, it was like, Oh my gosh, like she was a new person because she felt. Understood, and she felt like here's the explanation for why I have struggled, where she before she actually said this to me, she's like, I just thought I was dumb. I just thought that I just, you know, was, she always felt inferior. Right. And so just helping her just open this. You know, lens of like, Oh, this is why this is so difficult, you know, so our  Kate Grandbois:  grad students are people to the moral of the story, learning about themselves [00:57:00] in a very stressful time, speech pathology graduate school is so difficult. A lot of individuals in graduate school are in an earlier phase of life. So, you know, where a lot of things can be in flux, everything from finances to family to housing to all the things. So I, I really appreciate that reframe, um, and in supporting them through their learning journey as three dimensional people who have lives outside of the clients that they're seeing. And I think that that's a great practice to start. early, early in their career. Um, before we wrap up, I wonder if you could just give us a few pointers. And in your, in your talking points here, I see that you've got some suggestions for feedback as it relates to report writing. And I'd love to hear a little bit about that before we wrap up today. What can you tell us about feedback for report writing?  Ana Paula Mumy:  Report writing is like what makes us pull our hair out, right? Because [00:58:00] again, students come with different skills when it comes to their writing skills. And so one aspect or something that I did was I developed a little, uh, rubric that would allow them to go through their writing and think about three different areas. So we talk about content, we talk about clarity, and we talk about conciseness. So I, I have, These, um, phrases essentially that, so, for example, um, where they would, you know, write a report or a progress note or whatever it was, and then they would filter it through this rubric essentially, right? Where they're asking themselves, like, have I described my subjective observations and objective data, right? Have I, um. Or it says, like, the information I have provided is specific and accurate, or I have used positive language to describe challenges, right? So, like, just helping them think about the [00:59:00] content. Then for, um, clarity is really helping them, um, cover the content in a way that's coherent, in a way that's clear. So, for example, you know, using, um, uh, family friendly language, right? So Avoiding maybe a lot of jargon or, um, but also thinking about the audience, you know, if, of course, you're writing a report to, uh, an insurance company, that's going to look different than it does for a parent, you know, so thinking about your audience, um, but also are you giving tangible examples? So again, it says, It's a declarative, so it'll say, I have made it clear who my reference is in each paragraph, or I have used, I  Kate Grandbois:  feel like I need this rubric,  Ana Paula Mumy:  blah, blah, blah. Yeah,  Kate Grandbois:  this sounds very helpful.  Ana Paula Mumy:  But they're doing like a self check right like I have I have I have done this or, you know, and then with conciseness is really just about, you know, Not writing the novel, right? Like, give me enough information, but [01:00:00] not so much information that, you know, you are, um, going to lose me as the reader. So just what's the most relevant data, um, being concise, you know, within the sentences, but also descriptive across your paragraphs. And so just thinking about that. And then the last one being just mechanics, right? So making sure that they're checking their spelling and their grammar and their punctuation. And, you know, just, I always, I'll tell. And not using chat GPT to write the report somehow. But I'll say to them, I'll say. Read it out loud to yourself because if you read it out loud and it makes no sense, it's not going to make sense. You're a reader, right? So sometimes walking away from it, then reading it again. And so just walking them through that process to really help them improve as writers. Um, and Clinical writing so that they know again, this is the expectation, you know, and then I mean, still, you have to give gobs of feedback on writing, but at least it gives them that structure to think about. [01:01:00] Okay, content, clarity and conciseness. So what does that mean? You know, and just helping them along in that process, which is really hard.  Kate Grandbois:  That's really wonderful. Um, I love, I love, we love a good rubric here. That's really, really helpful. And I, I also feel like having things written down and having a clear sense of direction again, back to your explicit, explicit instruction is really, really helpful. Um, and I know you also have some handouts that you are going to put on our website that are to accompany. This episode. So thank you for those. We will link to those in the show notes. Um, do you have any parting words for wisdom for us, for anyone listening who is wanting to be a supervisor, who still is a super or who is a supervisor now? What are your, what are your parting wisdom, words of wisdom for us?  Ana Paula Mumy:  No, I would just say, um, look this. [01:02:00] As an opportunity for you to grow to, um, and if you're wanting to do it, do it. You know, working with students is wonderful. It's very rewarding. I love it. Um, but then also self reflect, you know, what are you doing to ensure that, you know, your students. Are not going to leave grad school, um, you know, hating the experience, like, am I going to, you know, encourage them in their love of learning? Am I going to foster that rather than kill it? Right? With that, those two years of, of grad school and, and just thinking about, you know, how can I contribute to their wellbeing and their enjoyment of learning? How can I do that? You know, just on a regular basis and, and just helping with just it. Yeah. You know, avoiding the burnout and avoiding the exhaustion of, you know, being a student. Of course, that's a part of grad school and that's just inherent in the experience. But at the same time, we don't have to add to it, right? We don't have to add to that burnout or to the exhaustion or to even their satisfaction with [01:03:00] grad school. You know, we can make a positive impact in the other direction. So I would just encourage supervisors in that sense and just keep doing what you're doing. It's, you know, we, we can't. Do this without clinical supervisors. That's just obviously that's goes without saying, you know, and so, um, I just I'm grateful for everybody who's willing to do that because it's not for everyone. It's not something that necessarily is, you know, everybody's cup of tea. But for those who are willing to work with students, just keep doing it. Your work means something that matters and is impactful. So.  Kate Grandbois:  Thank you so much for everything today, Ana Paula. This was really so wonderful. Uh, for anyone listening who would like to earn this, um, use this episode to earn ASHA CEUs or Certificates of Completion, the link is in the show notes along with links to the handouts that Ana Paula has, uh, included, um, and offered as accompaniments to today's episode. There is also a list of all of our [01:04:00] references and resources. Thank you again so much for being here. We really appreciate it.  Ana Paula Mumy:  I've loved it.  Kate Grandbois:  Thank you.   Ana Paula Mumy:  Thank you so much for joining us in today's episode, as always, you can use this episode for ASHA CEUs. You can also potentially use this episode for other credits, depending on the regulations of your governing body. To determine if this episode will count towards professional development in your area of study. Please check in with your governing bodies or you can go to our website, www.slpnerdcast.com all of the references and information listed throughout the course of the episode will be listed in the show notes. And as always, if you have any questions, please email us at info@slpnerdcast.com thank you so much for joining us and we hope to welcome you back here again soon. .

This transcript is made available as a course accommodation for and is supplementary to this episode / course. This transcript is not intended to be used in place of the podcast episode with the exception of course accommodation. Please note: This transcript was created by robots. We do our best to proof read but there is always a chance we miss something. Find a typo? Email us anytime . [00:00:00]   Intro Kate Grandbois:  Welcome to SLP nerd cast your favorite professional resource for evidence based practice in speech, language pathology. I'm Kate grant wa and I'm Amy  Amy Wonkka:  Wonka. We are both speech, language pathologists working in the field and co-founders of SLP nerd cast. Each  Kate Grandbois:  episode of this podcast is a course offered for ashes EU. Our podcast audio courses are here to help you level up your knowledge and earn those professional development hours that you need. This course. Plus the corresponding short post test is equal to one certificate of attendance to earn CEUs today and take the post test. After this session, follow the link provided in the show notes or head to SLP ncast.com . Amy Wonkka:  Before we get started one quick, disclaimer, our courses are not meant to replace clinical. We do not endorse products, procedures, or other services mentioned by our guests, unless otherwise  Kate Grandbois:  specified. We hope you enjoy  Announcer:  the course. Are you an SLP related [00:01:00] professional? The SLP nerd cast unlimited subscription gives members access to over 100 courses, offered for ashes, EU, and certificates of attendance. With SLP nerd cast membership, you can earn unlimited EU all year at any time. SLP nerd cast courses are unique evidence based with a focus on information that is useful. When you join SLP nerd cast as a member, you'll have access to the best online platform for continuing education and speech and language pathology. Join as a member today and save 10% using code nerd caster 10. A link for membership is in the show notes EpisodeSponsor 1 Kate Grandbois:  Welcome to SLP Nerdcast. We're so excited for today's episode. We are here with Amanda Sheriff Hobson. Welcome, Amanda.  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Thank you. I'm so glad to be here.  Amy Wonkka:  Amanda, we're excited for today because you are here to discuss developing [00:02:00] competency and self advocacy skills for complex communicators. Uh, so I'm super pumped to talk to you about this topic, but before we get started, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself? Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Absolutely. I'm excited to be here and share about this topic. Um, I am a school based speech therapist. I work in a collaborative school in Massachusetts where I am a SLP, but I'm also the speech therapy department head. Um, I've primarily always worked with students with complex communication needs as young as three years old up until the age of 15, working on developing, um, communication strategies and robust communication systems so that these students have access to language. Um, so that has had me in private practice, home healthcare, um, and for the last nine years in the school setting.  Kate Grandbois:  So we're really excited for this, not only because it is of tremendous importance, but it also touches our personal clinical experience. And so it's, [00:03:00] I'm very excited for this conversation. It's going to be great. Um, we need, do need to read our learning objectives and financial disclosures before we get into the fun stuff. So I will do that as quickly as I can. Learning objective number one, identify at least three skills to target to develop communication competency. Learning objective number two, identify at least three activities or tools for students to learn and practice self advocacy skills. And learning objective number three, explain how to use coaching strategies to support communication partners. In utilizing skills explicitly taught during natural moments in the learning environment, disclosures, Amanda's financial disclosures, Amanda works for and receives a salary from a public school system. Amanda also received an honorarium for participating in this course. Amanda's non financial disclosures. Amanda is a member of ASHA SIG 12. Kate, that's me. My financial disclosures. I am the owner and founder of Grand Bois Therapy and Consulting LLC and co [00:04:00] founder of SLP Nerdcast. My non financial disclosures. I am a member of ASHA SIG 12 and I serve on the AAC Advisory Group for Massachusetts Advocates for Children. I'm also a member of the Berkshire Association for Behavior Analysis and Therapy.  Amy Wonkka:  Amy, that's me. My financial disclosures are that I'm an employee of a public school system and co founder of SLP Nerdcast, and my non financial disclosures are that I am a member of ASHA. I'm part of Special Interest Group 12, and I participate in the AAC Advisory Group for Massachusetts Advocates for Children. All right, on to the good stuff. Amanda, why don't you start us off by just telling us a little bit about self advocacy? So what What is self advocacy and why is it so important? Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Yeah. So I think this sort of started to become a focus area for me as I worked with more and more students with what again we're defining as these complex communication needs. Um, these students typically need a lot of interpretation around what their behavior means, what their communication styles [00:05:00] are. And sometimes it felt like we weren't doing enough to make sure that their needs were being known. Um, in my role as both a direct therapist, working with the students, but also supervising other SLPs, this just seemed to be a theme that came up a lot. How can we do better? How can we assure that There's full autonomy, even as they're continuing to learn how to use language more effectively and efficiently, and so it really started this conversation of what could we do? What kind of strategies can we use? What's out there in terms of self advocacy type curriculums? And of course, we quickly realized, That no big box curriculum is going to meet exactly what we're looking to teach. And so this is really combining a lot of different, uh, research pieces out there, different methodologies, different strategies. And again, we quickly realized we can't just do the teaching. We also need to think about the environment. So we need to think about where students are communicating, who they're communicating with, and how to make sure that the [00:06:00] people who are receiving these messages are just as prepared as those who are. And so when we're thinking about self advocacy, we're thinking about not just protesting and saying, if you don't want something, but we're thinking about how students can think about themselves and what they want to say and how to act on that. So we're really starting to think about what kind of changes to the environment need to happen. What kind of opportunities do we need? And we really started to highlight and go back to the Communication Bill of Rights, and how this is really a resource that a lot of clinicians have used, um, and referenced when they're thinking about presumption of competence and access to communication. But we started to think, why don't our students use this? Why aren't they learning about this resource just as we are? And how can we make that accessible? So sort of thinking about those 15 or 16 rights and saying, let's use this as our framework. Let's think about these things that we know our students should have access [00:07:00] to. And let's use that as our content and our skills that we're teaching, as well as what we're teaching the people who are working with our students. That sort of became the framework for how we're thinking about this. And so a lot of the things that I'll share today are. Coming from a classroom of middle school students who are all complex communicators, they are using alternative access. You see, like, two step switch scanning or auditory only scanning. They're also using direct selection. Um, some of them are very emergent in their communication skills, while some are more context dependent or transitional in their skills. Um, but there's still this constant need for interpretation from those who are working with them, and that's where we also start to think about the partner training to make sure that as we're teaching the skills to our students, we're also teaching skills to those around them. Kate Grandbois:  I know one of the first things that we want to do is have you talk to us a little bit about what self advocacy is by definition. Before we [00:08:00] get into that, I just want to make a quick comment, um, elaborating on something you said that I think is really important, is that out of the box curriculums, out of the box strategies are a slippery slope. And I love that you've kind of described them as not a, One size fits all approach, and I think in a lot of instances, these curriculums, these packages of therapy materials are marketed as a blanket, a pro as a blanket approach to your clients or your students, and that's never good practice, right? That's never a. Uh, an evidence based method of providing intervention, just taking, taking something straight out of the box and slapping it on or throwing it in the classroom, right? We always want to create customized interventions. Um, and I love that, that you've, you've set that up as a backdrop here for, for the important work that you're about to tell us. I just wanted to kind of make a comment about that.  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Yeah, I appreciate that. I think, too, we, we noticed that, you know, they're [00:09:00] great. They're great foundations. They just need a lot of adaptation or modification to them to make them accessible for all students or for specific students, individual needs. Um, and oftentimes they were very pigeonholed into a specific skill, and we really wanted to highlight that there's a lot of skills that go into self advocacy. Um, so, like, you might have a program that really just teaches access to IEPs and making sure they're a participant in their IEP process, and that's a wonderful thing, but there's a lot of, uh, self advocacy that happens. Every day around them, not just that one time annual meeting, um, or thinking about being able to protest again. That seems to be the first go to for a lot of, um, goal areas or focus areas. But it's also about acting on preferences and sharing opinions and making sure that students can do all of those skills. So really thinking more holistically about it.  Amy Wonkka:  Yeah, I, uh, I'm excited. I have the I have the good fortune of seeing the notes ahead of me. So I know some of the topics that we're going to cover. I'm [00:10:00] excited to talk about those as well. But I do think it would be helpful for us to just talk a little bit like Amanda, you've said, self advocacy is not just protesting. It's not just Requesting your basic needs. It's not just attending your IEP meeting. Um, so can you give us sort of a formal definition about what we're thinking about when we're thinking about this sort of all encompassing skill area?  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Yeah, absolutely. So we would define self advocacy as a set of skills and sub skills that engage that complex process of speaking on your own behalf, um, to share your needs, your beliefs, your opinions, your interests, desires, your protests, um, and you want to be thinking about also this concept of self determination within self advocacy. So in order to do all of those things, you also need to know about yourself, um, and what kind of motivates you and interests you and drives you during the day. Um, so they kind of go hand in hand. The [00:11:00] self advocacy doesn't really exist without self determination, um, and so that really means it's like a metacognition. task, right? You're doing this internal thinking about yourself. Um, you're learning about what you need, what your strengths are, what the areas you need support in, um, and also teaching value of who you are as an individual, um, so that you can engage in more of these meaningful tasks and motivating and within motivating context, um, to be able to self advocate. Kate Grandbois:  I loved when I was reading, um, your talking points, I loved reading that this was very much a metacognitive skill, meta, a metacognitive task. I'd never thought of it that way before, but you're absolutely right. And I think that's a really important lens to, to look at this through.  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, again, they go hand in hand. We want our students to understand why they're saying no to something. We want them to understand why they're asking for something, why they are trying to engage with the people around them, and when and where they want to do that. [00:12:00] And in order to do that, they need to understand it. the, you know, we're going to get into skills here, but thinking about what are their communication strategies? How do they communicate? Um, also including disability awareness, understanding who they are as learners and who their other classmates are as learners. And it's how it's okay to have differences. Um, thinking about accommodations that they need so that they can ask for them. They don't know what to ask for if they're not really aware of what their accommodations and learning needs. are. Um, also understanding who these people are that are surrounding them, these teachers, these aides, these therapists, um, and how they are support people and not actually the people who are doing the speaking for them or they shouldn't be. Um, also going into things like personal preferences and motivation, um, thinking about this concept of public and private information, um, and how they have a right to say no to that, um, if they don't want to share certain pieces of information. So we get into a lot of these like Big knowledge skills, right? Then we've talked about [00:13:00] disability awareness, accommodations, public and private. But then we also start to think about what do they do with that, right? Um, how do they use, um, a set of words, whether it's a pre stored phrase or an independent phrase to let somebody. know that they don't know a thing, or that they want that word added into their device, um, or that they want to engage with a new peer in their classroom. Um, these are the things that we're thinking about for the knowledge and content, but then also how to use that knowledge and content to act on their skills. Kate Grandbois:  I think another really important, um, delineation for me reading through this is thinking about these things as skills. And I, I know conceptually we, you know, Oh, well, a student should have knowledge of their rights. A student should have knowledge of self and individual needs, but that's very different than, you know, having that conceptual framework of what we should be focusing on is very different than. Well, let's actually target it as a skill, which I assume, [00:14:00] in your experience, translates into goals and targets and those kinds of things. That's very different than a philosophical framework of what we should be doing as therapists. Do you agree?  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Absolutely. I like that you're using that word should because this also challenges people to be a little bit, I guess, open and comfortable with the fact that we're asking them to do something different, right? We kind of all come to the table with our own agendas and teachers and teacher aides, they know that there's a schedule, we need to follow it. And so if someone comes out and says, wait, I'm not ready to do that. We have to be okay with saying, okay, we'll wait. Right. We need to change the environment, um, to be open to the, the, the, I guess the opportunities that our students are going to hopefully act on, right? If we're not willing to change, then some of these shoulds might not actually get those meaningful opportunities to happen. So that's why, again, that partner training is so important because they need to have the skills to act on. A student's advocacy in that [00:15:00] moment. And if we don't have that cause and effect, right, if we don't act on what they ask for, then they're not going to learn the power that self advocacy has. Amy Wonkka:  So just to say this back to you, and I think you'll talk more about the environment as we go through, but that implicit message that we're sending as communication partners and as staff in a school environment or some other environment, you know, when we don't listen and act on our students communication, when they are sharing these messages that are self advocacy, preference related, slash, you know, just Making their needs met. We are sending that message that okay It doesn't matter. We just we just want you to follow. We just want you to follow the program The program is doing what I want. Not what you want  Kate Grandbois:  um  Amy Wonkka:  So i'm i'm excited to hear more and more about that because I think that must be a really big Paradigm shift for a lot of places and I think there's also got to be a place in the middle, [00:16:00] which is finding the balance too. I mean, I, I work in schools as well. And there, you know, there is a schedule. So how do you help the communication partners to kind of find the times where, yes, you should definitely be mindful about supporting a student self advocacy versus, um, when you, when you really can't and what's the best way to do that. Um, maybe you can talk to us a little bit about what some of your Skill learning activities might look like.  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Absolutely. Yeah. So when we're thinking about this, we actually run a self advocacy group weekly in our classroom that we, you know, again, I talked about using the communication bill of rights, sort of as our framework for thinking about what content we want to teach, but we also think about what's happening around them. So for example,   A lot of our students, um, happen to have IEPs at the beginning of the school year. So we're going to use that maybe as a focus for the first four weeks or so, um, but what we're thinking about is what do we need our students to have in their, their [00:17:00] toolbox in order to participate in what's happening on their current schedule? Um, we want to move away from hypothetical and we want to really move into realistic. Um, and so we're thinking about. Content teaching and so content teaching can be really challenging. Um, it could be boring. Um, but we want to really try to make it as, um, functional as possible. So one thing that we'll do is when we set our, our main topic is we'll think about creating some type of custom. Um, this way we can really pull in realistic scenarios that our students will be part of, and this is used to provide examples of the skill that we're going to be teaching, provide vocabulary that we're going to be targeting, um, trying to use real pictures of the students, maybe in the settings that they're going to be practicing their skill in, examples we've had, let's go to an IEP meeting and we're going through that process in that building, um, my accessible school and we're walking around and looking at pictures of them. Things that are in the school that make it accessible for students to participate and learn in. [00:18:00] Um, and so once we have that type of narrative to introduce the topic, we're using a lot of explicit vocabulary instruction routines to really make sure that our students are learning about these higher level vocabulary, um, in a meaningful way. And using the words that they have access to. So, like I said earlier, a lot of our students are at various levels of learning to use a robust language system, but they all have access to robust language systems. And so we want to use the words that are in their devices to be able to identify, define, understand these higher level. Tier two and three words that we're targeting. Um, so for example, um, we looked, um, at the word accessible. And so that is probably a tier two or three word. They probably don't have it in their devices, but they do need to understand what it means to have something be accessible to them. And so we've used core words like accessible. It means to get what you need. It means to help you to go into this place. Um, and those are [00:19:00] words that live in their device, help, go, get, need. Um, and we really emphasize that as we're teaching the definition. Um, we do other activities that fall under these explicit vocabulary instruction routines, such as examples and non examples. Once we've understood that word accessible, we're going to look at some pictures of things that they've experienced and determine, is this an example of something that's accessible or is it not? So we might see a big staircase walking up to the building. Is that accessible for you if you're in a wheelchair? No. Um, is this elevator something that makes the school accessible? Yes. Um, we'll also generate situations, right? What kind of places are you going to be? to be accessible, um, and kind of go through and make lists that way. Um, we'll also do some word associations, reading aloud different sentences, um, such as, Amanda went to the bathroom with just one aide to change their clothes. Is that an example of something that's private or public? Right? As we're getting into different [00:20:00] vocabulary words. Um, I went to a busy mall. Is that a private place or is that a public place? Right? So again, we're thinking about these different ways to go through these routines to make sure that students are understanding the words that we're teaching before we're asking them to act on it. Kate Grandbois:  I also love, uh, one, just want to comment. I love the way you're describing these activities. It sounds like some of them are really experiential learning. So going with the student into the hallway. To the stairs and having a conversation about the accessibility or inaccessibility of of that physical environment, which is a very different learning experience than just conceptually learning about in the in the classroom. And I have to imagine that that is a really powerful learning experience.  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Absolutely. They recently did a scavenger hunt to go through the building, sort of like what you're talking about to find and they had, they had a list of all these places that are on their schedule. Go find something that's accessible. Go find something that's not. Take a picture of it. [00:21:00] But we're also putting language on that with their, their aid. So tell your aid when you're ready to take the picture. the picture, tell them yes or no, if this is the place that you want to take the picture of. So there's so much language opportunity on top of these content pieces, um, and again, to provide the autonomy around, um, being able to say, yes, I want to do this. No, I don't. Um, and it's a really good practice opportunity for the aides that are working with the students.  Amy Wonkka:  And I just want to reiterate for the listeners that you just gave such a nice example of some of that environmental difference, right? So in. Instead of going somewhere, finding that it's private, having the aide tell you to take a picture, you're having the student direct the adult. And I think also for so many of our learners, they're going to have a paid caregiver who's supporting them, um, throughout mo most of their life, all of their life. So being able to give those directions to other people is not only a self-advocacy skill, but it's a, it's a long life skill. Um, so that's just one nice example of how. [00:22:00] That environmental piece might look a little different. It's not a huge change. It's easily doable. Um, but building in those opportunities for students to give directions to adults.  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Yeah, absolutely. We really want to, again, make it functional and make it meaningful, right? Learning to give these directions is not something that's just going to happen in isolation in this activity. We're hoping that with repetitive practice, this is something that they can learn to do with a variety of communication partners.  Amy Wonkka:  I know you had a couple of more activities. Yeah, absolutely. You let it  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  go through. Um, so yeah, after we get through some of these explicit vocabulary instruction routines, um, we're thinking about looking at, okay, so you have this comprehension. Now what are we going to do with it? We'll use this tool, Talking Maths, which is another way to look at Students being able to have autonomy when they're sharing their preferences. Um, TalkingMats could be a low tech or a high tech tool, um, they have an app now that you can use. A lot of our students need things that are large to accommodate for a CVI, um, so we'll often do these on large poster [00:23:00] boards where they can have symbols representing the words that we're talking about. But when you're using a tool like this, you really want to set the topic of what you're about to ask opinions around. And then again, thinking about the function of it after they share all these opinions. what are you going to do with it? Um, so, for example, um, last summer, we got ready for field trips, and the teacher committed to the students sharing their opinions about different field trip options, and based on the results of the classroom, those were the field trips they were going to go on. So they did some virtual field trips of looking at different field trips. Things in the Boston area that they could go to, um, she made sure they were realistic options. Um, and after, you know, all the students got to say, I like it, I don't like it, or a very popular phrase for the middle schoolers is whatever. I don't care. Um, and that's kind of our center column. So you have it. That's amazing. Yeah, it's very, uh, very into the age group, um, and a lot of them really like that word, um, so we hear that a lot, um, but [00:24:00] it's a good way to know, you know, sometimes we don't have opinions either way on something, so we want to, we don't want to pigeonhole into either the I like it or don't like it. So after these virtual field trips and these, um, ways to watch videos and think about what they were about to share their opinion on, they sorted those field trip options into those three categories. Um, they looked at which one had the majority and that's where they went. Um, so again, it kind of ties in building up the idea of that was the unit around preference. We all have preferences. We understood what that word meant. Then we got to practice acting on it. And the environment followed through, right? There was a cause and effect to completing that activity. Um, similarly, we've used this tool for IEP participation. Um, so looking at our schedules and thinking about the different classes that we attend, and we know that there are classes you just have to attend when you're a student, um, but you still can have an opinion about them. Um, so being able to sort that and then present it at an IEP meeting, um, share it with the families and the team members [00:25:00] so that they can see what your preferences are. And I think a tool like this is going to be very helpful. Um, Massachusetts recently changed their IEP format, and I think all schools will be rolling that out next year. Um, and there is a new section around student, um, student, uh, vision students, uh, what they want to learn about and what they like and their future goals at major transitions. Elementary, middle school and high school, and there's feedback around. How do we get somebody with maybe complex communication needs or an emergent communication level? How will they do this? How are we going to integrate that in? And I think it's important to think about some of these tools that can help meet a student where they are, but still give them the autonomy to share their opinion. Amy Wonkka:  I was so excited to read this whole piece about Talking Mats because I think that it's such a helpful tool for people, for listeners who may not be familiar with Talking Mats. It actually comes to us out of Scotland. Is that right, Amanda? Scotland? I think you're right. Yes. Yeah. [00:26:00] And I heard that this year they may be offering online trainings. At times that are USA friendly, um, so I'm pretty excited about that. I love the idea of using it for the new IEP, um, because I do think that is a challenge, um, for getting authentic participation. And I, I had a question for you just about using TalkingMaths as a tool. How, how early are you introducing something like this with your students? How young are you introducing the idea of sharing preferences like this and kind of grading your preferences between not just like, I want this, and I don't want this, but this is something I like, this is something, whatever, I don't care, and this is something I don't like.  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  So I recently started thinking about this at even as my young as my preschool classes, right, because it's one of the early things that I'm hearing our aides model when they're introducing robust language, [00:27:00] because verbal referencing or being able to say what you see when you're noticing a student communicate and maybe what we would consider an unconventional way. Um, it's very easy to notice. Sometimes attach meaning to that, right? If someone's laying on the floor and they didn't like that fidget tool that they just selected, you can say, Oh, it looks like you don't like that one. But now to add another level to that, being able to maybe make a chart of fidget tools for students and saying, you know, every time you grab that brush, you seem to end up on the floor, right? It doesn't seem to be something that you like. So maybe we put it here for now. You could always change it. Um, it's not a permanent board by any means, um, that you could be able to think about Providing them some concrete visual that shows what they like and what they don't like. And it also then becomes a tool for the classroom. Um, you might have subs coming in every once in a while or every day. Um, and they might be able to look at a tool like that and say, Oh, okay, when I'm working with this kid, now I understand those things that they like or don't like. Um, music is very big in the younger classrooms, and I feel like we often [00:28:00] jump to nursery rhymes. Um, but nursery rhymes are not the only thing that we listen to. I have a two and a half year old who loves to listen to Mamma Mia the soundtrack, right? But that's not typically something that you would introduce until you knew. And so as you're doing a lot of experiencing and thinking about, Oh, okay, I'm noticing that they're getting very excited when they hear this. We can add that into their I like column. And I think that again, it's, it's not permanent by any means, but it does. Provide an Understanding where, um, the students are at.  Kate Grandbois:  And I, I think everybody listening, presuming most of our audience is speech language pathologists, most of us are familiar with the concept that visuals are a really powerful teaching tool for language. But, one of, another really important thing that you've brought up here is the power of visuals for the culture of your classroom. The power of visuals for the culture of your workplace environment and for communication partners because when you have that permanent product, like you said, you know, you have a sub coming in or you have a new aid or there are [00:29:00] other kids in the classroom that might, you know, really benefit from this kind of approach. You've, you're, you're tying it all together with this visual. I just, I just love that suggestion. I love it.  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Yeah, and we've used it in general education classrooms as well. So we have our students who are being pushed into their same age peers, seventh grade social studies, seventh grade math, things like that. And we recently had students, um, in those levels, um, the general education students fill out a survey telling us about the words they're using. Um, because again, we, the, that word, you know, uh, whatever really comes from what we're hearing other seventh grade students saying. Um, and it also seemed to be the most, uh, kosher, I guess, you know, we could use that word, um, but, you know, when we're thinking about it, we wanted to make sure that we're thinking about, okay, these are the words that other seventh grade students are using. That doesn't automatically mean those are the words that are seventh grade. Students should use, but we want them to know about them. So after we had the general ed students fill out the [00:30:00] survey about, you know, what are the words you can't live without? Or when you're turning on your iPhone, what's the first app you're going into? Um, trying to get a survey about what, you know, we're, we're old, we're, we don't know what's happening, . Um, so when we got that feedback, we went through and we said, okay, here's some slang words that you know, some of your peers are using. That's sick. Drip row, no cap. Yeah. That's what my son always says. I don't even know what it  Kate Grandbois:  means. Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Exactly. We did have to do some looking up to understand what some of these words meant, but once we got them, we did some of those explicit vocabulary routines to teach them what the words meant, and then they got to decide, yes, I like that word. I should add it to my device. No, I don't like that word because. Who knows what it means or I'm never going to use it. I'm not, I don't want that in my device. And we showed it to the peers. We said, thanks so much for filling this out. Look what we did with it. And now it's another like, uh, socialization, social communication opportunity for our students to connect with their same age peers. Amy Wonkka:  Love it.  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  And so that jumps [00:31:00] into, you know, thinking about phrasing phrases that we're teaching and programming. We're really shifting to including our students in that opportunity. So as we're learning those new phrases for self advocacy, right, we're balancing having students be able to use words to make their own. You know, snug, spontaneous novel utterance generation, being able to say exactly what they want to say, but sometimes self advocacy has to happen really fast, and so we also want to teach them that there's a fast way to use a phrase. Or I don't like that, or that's private information. We want to have that as a pre programmed phrase so that they can have the ability to say that quickly. Um, when there's like an urgency involved into the self, uh, self advocacy. Um, but again, you know, Historically, and I still have them, you know, we have a lot of sheets around the classrooms of aides and teachers writing down programming needs, but we're also including our students in that we want them to tell us what they want added to their device. So almost all of them have buttons that say, [00:32:00] add that word to my device in their chat words or quick, quick words folder. Um, in the case that, you know, we're in a classroom and they hear somebody say something, then we could add that in. So they're learning to advocate for that. But we'll do explicit teaching of that while we're learning new words. So in a unit around public and private information, when we're learning, that's private, or don't talk about me, or let's change the topic, we'll go through and say, which of these phrases do you want us to add to your device? And where? Um, a lot of them have a self advocacy quickfire. Folder page in their device where they can access it pretty quickly with the least amount of navigational demands. But sometimes they want it something in a different place. I've had students say, I want that under, something's wrong because they feel like maybe that it is a, something's wrong phrase when someone's talking about me, um, and so we give them the autonomy to think about that and that is where we program it and then aids know where it's living so that they can model as time goes on. Amy Wonkka:  I think it's really great because it's a good [00:33:00] example of how you're making these small changes in your environment that aren't impossible, don't feel super daunting, but are still sending that message about Both you and the student being equal partners, uh, in the communication exchange. Um, and I think it's also, it's, it's really great to think about similar to directing other people's behavior. Just thinking about if you're somebody who's using a high tech tool, you are likely going to continue using that high tech tool, at least in some capacity for many years to come. And so being able to take ownership and direct other people to make that tool the way that you need it to be is just such an important. Not only immediate self advocacy scale, but such an important, like, long term life skill. It's, it's really great.  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Yeah, absolutely. And I think that leads into, like, one more activity, but also kind of ties into the environment piece of thinking about communication planning tools. Again, historically, you'll often see speech therapists making them with a team, um, so [00:34:00] that, you know, you've heard communication passports, so communication passports has been historically something that, you know, speech therapists will make to share with a team or make with a team. Um, and it's a great. tool to have so that everybody knows how somebody communicates, what their communication strategies are, um, and how to support them as a communication aid. But we're starting to pull that back into using the, having the student be part of that team conversation, um, so that they can co plan or co construct some of the narrative around it. Thank you. Why they're communicating, how they're communicating, and how somebody can help them. We'll also shift that into, like, I need, I do, you can charts. So, you know, if we're thinking about, you know, in the summer, we go swimming. A high tech device doesn't really mesh with being in the swimming pool. So, what do you need when you're in an environment like this? that and we'll talk through some low tech options and why low tech is the better solution in that scenario, um, what that person [00:35:00] might do, that student might do when they need access to it. So what are their unaided communication strategies? I yell, I move my hands, I start shaking my head, um, and then what you can do as the communication partner, you can. Get my device. You can model some phrases for me. Um, and that's been really helpful because again, uh, summertime, especially you meet a lot of different communication partners, you see some lifeguards, some swim instructors, instructors, that's something that you can do and show to them, but it was co created by the student. They sort of signed off on what they want to be able to share with those partners who are reading those tools.  Kate Grandbois:  I just love the word co constructed. I think that's a great theme of almost everything you've said so far is just this underlying, um, just centering the student throughout every single decision that is made and not just in concept, but in participation. I just think it's so great.  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Yeah, and I, it's really, it goes [00:36:00] into then that environmental piece of working with the partners, the partners are part of it, they're not the ones who are thinking about what they think is important, it's sort of, um, you know, important to, important for conversations, um, is it important to the student or for them? And, and it's both, right? We know that communication tools are important for them, but what's important to them to share? Um, and so we want to make sure that that's being, um, included, um, in that con kind of conversation. Similarly, we're thinking about when I do, it means, so when I shake my head, that means no, that means I don't like it, right? They get to decide what they're trying to communicate in that moment. Um, and again, we're working with students with a variety of communication skills and a variety of communi So we're thinking about how we're presenting those choices to them. There might be a closed set of choices of, you know, if I'm shaking my head, here are three options of what I could be saying. But there's also always a way out of that. Um, usually it's a symbol for, I have [00:37:00] something different to say, or a symbol for their device that says, get my device, I have something different to say. Um, because again, we don't want to lead them to an answer, but we do want to work with the level of support that they need. Kate Grandbois:  So, throughout everything that you've mentioned, it sounds like not only is the student participating and being centered in, in each decision, but we've already talked about the importance of the environment, but we've danced around this very important role of communication partners and communication partner training. And I wonder if you could, just in our last section of the episode, just talk to us about The role of the communication partner, how important it is and how we might refocus our lens to train communication partners.  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Yeah, absolutely. We, um, use and, uh, the teacher I work with coined this, this phrase of communication ally. We really shift to, from partner to ally. Um, she'll often say things like, be the microphone, not the actual speaker. Um, right? We want to make our [00:38:00] students voices louder so that everybody's hearing them but not do the speaking for them. And so this idea of communication ally looks at more of like this partnership and this companionship as opposed to like a helper or someone who's there to guide you to what you should be doing. And so when we thought about self advocacy at the beginning, we really said that we know we can teach content and skills. But in order for it to stick and to generalize and to be understood at an even higher level, we need those things around the student to change too. Um, and so we also know that with the varying levels of communication strategies in a complex communicator, that there is a large need for interpretation of what students are saying or trying to say. And that could be really risky because you want to be able to interpret. So that you can understand and attach meaning, but you don't want to cause harm by [00:39:00] interpreting it in the wrong way. So we really need to support communication partners and feeling, um, confident and having a really strong set of tools in their toolbox so that they can follow through on these skills with fidelity. Um, and it, it means that there's a lot of time that is needed. for this training that I will say in those schools, you don't always have. And so when we thought about running this group, we really thought about doing it with all of our aides. It's not a break time for the classroom. It's for everybody to be part of the group so that we are. So it's not just doing the content teaching for students, but it's really also content teaching for staff, and then providing some of these opportunities that are more hands on and practice in a safe space, so when they go out into the larger setting of the school or in the community, they're carrying the skills with them.  Amy Wonkka:  I love that. I think that, you know, you, you make such a good point in terms of, you know, the interpretation [00:40:00] piece is not necessarily easy. And even if you're someone who's been working with a student for a long time, there's a lot of, um, risk, like you said, in. Potentially misinterpreting or putting words in their mouth. And that, you know, also isn't what we want to be doing. We don't want to be telling the student what their message is, um, and, and interpreting it incorrectly. Um, so I think the, the scaffolding and the support that you talked about providing to the communication allies, um, I also really like that term is, is really a helpful, like sort of emotional piece underneath it. Um, in terms of the skills, when you're Doing your self advocacy groups, and that's a, sounds like it's a great opportunity, like you said, to teach the skills to the student, but also the partners. How explicit do you get with supporting the partners in that environment, where you're sort of doing that skills instruction? What does that look like?  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Yeah, [00:41:00] we usually are pretty explicit, right? We want to know exactly, um, what we're teaching our students and what exactly we're trying to teach the staff and we want them to know on the receiving end as well. Um, and so we'll use a lot of repetitive skills, I would say that really are just going to help with all communication. So we're really emphasizing. presentation skills. What does it mean to be partner assisted scanning? Um, to just be the scanner, not the questioner. Um, we're really thinking about what is wait time and how do we do that and start to feel comfortable with it. So we'll do a lot of explicit coaching of I'm going to ask a question and I'm going to wait silently for 10 seconds. And then based on that time, I'm going to do this because I'm noticing this. Um, so a lot of that, like, uh, self talk and self modeling, um, during the opportunity to practice. Um, we're also just recognizing then, like, some of those higher level skills of thinking about different response strategies and variation of response. [00:42:00] Um, I talked a little bit earlier about verbal referencing, um, thinking about being able to say what we see to attach meaning to that for the student, but we're really also teaching the power of maybe. Right? Again, we're doing interpreting in that scenario, but we want to be cautious about telling a student that that's what they are doing. So instead of saying, I'm noticing you're, um, you're laughing during this comment, you might think that what your student or your classmate just said is funny. Um, we might be saying things like, maybe you think they're funny, or maybe you thought that was a good joke, or maybe you just liked it. Um, but maybe you're thinking about something else. Right. We don't know. Um, so rather than saying you think it's funny, we're changing that to maybe you think it's funny. Um, so that we're not telling the students exactly how they feel. Um, and we're thinking about, like, again, going back to some of those general strategies, least to most prompting, um, but one that has been really nice, um, this is from somebody who put out in a thesis, [00:43:00] um, and it's in print, um, but it's called SNAP, um, and it stands for Stop Stop. Notify, await, acknowledge, and proceed, and it really does a nice job of encompassing, like, a lot of different partner, um, strategies that are out there, um, but it's, we've been using it a lot for making sure that there's autonomy for our students as well. even on the things that are scheduled. So we talked about schedules earlier, but for example, a lot of our students receive g tube feeds, uh, medication. Um, they need to, they hear the bell ring, they need to go to their next class. These are things that we know have to happen, but we can still go through the snap process by letting them know what's happening. So we're stopping and notifying. Um, we're waiting to see if they respond. So that might be unconventional strategies, like Looking up and making eye contact, um, it might be looking away and shaking your head no, right, to indicate you're not ready, um, it may be using symbolic communication that's a little bit more clear, [00:44:00] like, okay, thanks for telling me, right, um, and then once you get that acknowledgement from the student, whether you're ready to do it or not, then you can proceed, um, but what has been a shift on that is when What happens when a student says no, what happens when they're like, no, I'm not ready for that YouTube feed or I don't want to go to social studies today. And so we've been allowing teaching and providing tools for these communication allies to be able to say, okay, I'm going to set a two minute timer and then I can come back. And then we will unfortunately have to do that feed because it has to happen within this window, but I'm okay waiting a few minutes or okay, I'll go let your social studies teacher know that you're going to be a little late today. Come back. Make sure you have what you need. And then we can go to class. Um, if it's something that's optional. You know, sometimes they have allied arts classes or things that they're just not feeling that day, we can say, okay, let's look at a different part of your schedule that we can do right now. That might help you get back to the schedule for your day. [00:45:00] Um, but that's a shift, that's a big change for teachers and staff to feel comfortable with just because it seems like they're deviating from that expectation that they should be following.  Kate Grandbois:  I was just about to say this is a really important nuanced shift because, and I think it touches on something you mentioned earlier, which is just, you know, as the professional in the classroom who might be focused on student rights and self advocacy, working with an aid or working with a teacher or working with another individual in the classroom who is maybe new to this concept or reframing things for the first time, I can only imagine when they are Encounter an activity that is mandatory, like social studies or, you know, a J tube feed for nutrition. You know, these are really important things. And I think this is, I guess, maybe just a cultural thing of this note. Well, sorry, too bad. You got to go. You know, that's kind of how we treat children in general. Um, but making space for some [00:46:00] flexibility, creating, seeing it as a learning opportunity for those self advocacy sales and that wiggle room. So important. So nuanced, and I have to imagine that this is going to intersect with the relationships that you have with the other people in the classroom, the professional culture that you're in, in your workplace in general, um, the groundwork that you've put in with these other professionals in terms of Explaining the importance of these things, taking the time to, I don't know, Amy and I have talked about this on the podcast a lot before, just creating a nice professional relationship of kindness so that when you remind them, Hey, you know, they did, they did say that they didn't want to go. Would you mind just shifting your perspective? It's not perceived as harsh criticism or direction. You know, you have that nice collaborative relationship to begin with. It's just so important.  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Yeah, and, and like you said, the foundation had to be built, right? This didn't happen overnight. The first time it happened, it was like, wait, what, what do you mean I [00:47:00] have to wait to give a g tube feed? That's my job. I'm the classroom nurse. Um, and that's, they're right. That is their job. They have an order. They need to do it. Um, and so that's like opening up that conversation of, okay, let's talk about it. Is there any flexibility? What is this window where it has to happen? Um, we know you have other kids that you need to feed or give meds to, like really, truly, what is our window here? We want to be realistic about it, but if there is a window. We want to be able to honor that piece. Um, and I think once we had some of those collaborative conversations, the foundation just got stronger to be able to do that. And a lot of this, the snap, this stop, notify, wait, acknowledge, proceed. That's something that carries and goes through so many different advocacy skills, but it was taught in our like, ask me first unit, right? Rather than just. moving my chair, or moving my body, or bringing me to the next part of my schedule, or putting me in a place that I'm not really sure about, make sure you're asking me. Um, and it's as little as simple things like, do you want to [00:48:00] read this book right now during your choice time, up into the big things of, do you want to go to this class? Um, or do you want your G tube feed right now? But we felt like it was important to make sure that we taught the skills to the staff and taught them why. Right? Um, as well as then give the skills to our students who now love to remind us to ask me first, um, constantly. And, and we call it out when it happens too, right? Um, as a speech therapist, I'm doing programming on devices. Sometimes I'm removing a device and I, I forgot to ask first. And so, you know, we acknowledge, oh man, you're right. I forgot to ask you first. Let's go back and do this because that modeling from me as that person who is a leader in the classroom, Also helps the aides who are learning this to realize I'm not just setting an expectation for them. It's really just a whole classroom, um, expectation. And then thinking about other activities too, right? These are all practiced in role play scenarios. So, again, I feel silly. We're asking people to be on the spot. Um, But it is really important for [00:49:00] staff to practice this in a safe space before they go do it in a more, I guess, uncontrolled space, right? When they're in larger community settings, there's a lot of more unpredictability around what's going to happen. Um, and so now that we do it regularly, I would say that people are more engaged with it. Um, but we'll have, you know, a role play where we go back to those co constructed scripts. So we might set a scenario, um, where we say, okay, um, you're in class and you hear somebody say to your teacher, Oh, why are they using that device? Or what's that thing hanging out of their belly? Um, and we want to think, okay, what are you going to say? And so we have the teacher kind of act it out, the teacher aid act out that scenario and the student thinks about some of their self advocacy phrases that they learned that they could say, and then they come up and practice it in front of the class. We'll sometimes tie that into a you be the judge activity where they. purposefully choose maybe something that we wouldn't expect to happen or that we [00:50:00] wouldn't want to happen, um, for thinking back to those explicit instruction routines of examples and non examples so that they're not always practicing it the perfect way. They're also practicing it when it might happen. Um, and sometimes it's also like a more of a communication ally focus thing, right? Like what if, um, somebody comes up to you and speaks to you in a baby voice? What would you do, um, as a communication ally, how would you be the microphone for that student to really amplify, um, what they are trying to communicate? If their face is grimacing because they don't really like it, rather than speaking for them as the communication ally, what kind of strategy could you use? to help that person understand why maybe that's not working for the student. Um, and so a lot of these activities allow it to be a safe space to practice, um, and to think about, okay, when I, I experience this now in the real world, I'll have a better, um, idea of how to respond. Kate Grandbois:  I'm wondering if you have any suggestions for any professionals who are listening [00:51:00] who are really inspired by everything that you're saying, but also looking at their current work environment, their current classroom, their current collaborators feeling a little overwhelmed or realizing how much work there actually is to do to shift this balance and work on some of these nuanced perspective shifts. What would be, do you have any suggestions for just a good place to start?  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Yeah, I would start by thinking about your environment and thinking about what you're noticing and seeing happening around you and what would be one thing you might want to change, whether it's small or big, starting with one explicit area, and maybe thinking about Tying it back to that content piece of the Communication Bill of Rights, which right may or may not be violated, um, which area should you do more education around for students and staff so that there is this, uh, this foundation set of why we're doing this. I think when our staff really understood why we [00:52:00] were doing this. It's not just to be those annoying professionals who are trying to embark on a change journey, um, but that, oh, wow, this thing really exists and it says this and it's a human right. And now I understand why we're doing it. Um, and then once you learn about it. and have the skills to do it. A lot of it is confidence building. Um, and so something too that we do that's pretty simple is we do self advocacy shout outs. Um, at the start of every self advocacy group, we have a little jar that we can add post its to during the week of like noticing when somebody is doing a really great. Job self advocating, whether it's a student, but oftentimes it's staff that we're writing down exactly what staff did. Um, and then we're calling it out, um, at the start of group and applauding really their, their change, um, their action that had a better benefit. then maybe doing the alternative prior to self advocacy group. Um, so, you know, you'll see things like, oh, uh, Ms. So and so did a really nice job asking first [00:53:00] before she went and took the student to the bathroom, or, um, the student did a nice job saying, don't talk about me when they heard somebody talking about them in social studies. Um, so it's student and staff alike, and I think it's built a really nice camaraderie because now staff are writing about each other, um, positive things, obviously, um, but they're trying to reward and really call out that positivity. And I think that helps with the culture piece and is also helped with the, the confidence piece and the overwhelmingness, right? We're noticing when people are doing things and we want to tell them about it.  Amy Wonkka:  Yeah, I think that's super, um, That's a, that's a super helpful example and something that feels actionable and like you could start it and do it and, and move forward from there. I know I had a question just about some of your actual units that you teach in your group. So I know one of the units you referenced was ask me first, are there any other kind of core units that might be a [00:54:00] good starting point? For people who might be listening and feeling very excited about wanting to go back and do this. Are there other units similar to Ask Me First that might be a good starting point?  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Yeah, so we've done Ask Me First, which again was wonderful for just like being able to say yes or no to things. Um, but we're also this summer doing, we're actually going back to do it again. We have some new students coming in. We're doing a whole unit on preferences and choice making. And choice making being beyond just saying what book you want to read or what song you want to do, but meaningful choices that happen during the day. Um, and so, you know, we have. Students to prepare. We had our older students, um, take pictures of the choices they make during their day. So we did a predictable chart of I can make choices about and they wrote down things that they make choices about during their day, like, um, where they want to sit. During independent work time, what fidget or sensory tool they need access to, which teachers they want to work with during individual work time, and then they went to those meaningful [00:55:00] places, took the picture with the tool, and now they've made a book to introduce to the new students who are coming in this summer, um, and that will go into teaching the word. preference. Um, this idea of being able to make a choice or say what you want is sort of our core word definition. It will go into the different types of choices that we can make, and then how we make choices, like the communication tools that we use to make choices, and then what staff should do when there are choices to be made, um, and what staff should do to provide more opportunities for choice making during the day. Um, we also this year did a big unit on respect, um, to talk about how people talk to us, um, what kind of information. So this tied in public and private information, um, and how that addresses respect and dignity. Um, and it also tied in, um, thinking about, like, how people communicate with us too. tone of voice, um, and being able to think about baby voices or talking to us in a respectful tone, especially at that middle school [00:56:00] level. Um, it went into body autonomy, not touching just because I'm in a chair. You shouldn't touch my chair. That's actually an extension of me. Um, and Even devices, right? I gave an example earlier about ask me first before you take a device to program. Um, so all of those pieces were tied in, um, and we ended that with like an acceptance unit, um, doing a little bit of disability awareness, watching videos of other AAC users. I believe this was during April when we had like Neurodiversity Awareness Month and Autism Acceptance Month. And so they ended the unit by co constructing a script, uh, a narrative around what acceptance means to them. Um, and so we had a narrative that we heard somebody say, we took and filled in some blanks and they use some of their vocabulary to fill in those blanks or their devices. to create this their own narrative around acceptance, which was nice. We try to end all the units with like a very permanent product or something that kind of ties it all together. So again, there's meaning to what we did. [00:57:00] Um, so like for summer that I just Talk about for preferences and choice making. They're going to be working towards making sure choice making boards are available in the classroom or tools are available in spots that you often make choices, um, and get to practice those and have a say of where they go, um, to again, get their classroom ready for the traditional school year. Amy Wonkka:  I love that. I was hoping you could talk to us just a little bit. You did at the end. But just for people listening, when you're talking about your units that you're running with your students, this is not like a, like a one, we did one 50 minute block and then it's done and we move on to another unit. This is something that's stretching multiple weeks, right?  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Yes, this is, um, I'll, uh, thank the teacher that I work with on this who has the organizational skills of what a really nice lesson plan looks like, not that we're not lesson planners or speech therapists, but I think this goes into the more academic level. We usually try to complete those when we're thinking about the unit. We've identified either the problem or the thing we want our students to do, [00:58:00] and then we name that unit. Um, we'll identify what vocabulary words that, that tier two or tier three level, um, what words we're targeting, and then think about our core word definition so that it's consistent across all weeks. Um, we'll jump into the different activities that we want to do to explicitly teach the vocabulary, have them practice the vocabulary, do more of those hands on activities. We're also thinking about the goal for this. The communication allies. What do we want them to leave the unit with? Um, and then usually we're trying to identify some type of permanent product, which sometimes is a little bit more concrete than others. Um, so like I said, that acceptance narrative at the end that they got to videotape and send home to families. Um, maybe it's a communication passport that they're figuring out to share with, um, you know, other communication partners. And sometimes it's a little bit more abstract, like getting the environment ready for the next school year. Um, but that kind of gives us a flow so that we are typically doing a unit anywhere from four to nine weeks, right? It might be a [00:59:00] whole quarter. Respect was a large majority of the year because there were so many different areas that we can go into. We're also tying it into the Communication Bill of Rights that kind of fits into that unit. Um, we have a dictionary of the Communication Bill of Rights. that has all of the pictures representing the rights. Um, we use a lot of Boardmaker symbols, but we've identified which, uh, PCS Boardmaker symbol to represent that right, what core words are used to define the more abstract right or the abstract definition, and then this can get referenced as well. So we try to have some continuity and things that are set up in advance, but there's a lot of planning unit to unit too.  Kate Grandbois:  Everything that you've just described is so robust and well thought out and planned. I, I am very inspired. I don't even have a classroom to go to, but I, I just feel like. This is a really critically important and I have to assume somewhat overlooked and missing piece of curriculum. Um, [01:00:00] particularly when it comes to the nuance of some of this and the staff relationships. I wonder if in our last couple of minutes you have any final parting words of wisdom or, you know, action steps that we haven't gone over that you want to share with our audience.  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  Yeah, I think I would be to highlight sort of what Amy brought up around if you're overwhelmed and you don't know where to start, what should you do? Um, and I think it's really to just do an environmental observation. Think about what you're noticing in the spaces that your students are spending the most time in. in, and is there this tangible change that you're looking for? Is there something that you think you're doing, but it's not working or it's not generalizing? And start from there. And really thinking about self advocacy with that self determination lens. Thinking about how to teach the student to act on it because they understand themselves and their desires and their motivation. And trying to empower them to [01:01:00] learn this skill, um, is definitely going to be, I think, your key in, um, and also recognizing that doing change is hard and it doesn't happen overnight. I'm talking through a lens of we've done this now for two full school years, and we still have areas where we're like, we could make this better, we can make a lot of change in this area. Um, and so it doesn't happen overnight and it's hard. It's not instant gratification, but I will say thinking back to two years ago before we did this, it's hard to even imagine because our students didn't have some of these skills or they weren't even being highlighted. And I think again, going back to the school setting, training partners is hard, mostly from those time restraints as a barrier. So thinking about a way to make that inclusive into some of the student teaching will help maybe going back to that original overwhelm.  Kate Grandbois:  Thank you so much for sharing all of this. This was so eye opening, so inspiring, really [01:02:00] just a wonderful in depth insight into the quality of this work and how it could be done. You've given us so many action steps, so many ideas. We really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being here with us today. Of  Amanda Scheriff Hobson:  course. I'm so happy to be here and share just a little insight into what we're doing. Thank you so much.  Kate Grandbois:  Thank you so much for joining us in today's episode, as always, you can use this episode for ASHA CEUs. You can also potentially use this episode for other credits, depending on the regulations of your governing body. To determine if this episode will count towards professional development in your area of study. Please check in with your governing bodies or you can go to our website, www.slpnerdcast.com all of the references and information listed throughout the course of the episode will be listed in the show notes. And as always, if you have any questions, please email us at info@slpnerdcast.com thank you so much for joining us and we hope to welcome you back here again soon. .

This transcript is made available as a course accommodation for and is supplementary to this episode / course. This transcript is not intended to be used in place of the podcast episode with the exception of course accommodation. Please note: This transcript was created by robots. We do our best to proof read but there is always a chance we miss something. Find a typo? Email us anytime . [00:00:00]   Intro Kate Grandbois:  Welcome to SLP nerd cast your favorite professional resource for evidence based practice in speech, language pathology. I'm Kate grant wa and I'm Amy  Amy Wonkka:  Wonka. We are both speech, language pathologists working in the field and co-founders of SLP nerd cast. Each  Kate Grandbois:  episode of this podcast is a course offered for ashes EU. Our podcast audio courses are here to help you level up your knowledge and earn those professional development hours that you need. This course. Plus the corresponding short post test is equal to one certificate of attendance to earn CEUs today and take the post test. After this session, follow the link provided in the show notes or head to SLP ncast.com . Amy Wonkka:  Before we get started one quick, disclaimer, our courses are not meant to replace clinical. We do not endorse products, procedures, or other services mentioned by our guests, unless otherwise  Kate Grandbois:  specified. We hope you enjoy  Announcer:  the course. Are you an SLP related [00:01:00] professional? The SLP nerd cast unlimited subscription gives members access to over 100 courses, offered for ashes, EU, and certificates of attendance. With SLP nerd cast membership, you can earn unlimited EU all year at any time. SLP nerd cast courses are unique evidence based with a focus on information that is useful. When you join SLP nerd cast as a member, you'll have access to the best online platform for continuing education and speech and language pathology. Join as a member today and save 10% using code nerd caster 10. A link for membership is in the show notes EpisodeSponsor 1 Kate Grandbois:  Hello, everyone. Welcome to SLP Nerdcast. We are here today welcoming a guest that we've had on the show multiple times before, but we were, before we hit the record button, kind of flabbergasted by the fact that we haven't seen you since 2001. [00:02:00] No, no. That was way too long ago. We haven't seen you since 2021, which was years and years ago. Uh, we're very excited to welcome you back to the show. We are here with Dr. Trina Spencer to talk about narrative language intervention and AAC, which is a topic we don't get to talk much about. Welcome back to the Nerdcast. Oh, thank you so much. Nice to be here.  Amy Wonkka:  Yeah, it's you guys. It's really nice to see you. I'm glad we got in the time machine and got to see one another again. Um, no, it's good. Time does fly. The older you get, the faster time goes. That's a real thing. I swear. Um, Trina, you're here to discuss this time, um, to discuss AAC and story champs. But before we get started, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself? Trina Spencer:  Yeah, sure. Um, I don't know. Currently, I'm the director of Juniper Gardens Children's Project, which is a 60 year old [00:03:00] community based, community engaged research center as part of University of Kansas and Like, I'm really proud to be affiliated with Juniper Gardens Children's Project because in the 90s when I was just a, uh, you know, like a hopeful researcher, I read a lot of cool stuff out of here, and now I'm here. It's like, really, really amazing. Um, yeah. And that's what I do now. I am, let's say, originally, I was trained as a behavior analyst. Um, I am also a school psychologist, and I worked as a preschool teacher and a special education teacher. And when I was done doing all those things, I decided to study language. And yeah, that's language and communication. And I don't know, I, I consider myself an intervention scientist and an intervention designer. So like I design interventions and I, and of course I have to develop a lot of assessment [00:04:00] tools when you're doing that kind of work because oftentimes you develop things in spaces where there's no good assessment tools. So I do those things too.  Kate Grandbois:  One of the things I love about your background is that you bring so many different perspectives and expertise to the work that you do, having experience as a school psychologist, a classroom teacher. a researcher, a behavior analyst. You've also, a lot of the other episodes you've done with us, um, were with Dr. Doug Peterson, who is a speech pathologist, researcher, and the two of you have collaborated across multiple, um, projects producing the cubed assessment, the pearl assessment, Uh, let's see a story chance, which is the non AEC version of what we're going to talk about today. So I'm very excited to kind of unpack all of this with you from your many, many lenses and areas of expertise, which is really exciting. Before we get into the really fun stuff, we do need to read aloud our learning objectives and disclosures. I will try to get through that as quickly as I can. [00:05:00] Learning objective number one, describe the benefits of narrative intervention for AAC users. And learning objective number two, describe the active ingredients of story champs that leads to generative repertoires. Disclosures. Dr. Trina Spencer's financial disclosures. Trina is the author of Story Champs AAC and is entitled to financial benefits related to its sale. Trina is also the director of the Juniper Gardens Children's Project at the University of Kansas. Trina has no non financial relationships to disclose. Kate, that's me. I am the owner and founder of Grand Voie Therapy and Consulting LLC and co founder of SLP Nerdcast. My non financial disclosures, I'm a member of ASHA SIG 12 and serve on the AAC Advisory Group for Massachusetts Advocates for Children. I'm also a member of the Berkshire Association for Behavior Analysis and Therapy. Amy Wonkka:  Amy, that's me. My financial disclosures are that I am an employee of a public school system and co founder of SLP Nerdcast, and my non [00:06:00] financial disclosures are that I'm a member of ASHA, Special Interest Group 12, which is AAC, um, and I participate in the AAC advisory group for Massachusetts Advocates for Children. All right. Now, Trina, before we hit record, we were talking a little bit about AAC and how, you know, we've had, I mean, Kate and I both work as quote unquote AAC specialists. Uh, we've had a number of episodes in this podcast and we talk, I feel like we've focused a lot on kind of earlier communicators or like those early communication skills in AAC. So I'm super excited to talk more about narrative intervention. Um, You just tell us a little bit about that first learning objective. What, what are the components of narrative intervention? Why is it so important? All of those good bits.  Trina Spencer:  All right. I've, I should first say I am not an AAC expert. Okay. You guys are the experts, right? I'm an instructional designer who designs with colleagues and partners and community people who tell me what they need and want. Right. Okay. [00:07:00] So, but that way I'm going to tell you a narrative intervention. Is, I mean, it's been defined differently in the, in the research, but, um, in 2021, Doug and I published a paper, Narrative Intervention Principles to Practice, and we kind of just like, okay, this is how we're going to define it because it was kind of getting out of control, like people defining it however they wanted to. So the way we defined it was the, the active ingredient or the definitional feature was the use of storytelling. As the key teaching procedure, so storytelling, so the children or the recipients of the therapy, of the intervention, the instruction are either telling or retelling stories. And they can do that using speech, gestures, AAC, written, you know, spoken, all sorts of modalities. But there are some form of storytelling and retelling as the key. Active ingredient. So that's a narrative [00:08:00] intervention. Um, now there are other kinds of interventions that use narratives as the base for teaching language and those are closely related. It just depends on whether or not they're actually doing some sort of active storytelling within the intervention or not. Um,  Kate Grandbois:  and I have to assume that working on narrative intervention is important for language development. I mean, this is a dumb question. I know the answer to this question, but I'm asking it anyway because I'm halfway through and I'm going to double down. Working on narrative intervention is important for all language learners. I know we're here talking about AAC, but to kind of Set the, set the stage and talk about, can you tell us a little bit about why this is important for all language learners? Yes.  Trina Spencer:  Okay. It's okay that we talk a little bit about verbal behavior, right?  Kate Grandbois:  I don't think I'm gonna get a rash. Amy, are you gonna get a rash if we talk about verbal behavior? Amy Wonkka:  I am a rashy person, but I have a cream for that.[00:09:00]  Kate Grandbois:  This is so good. It's gonna be so good. Science and humor, right? This is why we're  Trina Spencer:  here. And why not? Exactly, exactly. So I guess I, I can answer that question because I understand that there are kind of like, there's a spectrum of complexity of skills, right? In, in terms of communication and language. And oftentimes when we're like SLPs or in communication therapies of some sort, we're looking at things at the level of a word or an utterance. Right? But narratives are discourse level. And, and so, when you're doing things at a word level, you can do something like, I'm making a request. Right? Or I make, I'm labeling this item. Okay, I'm expressively identifying it. Um, you can also answer WH questions. Those are like common early language and early communication kind of things. But you often don't get [00:10:00] spontaneous. Fully generative, meaning like not practiced, but they are able to combine and recombine things that they've learned at the word and utterance level into a larger sentence or discourse level, right? So it's like a higher order in terms of the size of the unit, a narrative or a story. Right, that requires, at the discourse level, you require sentences, and sentences have utterances or clauses, and utterances and clauses have words, and words have morphemes, or, you know, components, um. So, in doing narrative intervention, you get all this other stuff. Do you see that's like nested communication within that and with you, if you can, if you can work at that fire level, you actually get a lot of that other stuff for free. So it's not like you have to start with the word and build another word into it and build a, a, a, An increased MLU [00:11:00] before you can do a sentence, before you can do a story. Now, to some degree, there's some logic in that, but it's not always necessary. And so I am always, after. As an instructional designer, I would say I'm always after the most efficient means of producing functional, like not, not, I'm gonna say that word again. I'm gonna use a different word. 'cause that has many, many means, like purposeful, meaningful, generative communication. Right, not something that's been rote memorized, not something that's been like trained over and over, like what's the answer to this question, right? That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how do we get real generative language and communication. And the narrative, because of its higher order size, the unit of that analysis, you get a lot of stuff for free.  Kate Grandbois:  Well, with that as a backdrop, I'm already looking back at my own clinical decisions with regret, that, you know, narratives. Possibly should have been a larger target in even my more emergent [00:12:00] communicators. Um, I have, I would love to hear how we're connecting this to fundamentals for why narrative intervention for AAC users is a specific area of need. Yeah.  Trina Spencer:  Okay. So kind of with that same theme, um, when I, okay, there's, there's a lot of starts to this story, so I'm just going to plug in at different places. All right. But in this one, when I would look at the AAC literature, so often they're talking about like vocabulary and I would go, yeah, but vocabulary for what? Like, like, do they know this word when they need to request it or do they need it to label a preferred item? Um, Or a person or to to ask a question or for social interaction for protest and you see what I mean all of a sudden you go of word or a symbol that doesn't mean that they know how to use it for all of the the Functional, um, you know, [00:13:00] verbal purposes, the communicative functions, right? And so, and oftentimes, the literature wouldn't really explain very carefully what function they were actually teaching. And in fact, they are always teaching a particular purpose or communicative function. They just don't describe it that way. And so, oftentimes, you can't pull them apart. Okay, so we, we would say that these communicative functions, speaking to an SLP audience, are actually functionally independent. Meaning if you teach somebody to label something, they don't automatically request that thing when they want it. Or if you're, if you're teaching requests, they don't automatically then be able to like, label it or answer a question about it. You have to actually teach them. somewhat separately. Now, our typical language learners are going to cross those communicative functions quite easily. They generalize quickly. Um, they don't need much kind of, um, programming to be able to make that, those, uh, cross between those communicative functions. [00:14:00] But in AAC, we're talking about children who have much more complex communication needs and maybe have more difficulty generalizing, especially because it's so pictorial based. Or iconic base, like it's not as, um, they're symbolic, but you don't have the same variety as you might in a, in a word or an utterance or whatnot. So you get kind of like, I don't know, what am I trying to say guys? I'm trying to say something that it's like a  Kate Grandbois:  more more discreet.  Trina Spencer:  Yeah, so often it is and we start really simple You know, and I'm not saying that Starting simple is bad, you know, like there is like pre symbolic, you know phases symbolic phases and whatnot but even one of the surprises that came up is that We thought that the StoryChamps AAC would be for kids who were already proficient with their devices in these other [00:15:00] communicative functions. We actually did not find that to be true. As a matter of fact, the kids who learned the most were the ones who had least proficiency with their devices. So that puts you thinking, Oh my gosh, it's not just for those people who are already proficient in their AAC, right? And then you think, what else can you do with this? So what, what stories don't do is teach requesting, but the majority of the research, something like 60 to 80 percent of the AAC interventions reported in, um, In research are to teach requesting  Amy Wonkka:  and and not to minimize the importance of requesting right like I we all want to get what we want when we want it as much as possible, right? And like, that is an important piece. But I do, you know, as you were speaking, I was just thinking about how Often narrative comes into play with those more social exchanges with [00:16:00] people, right? I mean, just thinking about, we hadn't seen one, we got on the zoom call, we haven't seen each other for years. And what are we doing? We're sharing personal stories. It's been a  Kate Grandbois:  really long time,  Amy Wonkka:  so long stories  Kate Grandbois:  to tell,  Amy Wonkka:  but we're all sharing, you know, these bits of like our personal narrative or other things that we've seen. So I think that this narrative piece also has a really Um, it's, it, there's like so much utility beyond just, you know, as somebody who's school based, I'm thinking about curriculum access. And yes, of course, that's important. And we're asking people to like read a narrative, retell a story and all of these other components that like tie in with the curriculum access. Uh, but it's also, there's such a huge social component there too.  Trina Spencer:  100%. And like, I also don't want to minimize requesting because if a child can't get their wants and needs met or an individual, not just a child, if they cannot get their wants and needs met. Like we should not be working on like, let's talk about some stuff, you know, like, we've got to get that but As soon [00:17:00] as the, the basic skill of like, hey, I do this to get something I want or need once that's established, oftentimes our, our AAC users aren't moved on because we go, I don't know what else to do. How do I link them to this social stuff? I want to build, I want this kid to be able to interact with their friends. I want them to be able to do, you know, like, uh, curriculum related content. The whole reason why I started in the narrative space was because of their utility, right? They're academically relevant. Narrative language abilities is one of the best predictors of academic achievement, especially around reading comprehension and writing, which is where Doug and I spend a lot of our time, right? Um, But they're also socially important. Like you said, we talk about stories all the time. Well, so, what's to stop us from using this incredibly meaningful, you know, academically relevant, socially important context for teaching [00:18:00] better, or teaching AAC use? Right.  Amy Wonkka:  So talk to us a little bit about, about story champs. Cause I think as, as some, I haven't used story champs, I'm excited to learn more about story champs. Um, one thing that I'm trying to conceptualize as you're talking to us right now is like, what, what do the activities look like? Like, what are we, are we working on personal narrative? Am I telling the student a story? Are we looking at a book together? Like what, what does, what, what components are involved in this intervention?  Trina Spencer:  Right. So, Doug and I have been working on StoryChamp's research for now, I think, 15, 16 years, and I'm going to say what it is today. I would say it is more than just a curriculum, just more than just an intervention. It's a whole approach, and it has three key ingredients. Okay. One is that we have carefully constructed stories. It is not storybook reading. And I love storybook reading. I'm not saying don't do that. I'm saying it is [00:19:00] not for, um, intensive effects of an intervention, right? It's like casual, low dose, low intensity kind of thing. You want real intervention, you got to construct the story. So our stories are carefully constructed. Number two, we use strategic visual materials. So that we can teach properly and get generalization independence. Um, and we do that through the fading of, the intentional fading of visual materials. So we have illustrations and icons that we use in all of our programs. So, and all StoryChamps has those kind of visual supports. And the third piece is very explicit. Um, teaching procedures that come from a very large research base and there are some teaching procedures that are really key and one of them is multiple exemplar training. So we've talked about this whole like generative repertoire just a little bit, but I want to talk more about it because especially with you, like, [00:20:00] uh, kiddos or individuals or clients that seem to have, you know, um, intellectual, Considerations and challenges with generalization. We often do a lot of rote teaching until they say exactly what we tell them to say in response to the stimulus that we taught them to respond to. And that is not generative, right? But we want to build a generative repertoire. We just don't know how to do that with such with learners with such complex needs and high support needs. Right? And so, um, if we approach it, not as like, Okay. Um, drill or like intent like you might see an intensive teaching session session. Um, you know, I'm a behavior analyst. So we we see a lot of discrete trial teaching. And that is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the opposite of that. All right. So I in when you're talking about communication and language, some other types of really strong teaching procedures are better suited and multiple exemplar training [00:21:00] requires that you have multiple examples involved. Of the construct you're trying to teach or the concept you're trying to teach and a single story is not the goal, right? We do not want kids to retell this story or to memorize this story. We want them to have the language to be able to retell or generate their own story. That they have never, like a story they've never heard before, generatively, right, putting words together that they may have heard, but in some sort of different sequence, in different things, or maybe using synonyms instead. It's about meaning, and it's about constructing something unique, spontaneous, and expressionable, not wrote. Right, and that really requires multiple exemplars of stories, right, and, and a controlled exemplars. That's the reason why we write the stories ourselves is because storybooks, they're great, but they don't have all the patterns that we're looking for. And by the way, patterns are a big thing too. [00:22:00] So I would argue, and people who hear me talk, I'm doing a lot of this, um, that we're actually teaching the patterns of language. And if we teach the patterns of language in Also, to our AAC users, we're going to get generative repertoires. But when you teach patterns, you can't repeat the same thing over and over again. Because otherwise, you're just teaching content. But if you teach patterns, and you do that through exposing them to multiple stories over time, And it to your question, sorry, I'm like rambling, but I'm getting getting there like in in every intervention session, a new story is presented and we practice retelling the story, but tomorrow or next week, you get a totally different story. So, the memory of that content is gone, but guess what stays. It's the patterns of the story and the patterns of the language used to tell that story. So I, I started with this like word, uh, word parts, words, utterances, sentences, and discourse because each one of those have patterns [00:23:00] and that is what grammar and syntax is. And that's also the reason why stories are, uh, stories at the discourse level are analyzed by story grammar. It's the rules. and um, rules and I don't know, organization of how to put the pieces together so that you can have a generative repertoire. That's what grammar does for you.  Kate Grandbois:  Okay, this, this all makes a lot of sense. This all makes, I feel like I'm, I've entered the stadium, I see the ballpark, I see the relationship between narrative intervention, why it's important for all language learners, all of the, everything you said about multiple exemplars, not teaching in a silo, right? Not teaching the, the rote scripts. We, we know this. We, we know that that's bad practice, it's not how you teach language. You mentioned earlier that. The research that you've done shows that individuals who don't have AAC proficiency are the [00:24:00] ones who are learning the most. What, tell me, tell us about this research. What does, so now that we know that this is really important theoretically, what does, what does the science so far tell us about this as an intervention strategy? Trina Spencer:  Well, I'm going to just clarify and caveat here that this wasn't our research question, but we didn't know what the inclusion criteria were because we hadn't, you know, we didn't have any experience with it. We assumed that the inclusion criteria to be able to do Story Champs AAC would be that they had, you know, like a tact repertoire, or they could label quite a bit, like that they could say, you know, cop, you know, book, whatever. We thought that that was a need. Uh, a prerequisite, would you mind you? Okay, but we had difficulties actually recruiting and, you know, in the chaos of all of, you know, moving and whatever. I'm building new community partnerships. And so we were like, okay, well, we got these 3 kiddos, but these 2  they only [00:25:00] know about 4. Preferred items on their and I can't even remember the lamp or, you know, some sort of anyway, it doesn't really matter. That's that's actually another question. Like, it doesn't matter what, what kind of device or system that they're using. Um, and. We were nervous , but the one kid that had pretty good, like he would, he was able to like request proficiently and was able to label like maybe 30 or 40 items using his device. It took him the longest to make progress and the other kids were like, Oh my gosh, it's a whole new world. They were just like super exposed to lots and lots of different symbols and the way to navigate their device in a very intensive. Supportive 30 minutes 30 minutes a day, and they only got 9 and 10 sessions something like that 9 to 12 sessions That's it. We saw generative growth quite rapidly with those [00:26:00] kids who didn't have like a large Proficiency with their AAC device before so now though in the next research that's become a research question. What is Like what exactly, we need to unpack this a lot more, like what are these predictor variables, like at baseline, do any of these variables at baseline predict their growth in the intervention, right? That's a research question we don't have the answer to. But we were surprised that amongst these three kids, that didn't seem to be the, the case. That we hypothesized.  Kate Grandbois:  Tell us a little bit about what this intervention looks like. Is it parallel exactly to StoryChamps without the AAC piece? Is it, for those, if anyone's listening and they're familiar with StoryChamps, but not yet familiar with StoryChamps AAC, or maybe someone's listening and they have an AAC user and they're excited to try this approach, like me. Thinking back to all of the mistakes that I've made, that's what happens every single time I get [00:27:00] in, get in these recordings, is I learn all the things I've done terribly. What, what does this look like? What are some of the things that happen in an intervention session?  Trina Spencer:  Okay, so StoryChamps AAC is the same as StoryChamps, and that was three key ingredients. Carefully crafted stories, Right? Engaging visual materials and explicit teaching procedures. Very intentional. How they're different is the stories are crafted and simplified specifically for AAC symbols. Now, it, it, I don't think it can accommodate, and it doesn't accommodate everybody, right, and all AAC users, but let's say school aged children, okay, who use AAC, so we crafted stories, and we crafted them slightly differently, we, these stories have, like, the five main elements, they have a character, like, a setting, which kind of goes with the character, um, a problem, a feeling, an action, and an ending, You know, some sort of resolution. Um, so it has those basic story grammar, but the [00:28:00] sentences themselves are not super complex like we would have in StoryChamps, and some of the versions of the stories are really like complex sentences with multiple subordinate clauses. These don't have that because in an AAC, when we're talking about these emerging AAC users, they're using simple sentences. Okay, like maybe two or three, um, you know, symbols to say one thing. Um, okay, and each, what we did to create the stories is I reviewed several different software vocabulary lists and kind of put together a list that was very common. And I, I don't remember, 102, 108, I don't know, words. And I have a verb. Um, I have a noun, a verb, and an adjective, or a modifier, in every story. So, I clustered the words, wrote a story using those words. So, we, in the StoryChamps AAC, there is some vocabulary learning, [00:29:00] but what we're trying to do is expose them to the symbols on their device. That, if they don't have that particular one, then one that's very close, and it's easy to like swap out symbols and stuff like that. So, it's not a big deal if they don't have that exact thing. Um, So there is some intentionality around teaching this vocabulary, but we don't repeat that story so that they memorize that thing, right? The next session, they would get a new story and new set of words. So, in the Story Champs AAC, we only have two master lesson plans right now because that's all I think the research is telling us we can do, you know, I, I, I tread lightly, and the beauty of being involved with the, with commercialization is that I only can step two steps. Like, I can, I can gauge how far out of the research we can go. Um, and in this case, we have a, a lesson plan. It's very similar to the StoryChamp's regular lesson plans. And then we start with a retell. So the, [00:30:00] the steps are like this. We name the story grammar, sorry, name the story grammar parts. We display the illustrations that I forgot to mention. Sorry, let me go back to the illustrations. This is my, one of my favorite parts about the illustrations is the kids in our illustrations. Use AAC and have disabilities, and they're a very diverse group. So the representation is better. There's 36 stories too. Regular Story Champs has fewer. If you think about it, kids with high support needs, they actually need more exemplars, not fewer. And if you go fewer, they're going to likely repeat them or cycle around and then they're memorizing. So if listeners have used Story Champs, With kids with high support needs who are speakers. This is one of their complaints is that there's not enough stories  Amy Wonkka:  well You that sorry to interrupt you just really quickly though If you are like how firm are the boundaries if i'm somebody who has used story champs? Like the original story champs and I have a student who's not an AAC user But they're just a high [00:31:00] support needs learner and they need a lot of repetition and they use their oral speech like would it be appropriate for me to use some of the AAC materials with my Student who's using their oral speech instead of AAC? Trina Spencer:  The answer is yes, but I feel like I should like finish the answer to those other things and come back. Don't do it. I jumped in. I got hasty. I got hasty. It's okay. It's okay. I know you're going to remember the, the, the. I'll bring us back. The word is expansion pack. Okay. All right. I'll bring it  Announcer:  back.  Trina Spencer:  We're going to come back to that. Like, how do we expand regular story champs using the AAC stories? Okay. We'll come back to that. But in terms of like the, the, the way it's different. Yeah. Okay. So the stories are crafted differently. The illustrations feature, feature AAC users and the teaching procedures are actually drawn from the AAC intervention literature. Okay. And that's important because you teach AAC [00:32:00] communication slightly different. You know, the things that work are going to be different than what they do for speakers, and so that was a very important step, which is also the reason why it took me so long. I've actually been working on Story Champs AAC for probably, like, Seven years, seriously, seriously. Kate Grandbois:  That's impressive.  Trina Spencer:  I, uh, yeah, there's phases in how you like go through, like, you got to do like a research dive, you know what I mean? And when I first started this dive, there was so much debate about like core and fringe words. I was like, I cannot start a story unless I understand this. Right. And it required, it required a bit of, uh, time, you know, I don't know if you know this, but this was actually the reason why I went to South Africa. I applied to South Africa for my Fulbright scholarship to work at the Center for AAC. This is exactly the reason. It's because I was not getting enough time in my regular job in the U. S. to devote to [00:33:00] studying what needed to be done. I needed to dive into that research fully to understand what the teaching procedures were. You see, and I didn't, I had to clear my plate, so I went to South Africa and did that. I want to, I just want to point out, I had some really great, um, colleagues, um, in South Africa who were my AAC mentors, and I, you know, I was able to teach them a little bit more about those communicative functions and why it matters in terms of teaching stuff. So, great, and we actually have a systematic review on AAC interventions to teach commenting. Which is a precursor to this, right? I had to do that systematic review to find out, because commenting is a, is a precursor to storytelling.  Kate Grandbois:  That makes a lot of sense. When does that systematic review come out? Do you know yet? Well,  Trina Spencer:  I just resubmitted it. We got some feedback. So  Kate Grandbois:  2025.  Trina Spencer:  Yeah. Yeah. I think that's what I'm hoping for. 2025. Yeah. [00:34:00] For sure. Excellent. Probably by the time this, uh, this podcast gets released. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. So if it's,  Kate Grandbois:  if it's available, we'll link it in the show notes. We'll link all of the research that you're reviewing in the show notes. Trina Spencer:  Yeah. Okay. So where was I? In terms of like the T, so those were the three major differences between Story Chams Classic and Blitz. With Story Champs AAC, um, which I think are appropriate. Yeah, it took me a long time, but it's not that it really took that long time, because by the what's really funny is Doug is constantly going, How did you make Story Champs AAC so fast? And I said, I didn't. It's just the part you saw didn't take much time. I mean, seriously, think about seven years of reading research, uh, working with community, you know, partners, SLPs all over the country who were using regular Story Champs, To teach with their AAC users. And as a matter of fact, a long time ago, I was invited into the Chicago area [00:35:00] and some really great SLPs there. I want to say shout out to Bobby, Eileen, and Sue from the Chicago area, from the LaGrange, um, um, school district there, because they were showing me how they were using StoryChamps with their AAC users, like seven, I don't know, maybe even more than that, I didn't count properly, but anyway, and I was like, oh my gosh, sweetie, I could do that better for you, because I didn't write those stories using the symbols that are likely to be on those devices, and I didn't design those teaching procedures based on the literature for AAC interventions, so I had to do it right. So that's what got me going and like, listen, this clearly is a need they're like, but we love it. The kids love it. You know, we need more stories, though, because we're talking about high support needs. So anyway,  Kate Grandbois:  This is great. And I just want to point out one thing that I appreciate so much, which is, you know, the, the SLP. product landscape is wide, right? I'm not going to get on my soapbox about this, I swear. But there are many, many, many products [00:36:00] and services available to us as clinicians to, to purchase, to use in our, in our therapy rooms. Um, not all of those products that are available for purchase are science based. or rooted in evidence. And I just want to take a second to point out and appreciate that what you're talking about is putting science first and moving and creating products and services that are following the science instead of creating something that sells really well and then asking somebody to research it to see if it works. And so I say that because I think it's a very important and very under discussed distinction, um, everywhere in medicine and intervention. And, but. particularly in our field. That's all I will say about it. I just want to point it out that anybody listening who's getting excited is because this is bound. This is backed by evident by by research, which is great.  Trina Spencer:  Okay. But I have to say something too .  Kate Grandbois:  I knew I was gonna, did I, [00:37:00] did I open Pandora's box so much?  Trina Spencer:  So much? Oh, no. No. What did I, I'm gonna be quick. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be quick because I, I am right there with you. Okay? Like I am a clinician at heart. I'm an interventionist a heart. I see kids who could communicate better, and I wanna teach 'em. That's what I wanna do, but. As a researcher, my audience, my users are the SLPs and teachers who are teaching these kids. And I don't start with, here's the science, I'm going to do this for you. I start with, what do you guys need? What do you want? What's going to be useful in your context? And I design based on what they tell me they want and need and what's going to be good for their kids. And it's, so it's not just based on science, it's based on community, um, identified Problems of practice and, um, I did say this at the beginning. Juniper Gardens is a community based community engaged research center. And this idea of doing this kind of [00:38:00] work is it. First of all, it's very difficult. To do takes a long time and a lot of scientists don't do it because it's so much easier to just go to their university clinic or this lab school or, you know, whatever, but to actually be in the trenches with these people, like, it's so satisfying. So, so satisfying. And I'm going to be talking about the community partners that helped me along the way. So, so Bobby, Eileen, and Sue were the original ones that said, hey, this is what good idea. I picked Bobby's brain several more times after that. Well, how would you do it? How do you, you know, how would you do this? I mean, here's some of these things going, having these conversations, right? And then when, when I had a prototype, I had some more colleagues in, or partners, I don't know, There are SLPs in schools, um, in the Michigan area, Oakland County schools in Michigan, who piloted, field tested, gave real feedback, right? Real feedback. [00:39:00] So, yes, I applied to science, but it wouldn't be nearly as good as it is, and it would not be, it would not be what it needs to be to solve the clinical problems if the clinicians weren't the ones telling me this is what you need. Or, this is how to do it. And you see this, you know, I'm not the ones out there trying it out. They are.  Amy Wonkka:  I mean, we've talked so many times on this podcast too, just about, I mean, I think there's, there's all the things at play, right? So, it is, when we can find the sweet spot as something that's actually an evidence based intervention that you could then use as a curriculum in your session is like, ah, like that's wonderful. There's also this crazy research to practice practice gap. Um, and I feel like in, I don't know if it's because we do this podcast, so I get to talk to all of these smart people who are doing the research or because it's like a bigger, I mean, I would like to think it's a bigger shift in the field too, but the idea that there are more of these researcher and clinician partnerships is just. So exciting as somebody who is not in the research world at all other [00:40:00] than like reading it and trying to be like, well, I don't know what that means exactly, but I'll try. Um, so I think, you know, all of those pieces intersect and are really exciting for people who are practicing clinicians. Um, I want to, I want to, I want to weasel us back toward the story champ, because I have specific questions. I know, and they're selfish. We get on the tangent. I'll get to it. No, it's good.  Trina Spencer:  That tangent was my  Kate Grandbois:  fault. I take full responsibility.  Trina Spencer:  It's okay. It's alright. But that is clearly something I care a lot about, is finding that sweet spot. You know what I mean? Like that's how you get real impact and I'm always promoting the interlocking relationships between practitioners and researchers, right? It's so  Amy Wonkka:  important. It's, it's really like, because in fact, like you can have something that's like a really tight, great clinical intervention in a lab, but that is, Impossible most of the time to translate, um, exactly into a school [00:41:00] environment. So, and I think for people who are practicing in schools, we're used to curriculum, like I've had so many conversations with special education teachers about, you know, just the, the difference between, we, we never expect like third grade teachers to share curriculum, right? Like we just buy them curriculum, like we being the schools, I don't actually buy anybody curriculum. Um, But just, you know, I think that part of that is because there's not as much curriculum available for special education. And again, like that is changing. Um, for my higher support need learners who are using AAC as like all are part of their communication system. What are, like, can you walk us through like what a story champs? Um, what do you think the next intervention might look like? Like, like, am I reading this story to them? Am I modeling on their system? And like, what, what does that look  Trina Spencer:  like? I started on those steps, but I didn't get very far. So let me pick up. I think it's because I [00:42:00] interrupted you. Step one. So illustrations, some visual materials. Um, they're just like five panels. And then there's icons for character problem, filling action, ending that correspond to each of those panels of illustrations. Um, we model a story. And in Story Champs AAC, there are actually two versions of the story. One is what you might hear in a Story Champs regular, so it has the more complex language. Not super complex, right? But some. It's more complex than what they likely are doing in, you know, some beginner AAC use. Um, so we can textualize it. So they're hearing the story. All right. And then, then the next step, the, um, the interventionist is using an aided modeling with the child's device and using a simplified story. Okay, and the simplified story importantly, it's not telegraphic [00:43:00] speech. So they're still voicing it. as complex like, you know, um, the boy was at home, right? But that might not be what the kid is doing on their device. It might be like boy home, right? So there's a simplified story, a regular story, a simplified story. Um, there is a little bit of Instruction on the parts of the story like character problem filling action ending, which is in the original and it's mostly because we want to make the pattern salient. Okay. And, um, then after there's been an aided model of that story there, then the child. Or the individual retells that story using their device and there is a, uh, customized least to most prompt hierarchy that gets used. And so we have some guidance about how to go about selecting. The, the levels in the prompt [00:44:00] hierarchy and some cautions against things like physical touch and using things like questions when many of our kids with high support needs don't answer questions readily. It's not really a prompt. So like these kinds of things. Um, so there's a customized least to most prompting. And so they are getting support in Retelling that story using their own device, and then it's faded again, they get another trial with just the icons so that they move from maybe relying more on the pictures, the illustrations, which provide more content information, and the icons only tell you kind of like the category of what you're supposed to be talking about here. Okay,  Amy Wonkka:  meaning like character  Trina Spencer:  or like selling exactly. It only gives you information like describe the character. And now you have to like, rely on the previous steps of them going. Okay. It was the boy was at home. Right? Um, so, I mean, that's pretty much it. That takes about 30 minutes. And they're just [00:45:00] practicing with their device and remember the next day or the next intervention session the story changes And so those three target words were planted, but they get a lot more than just those three target words Online we have this really cool like I don't know. I think it's really cool I like anything that's pretty and like helpful, but it's basically a list of words that The stories were designed around, and it's not just those three, like a noun, verb, and adjective, but there's also a variety of people. So I'm looking at the list. There's like mother, family, teacher, grandpa, dad, mom, sister, tutor, kid, lunch lady, aunt, brother, cousin, you see, grandma, like, We've intentionally made sure that kids are getting exposed to any kind of family member they might have on their device. And what's really, I mentioned this kind of before, if like there's a story but the child doesn't have like a grandma on their device, it doesn't matter, you make it another female character, [00:46:00] you know, that they do have. And then there's also settings, so you have like home, kitchen, school, house, classroom, park, gym, class, closet, study hall. You know, all sorts of different locations that would also be on their devices. And then we use a variety of emotions as well. So there's a lot of emotion training in kind of the stories. And these are kind of incidental. So they might not have been the words that we. Well, we did. We identified words that we constructed stories about, around, I guess, so that there would be lots of variety, but they're in these kind of like categorical bins. And there's lots of actions, like, everything is an action, like, the attempt to solve the problem is always some sort of action. Um, things like, Eat, draw, help, carry, fix, drive, run, forget, you know, these are kind of words that you would see in, um, vocabulary lists on devices. So, there's a [00:47:00] lot of practicing of getting to a category for a certain bin in the pattern, right? Are you guys following me there? So like, if there's a character problem, filling, action, ending, they kind of know what categories they have to go to in order to talk about that, but they're not memorizing the specific. Symbols or words.  Amy Wonkka:  And I feel like when you're talking about the patterns repeating, it is not so explicit as like book one is the boy was at home. He lost his book. And book two is not the horse was at home. He lost his frog. Right? Like, so pattern in the sense, in the sense that it's like pattern in  Trina Spencer:  the, in the structure, not in the content.  Amy Wonkka:  Right. And I think that that is also, as somebody who's worked in a lot of programs that do a lot of repetitive instruction and practice, I think that that's a helpful distinction to make too, that it's not, it's not a, just a tiny shift. [00:48:00] It's like a, it's like a fundamental, you're not showing like almost the exact same picture every day. You're showing like completely different things that like have a similar.  Trina Spencer:  Yeah, and the teaching procedures that are, like, in there, I already talked about multiple exemplar training, but we also train loosely. This is kind of a tricky one. People go, wait, what? Yeah,  Kate Grandbois:  I was going to say, explain this. Yeah.  Trina Spencer:  Okay, so, I don't know how or why, but somehow there's this idea that if we've got a kid with high support needs, we need to be more rigid in our instruction. That just isn't true. It's the opposite. We actually have to be more intentional about variety. Otherwise, we build rigidity and rote learning. Okay, so the strategy here is to not train too tight, not train too mastery. Uh, by the way, a lot of people, I might even be criticized for this sometimes, but that's okay. Um, I'm old and I've been doing this a long time and it works really well. The criticism is that I [00:49:00] will not use a mastery criterion before I make a change. I will not, because it is the antithesis to generalization and generative language repertoires. We're here. So, I won't do it. But, that is the, what's the right word? That's the, that there's this some sort of like, I don't know, unspoken agreement that we all have to go, like, This prompt then made a mastery criteria and then we go to this thing and meet some other mastery criterion and then we go to this thing, right? Well, I did that once and it backfired and it sent me on a rabbit's hole to figure out why I came out of that rabbit's hole. So in love with SLP and behavior analysts who works, SLPs and behavior analysts that work together to create spontaneous language. And that, that's what I learned is you've got to train these things loosely so that the kids will learn, will use the current stimulus conditions and [00:50:00] environment to choose the right words when they need it. And let me give you an example for this. And remember I talked about you don't really get a lot of transfer without intentionally teaching it well. So in the study that we did, um, and I should also mention my doctoral student, Nora Amnubark, she was the lead, um, investigator on this, and she just had a baby, um, she lives in Saudi Arabia, she's amazing,  Kate Grandbois:  congratulations,  Trina Spencer:  yeah, so, so good, and let me tell you how many times she freaked out that she was not going to finish her dissertation, I said, no, no, we got this, she's like, but I got no participants, recruitment is so hard, I said, don't worry about it, this is going to happen. Literally she started her study the next week and had all those three participants. So anyway things work out. But anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yes. I'm gonna give you some examples about how the train loosely works. Okay, so we only had one story On I think the story is about somebody who got food from mom or something and it was cold [00:51:00] and they wanted their food to be warm, so warm food. I can't remember what the other target word of the story was, but warm and food are very important to this, right? So, one story, one session about these words, okay? And remember, it's more like commenting and discourse level talking about something, not requesting we parents. Had written down, they kept a log of what the kids were saying and doing outside of our sessions and two parents recorded that their kids had asked for, or clarified, or described food and the word warm in the same multi symbol utterance spontaneously without anybody prompting them to do it. One of the kids said, said, um, um, I want warm food. So, there you go. You got, you, we just got like a four symbol request and we taught a story about how the kid wanted to warm up his food, [00:52:00] right? So, that's what I mean by the stimulus environment that's immediate. That's going to help control what words, what symbols those kids need, when they need it, if you trained loose enough. for the correct stimulus condition to take over.  Amy Wonkka:  And when you say, sorry, Kate, you're unmuted. No, I've, I've got words in my  Kate Grandbois:  brain, but I can hold onto them.  Amy Wonkka:  Okay. I'm, I'm trying to clarify the trained loosely. So it was trained loosely about also in that moment, what you're accepting from the learner as like a correct response. Yes. Some of that. So it's some of that. It's also some of like, I'm not reading this story a hundred times. We're not like focusing on the warm food story. We're just focusing on like the components of stories. This one's about incorporate some warm food. Is there anything else in that that that would make you say, ah, that's training loosely? Was there anything else that you're [00:53:00] doing or in the way that you're teaching or responding or like what your criteria is for your learner? I mean, yeah,  Trina Spencer:  kind of like all of those things, right? We, we shuffle stories, we, we change stories quickly, right? So we don't over teach anything. Um, and then we accept and model, like, we will keep modeling those three target words, but if they, if it was warm and he said hot instead of warm, we'd be like, Great. Let it go. We're going to reinforce the independence and the spontaneity of the variety, right? Like it's a, it's a recombinative, um, utterance. That's more important than correcting him and saying, no, no, it's warm food. Like who  Kate Grandbois:  the  Trina Spencer:  hell cares? I  Kate Grandbois:  can't communicate. I, I want to say this back to you as another point of clarification for Amy. But that like what Amy said, um, when I think of training loosely, the word variety really comes to mind. So variety of [00:54:00] materials, variety of people teaching in a variety of places. Um, I see a lot of, you know, when we're talking about complex learners, I see a lot of teaching at the desk, teaching at the desk, teaching at the desk, using Mayor Johnson symbols, using Mayor Johnson symbols, you know, a lot of repetition of the same flavor, not a lot of variety. And is, would you agree? Yeah,  Trina Spencer:  yeah, 100%. But variety should be intentional and strategic and systematic. And when I first got into this field and I worked with some SLPs, one of the things that I, I, you know, I was a behavior analyst, I was probably too much on the rigid side. And I would be like, okay, so what were you trying to teach there? And the SLP would be like, I don't know, just playing. I'm like, oh. You see what I mean? I don't mean that. I don't mean just like going in there without a plan, without any idea what you're going to do, because the more intentional you are about that variety, the better outcome and the faster it's going to happen, right? So [00:55:00] there is a balance between that, you know, and that's why it's so important to understand the different communicative functions, okay? Now, I want to tell you about one, another kid. Um, one of the kids that was not, never really used his AAC device in our study, okay, remember he only got like 9 or 10 sessions, 30 minute sessions, and remember there are 36 stories, we only got through 10 with this kid. Um, we did these, um, intervention sessions at home, um, it was like easier than to go into their schools. Anyway, but of course, the kids were using their AAC device so much more just a result of the exposure that we were giving them. And this one day. The SLP at school says to the mom when he, when she came to pick him up from, uh, from school, she said, Hey, did you guys ride a bus and go to a swimming pool over the weekend? And, um, the mom says, yeah, we did. [00:56:00] And she goes, okay, he just told me a story about that using his device. Oh my God. I know. That's so cool. A personal story with multi syllable utterances about something that actually happened to him that was real, right? Using words that we had not taught him for more than one exposure. That's amazing. Yeah. And personal stories, by the way, are really the ultimate goal, right? We want them to be able to talk about things that are important to their lives. We teach in the retail format primarily to start the exposure to the layers of their device, the navigation, and the, the breadth of vocabulary and categories. But what, as we're doing that, those become useful in their everyday. Which is the reason why we were tracking with the parents and, you know, we had really good details from two out of the three parents and that's the kind of thing that showed up and we're talking about kids who would never use their device before, hardly even to make [00:57:00] requests. So the second type of Master lesson plan is a version of a personal story because we want to be able to, like, build the retell transferred over to personal generation. Now, I, that we did not use in our, in our study this, this 1, but I know it from the clinicians that helped me design that. And I, there are some other studies of generating personal stories using photos of real events. So, basically, once you teach patterns and the. Variety of symbols that they got at their disposal, transferring it over to a personal story is, I think, easier than we think it is. That's  Kate Grandbois:  amazing. I, I want to make a comment just to anybody listening who's, I don't know, feeling excited about this, the outcomes that you're seeing, the early phases of this research and, and all of the, all of the positive patient outcomes that you're describing. But also looking at their professional workplace [00:58:00] and thinking, you know, how can I make this change? I, and I say that because when you talk about the rigidity of instruction and some phenomenon that happens when we have someone who's a complex learner and something happens where we get very rigid and we, we need to like do things in steps. I, my opinion here is I feel like that is very much a professional culture. And I think that it also in a lot of instances stems from workplace culture, or this is just the way we do things here, or how people are trained and expected to kind of go about their jobs.  Trina Spencer:  I think the origin was accountability. Kate Grandbois:  That too. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about How to, if someone is experiencing those thoughts or thinking about how to shake things up and bring training loosely in and bringing multiple exemplars into their current intervention, what are some strategies that they can employ to [00:59:00] move that needle and kind of break some of that rigidity? Yeah.  Trina Spencer:  Oh, I, I, those, those are really good questions, ones I'm not necessarily, you know, prepared for, but I would happy to talk about them.  Kate Grandbois:  Just, you know, throwing you right under the, you know, in the hot seat, right at the end here. And totally,  Trina Spencer:  and totally fine, right? Because that is ultimately what I want. I don't, I don't necessarily want, like, a million, you know, Story Champs users. I want the, the technologies that we have been able to, to document their effects, I want them to be used. I want, to be honest, there's not a lot of literature that's going to tell you to train loosely. The literature that's out there is these stupid prompt hierarchies that say you got to do this and have a mastery criterion and da da da. And every single time I want to roll my eyes and go, Yeah, give me that, give me, give me those people, give me those people, I'll show you. We can do this better, faster, and have better impact, and no one's going to hate our services because we're so rigid if we just do it with some [01:00:00] intentionality. So, how to get there, sorry. So, I would plan on what's your ultimate goal, right? Is it to teach this phrase or is it to teach generative communication, right? And be, be thoughtful about what are the components. All right, the component skills and the patterns needed to be able to generate the, the language needed for something and, and I would argue it really is about patterns and we, uh, this is one of the things that SLPs are so much better at than behavior analysts because they're, they often focus on structure and all the behavior analysts are over here focused on function and think somehow that that's superior. Guess what? We need both. That's structure. Okay. is the pattern of language and we don't really understand how to teach that. So the way you teach that is give, once you've identified that's your generalizable strategy or your big idea that you're after, the pattern of something, right, you need to inventory a set of patterns that you're [01:01:00] teaching because you don't want to just teach one because otherwise you get like I want cookie, I want a cup, I want Choose you see you don't want that right you got to create a list of all the patterns that you want to teach and then Make sure that you're designing the instruction so that they're getting multiple opportunities to practice each of those But not in consecutive trials, right? So you have to like mix it up in a very Thoughtful, almost random way. It appears random, but it's not random, right? It's strategic variety. Um, so they're getting lots of exposures to them and you have to be very, very careful about your prompting. So you have to be able to fade your prompting. These are the key components of good instruction. Exemplars of the thing you're teaching. Strategic, intentional exposures to those in, in meaningful context. If Doug was here, he would have been, trih, contextualize, contextualize, contextualize. Meaningful context, right? Don't do it in, um, [01:02:00] sitting need a need a kids intensive. There's no need to drill. I have not drilled in 20 years. Right have not and the kids are learning how to talk. So, you know, you don't need it You don't need it and often the structure that's in place It's because we as the clinicians or the teachers we need it more and then there's accountability to it Okay, so so Identify your big ideas. I list all the different patterns and things that you're trying to teach in order to get to that big ideas. Uh, create some sort of structure or system to make sure you get that variety that's random but not random. It looks random but not random. And then, um, teach with intentionality to fade your prompts. Um, make sure you're identifying good prompts for that learner because A full physical prompt is not the best prompt for everybody and I would argue for very few people. Um, so we have to be very selective about how we customize prompts and then we have to have a [01:03:00] plan for fading and the fading needs to happen a lot more rapidly than you think it does and do not rely on mastery criteria. Right? And you have lots and lots of setting changes, context changes, you know, curriculum differences to practice all of those new patterns and generative repertoires in meaningful  Kate Grandbois:  contexts. Is that enough? That was beautiful. And now again, I'm just thinking about all of the things that I've done wrong, uh, in terms of, in terms of previously using mastery criteria and all kinds of things. I love the entire landscape that you've painted for us. And I'm wondering in our last couple minutes, if there are really important takeaways or other themes that you want to leave our audience with. Trina Spencer:  I want to make sure that I answer Amy's question about the expansion. Do you mind if I go there? You get so many [01:04:00] points for remembering my interrupting tangent. Good call. No, it's, it's important because we, we kind of were like. Well, is this a new Story Champs? What is this exactly? You know what I mean? We, we struggled with how you, how we can conceptualize this and how we communicate it with our, with the, you know, the clinicians out there using it. And we really want to say it's an expansion, right? And we call it an expansion pack. Kind of because it builds off of what we already know and do, especially the research. We already have a good, a very solid base of research. So we're expanding from that, um, expanding from the other research and the other clinical experiences that contribute to it, but also it adds more stories. Now, if you have high support learners who are speakers, even if they're just doing two word speaking, you know, spoken word utterances, the regular StoryChamps lesson plans would be [01:05:00] appropriate, but you can use these stories. Okay, the teaching procedures are really for AAC. Users specifically. So if you have a speaker, you can use these stories, but use the other story champs, story, uh, story champs, master lesson plans. Okay, because those are written with the research for the teaching procedures for speakers. And these are written, which is only, there's only two right now, but we believe that there's additional expansion coming. We got more research to do. So, yes, expansion, it works. And actually, Story Champs AAC is quite affordable, too. Like, that's another piece that we kind of, we want people to be able to be like, Oh, I have regular Story Champs and now I'm going to start collecting these expansions for different versions.  Kate Grandbois:  I love it. Thank you so much for sharing all of this. We're going to have all the research that you mentioned in the show notes, a link to [01:06:00] Story Champs for people to check it out. I so appreciate, I don't know, everything that you talked about from rigidity of instruction to, you know, how we need to think more, more robustly about the power of teaching narratives. It was, I, like I said, I have a lot of regrets, but that means that I learned a ton. Uh, so, you know. Glass half full and thank you so much for being here. This was awesome.  Trina Spencer:  Well, thanks for having me. I definitely think that narratives are underutilized and we could be a more efficient workforce with the people we serve. If we. Like, integrated some of these instructional design principles. Yeah,  Amy Wonkka:  this was awesome. Thank you. Trina. Thanks. Trina.  Kate Grandbois:  You're the best. Trina Spencer:  I just enjoyed it. It's fine. I'm sure you probably we have more problems, more clinicians and more teachers are like, okay, this is what we need. So I got other [01:07:00] things to work on now.  Kate Grandbois:  Excellent. Well, we'll be following along closely. And of course, we'll, we'll just beg you to come back. That's right.  Trina Spencer:  I appreciate you letting me come on and talk about it. It was, it was good fun. Thanks again. Yeah, you guys are awesome.   Kate Grandbois:  Thank you so much for joining us in today's episode, as always, you can use this episode for ASHA CEUs. You can also potentially use this episode for other credits, depending on the regulations of your governing body. To determine if this episode will count towards professional development in your area of study. Please check in with your governing bodies or you can go to our website, www.slpnerdcast.com all of the references and information listed throughout the course of the episode will be listed in the show notes. And as always, if you have any questions, please email us at info@slpnerdcast.com thank you so much for joining us and we hope to welcome you back here again soon. .