De Facto Leaders

Have you ever had a student spend 45 minutes avoiding an assignment that would have taken them five minutes to finish? They argue about why they shouldn’t have to do it, negotiate over how much they need to complete, ask to go to the bathroom, or decide they need a drink before they can get started. Meanwhile, you’re looking at the assignment thinking: If you would just DO IT, this would have been...

We tend to think about math, literacy, language, and executive functioning as separate areas of development. But the research shows they’re much more connected than we might think. Early math skills are associated with later academic outcomes, and developing those skills draws heavily on language, vocabulary, and executive functioning. And supporting early math doesn’t have to mean formal instruct...

People often say to me, “I get why executive functioning is important, but when are you going to tell me how to work on it”? I wish I could jump right to the lesson plans and “here’s what you do in a perfect hierarchy to work on these skills”. But brains don’t work that way. That’s why I start with the framework before the lesson plan. The macro before the micro.  When you Google executive functio...

Many people think they’re working on executive functioning, but aren’t ACTUALLY working on executive functioning . If you have students who have access to planners, visuals, lists, and other organizing tools , but still seem unorganized , this may be the case  for your students. Especially if you have students who flat out refuse to use organizers , or just forget to use them.  Even though people...

“Demand avoidance”, poor generalization, prompt-dependence, and social skills challenges seem like isolated issues.  But often they’re not. Many times they’re tied to executive functioning challenges.  That’s why when I describe “executive dysfunction”, I cluster it into five broad areas: Attention, Learning Challenges, Behavioral Issues, Organization, and Social Skills Usually, this is the point...

Many school clinicians know executive functioning is important.  They also know that their entire team should be supporting it across general and special education settings.  But they don’t always know what exactly that looks like in practice… And if they do, they don’t know HOW they can change the practices of classroom teachers.  There are a lot of unanswered questions.  …How can I find time to...

Many school teams AREN’T actually working on executive functioning when they think they are. As a result, they’re being more flexible and accommodating than ever, giving students a chance to process after behavioral escalations… Yet they’re seeing students continue to be dysregulated. In some cases, it’s getting worse.  The same thing goes for helping kids stay organized and manage work.  Kids ref...

You’ve been told that social skills interventions are ableist. But you’ve also been told that we need to prepare students for real-world expectations. You have teachers and administrators coming to you with concerns about behavior, participation, and social interaction, and you’re expected to address it. Then you’re told to make your intervention more “functional.” To collaborate more. To focus on...

“Accommodation” is a loaded word. On one hand, we want to provide reasonable accommodations in K-12 so kids can access their education. But determining what is “reasonable” accommodation or modification can be messy. Both parents and educators can unintentionally “overaccommodate” in the moment without realizing it, which over time can impede a child’s ability to work through daily challenges and...

Are we really “overteaching” phonics, or should there be a hard stopping point where it’s not taught past a certain grade? Are current stories trending on popular news outlets aligned with best practices for supporting dyslexic learners? Is the public becoming more educated on how we learn to read, write, and spell? I invited my colleague, Lori Josephson, an author, consultant, and former teacher...

If you’re an SLP who’s wondering how you can effectively address complex skills relating to both language and executive functioning in the school systems…  The primary challenge is that BOTH language and executive functioning are incredibly complicated. Even just focusing on one or the other can be overwhelming.  Layer on the challenges with the way related service providers are expected to provid...

In this conversation, I sat down with Kim Jenkins from Empowering Speech Services (https://www.empoweringspeechservices.com/meet-kim)  to talk about how she’s used the frameworks from Language Therapy Advance Foundations (https://drkarenspeech.com/languagetherapy/)  along with the gestalt language processing stages, for reluctant readers, and AAC users.  We also talk about how important it is for...

Clinicians who are confidently delivering language and literacy interventions haven't found the perfect "therapy curriculum".  They've learned how to build their own using three practices. In this episode, I share what those practices are, plus additional information on a free training I released that explains these concepts further.  I cover: ✅ The concept of "clinical containers", and how you c...

Recess is often thought of as an “extra” activity in the school day. Sometimes it’s even taken away from students as a punishment.  But some schools think about recess as an integral part of the school day, where students get the opportunity to connect, practice important social and problem-solving skills they’ll need for life. Others are taking it a step further and using it as a tool to help stu...

Most schools say they “collaborate.” They hold team meetings. They talk about students. They review data. But without clear infrastructure, those meetings become updates instead of decision-making engines, and multi-tiered systems of support become an extra burden for educators.  In this episode, I interview Kurtis Hewson from Jigsaw Learning to break down their Collaborative Response Team meeting...

When schools talk about improving engagement, student wellness, or school climate, it often turns into assemblies, themed weeks, or standalone initiatives.  When schools talk about community engagement, student wellness, or school climate, they often turn into assemblies, themed weeks, or standalone initiatives.  In this episode, I invited Lauren Porosoff from The Teacher Nerd to unpack why a focu...

In episode 255 of De Facto Leaders, I elaborate on the concept of using vocabulary as a large “container”, so you can design sessions efficiently without sacrificing quality. I talk about why more experienced clinicians often struggle to make their interventions scalable, and why this gets in the way of carryover. I also share the five “containers” I use in my Language Therapy Advance Foundations...

Many experienced SLPs think they just need to plan better. Tweak the activity.  Adjust the visuals. Try a new printable or protocol. But what if none of that is the real problem? What if your sessions are already so skillful that no one else can reinforce what you're doing? 🧠 What if the very clinical decision-making that gets you results is the thing preventing generalization? In episode 254 of...

“Education isn’t a business” is a thing people say when they’re upset about how the school systems are being run. But education actually IS a business. Saying otherwise isn't going to change reality. If you’re frustrated about how the school systems work, you can continue to wish this wasn’t the case… Or you can accept how things actually are and learn what to do about it.  In this podcast episode...

While virtual learning has become more prevalent since 2020, the founders of Banyan Global Learning have been offering digital learning experiences for over 20 years. Some people are excited about the possibilities technology offers. Others are backpedaling or worrying that tech does more harm than good.  Like most things, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.  The outcomes depend on how experie...

Have you met “Jessica” the virtual speech helper? I certainly remember hearing about it the first time. This concept raised a lot of questions in the clinical community. Are we trying to replace clinicians, and was that the intention behind this application? If you’ve had these questions too, you won’t want to miss this conversation.  This episode is the second half of my interview with Maura Conn...

When I first started working in the schools in the early 2000s, there was a push for integrating technology into classrooms and therapy sessions It was even a box that got checked on my employee evaluation. Now there’s a defined space referred to as “EdTech”.  It took me a while to realize that this was a thing, and I didn’t even realize I was a part of it until someone referred to me as the “EdTe...

When everything depends on your real-time decisions, you can’t replicate the progress, scale the outcomes, or lead others through your process.  Even when it’s working. In this episode, I share what that looked like in my own career. As a speech-language pathologist in the schools, I had the training and instincts to support students with complex language and learning needs. But when referrals sur...

In this episode, I’m sharing my top resources for clinicians to explain why we do what we do in language therapy, and how parents and colleagues can support skills outside of sessions. I share: How to answer the dreaded “Is there an app for that?” question.  Why language therapy doesn’t come in a standard curriculum (plus resources you can share to explain the essentials behind vocabulary interven...

When you’re teaching storytelling with students, do your lessons feel kind of…random? I used to feel like this a lot when I was a school SLP, so if you’ve ever had a “throw spaghetti at the wall” therapy session that felt all over the place, I get it. The truth is, repetition and drill is not the enemy. If you ONLY focus on unstructured activities, you’re probably seeing students getting overwhelm...