Helping Kids Thrive

Guest: Lauren Lowery, Special Needs Parent & Life Coach Traveling with the family can be equal parts exciting and stressful thanks to all the planning and preparation involved. But when you add in a child with special needs, it can become all the more challenging.  In this episode, Nicole is joined by returning guest, Lauren Lowery. As a mother with tons of experience traveling with her kids who b...

Guest: Dr. Robert Jason Grant, Ed. D, Creator of AutPlay Therapy You may have heard about play therapy before and all of the ways it can benefit a child's mental health, but is play therapy still a good choice if your child is neurodivergent or disabled?  In this episode of Helping Kids Thrive, Nicole talks with Dr. Robert Jason Grant, Ed. D, a licensed mental health professional, registered play...

Guest: Liz Yoder, CFP, Director of Financial Planning  As our children with disabilities grow into adulthood, there are a lot of questions that come up about how to help them achieve their highest levels of independence. Considerations such as health insurance, income, employment, social networks, etc. come into families' minds as they think about how to best plan for the future of their child. Du...

Guests: Gena Mann & Carissa Tozzi, Co-Founders of Wolf+Friends Connecting with a community is important as a parent. Finding a community that gets it as a parent of a child who has a disability or delay can be challenging. During this episode, Nicole chats with Gena Mann & Carissa Tozzi, co-founders of Wolf+Friends, an online community for caregivers of children with special needs designed to conn...

Guest: Morgan Johnson, MS, LCSW  Anxiety is likely something that you can relate to. We all have feelings of stress and anxiety from time to time. But when does anxiety become something that we need to get help for? And how do we identify anxiety in our children who may or may not have the words to let us know that anxiety, stress, or worry is what they're feeling? In this episode of Helping Kids...

Guest: Jamie Tyson-McOmie, Speech Language Pathologist & Orofacial Myologist In this episode Nicole introduces Jamie Tyson McCombie, a pediatric speech-language pathologist, teletherapy expert, and certified orofacial myologist. Jamie dives deep into the niche topic of orofacial myofunctional disorders (OMDs), explaining their impact on speech, swallowing, eating, and even sleep. She outlines the...

Guest: Shelley O'Donnell, MS CCC-SLP    In this episode, Nicole sits down with Shelley O'Donnell, a pediatric speech language pathologist, to discuss the intricate connection between communication and behavior in children. Shelley shares her professional insights and personal experiences as a mom of a child with a language delay, offering practical tips for parents to help their children express t...

Guest: Sandy Dorsey, M.S. CCC-SLP, Founder of Smiles for Speech Have you ever wondered what it's like to parent a child with a disability in another part of the world? In this special episode of Helping Kids Thrive, Nicole sits down with Sandy Dorsey, an international speech language pathologist, global advocate, and the founder of Smiles for Speech, a nonprofit organization on a mission to increa...

Guest: Mikey Carroll, MS, LPC Do you ever find yourself wondering as a parent how to set expecations for your child? How do we help them reach their full potential, even if that looks different from other children around them? Add in disabilties or delays of any type and it can get even more tricky. Here to chat with Nicole today on the podcast is Mikey Carroll, a Licensed Professional Counselor....

Guest: Samantha Kauffman, MOT, OTR/L Tummy time is an important building block for neurological and physical development. It supports skills such as fine and gross motor, vision, sensory processing, and more. But if your baby hates tummy time or you're parenting an older child with disabilities, it can be challenging to get in activities that support this development.  During this episode, Nicole...

Guest: Amy Schnacker, OTR/L If your child has difficulty with feeding, it is likely that you have heard some common parenting advice associated with feeding children - things like "don't let your kids play with their food, that's disrespectful" or "they'll eat when they're hungry." While many of these things are true for most children, they are not true for all.  During today's episode, Nicole cha...

Guest: Morgan Johnson, MSW, LCSW Practicing gratitude seems like a really simple concept, but for some reason most of us go through life without making it a regular habit during our days. We often choose to focus on what's going wrong - what needs to be fixed or done - instead of what is going right. During this episode, Nicole sits down with Morgan Johnson, a licensed clinical social worker, to d...

Guest: Melanie Almada, M.S. LMFT Establishing a growth mindset builds resiliency, perseverance, and an intrinsic sense of worth. These are things that every parent desires for their children, but how can we ensure that our child develops a strong growth mindset instead of becoming fixed in an "I can't" mentality? In this episode of Helping Kids Thrive, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Melan...

Guest: Elizabeth Soriano, M.A. CCC-SLP Have you considered using a visual schedule at home but turned away feeling overwhelmed with how to get started and the amount of options out there? It may seem impossible with the unpredictability of a home schedule, but in this episode of Helping Kids Thrive, speech language pathologist, Elizabeth Soriano, M.A. CCC-SLP gives practical, realistic tips for us...

Guest: Amy Schnacker, OTR/L The holiday season is full of fun and excitement - lots of time with family and friends, cookie decorating, present wrapping, songs, events, the list goes on and on. And while the holidays are a special time of year, they can also be overwhelming.  In this episode of Helping Kids Thrive, Nicole speaks with pediatric occupational therapist, Amy Schnacker, OTR/L, about ho...

Guest: Jackie Wight, MA, LPC Helping children navigate through social media is definitely uncharted territory for a lot of parents that grew up before the era of smartphones and tablets. With the rise of popular sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, it comes to no surprise that it has greatly impacted how children grow up, and how they handle their face-to-face social interactions. From inc...

Guest: Debbie Anzelone, Special Education Consultant Have you ever wondered what FAPE is? Or LRE? What is the difference between an accommodation and a modification? IEP meetings can be filled with a lot of education heavy language and terminology which can create a barrier to parents being as involved with the IEP process. During this episode, Nicole is joined by Special Education Consultant, Deb...

Guest: Kay Simon, M.S. CCC-SLP In the US Public School system, the language of instruction is Mainstream American English (MAE), a specific dialect of English. If a child enters the school system that has not previously had exposure to MAE, this transition can be difficult as they add the need to learn another dialect of English to the list of academic concepts that they are expected to master. As...

Guest: Adriana Capuano, M.A. CCC-SLP Augmentative & Alternative Communication (AAC) is a communication system that is helpful for children who do not have functional communication. Often we think of this as being for only nonverbal children, but there are actually many different situations that AAC can be used in order to boost effective communication for children. Listen in on this episode of Hel...

Guest: Brya Hanan, M.A., LMFT Positive affirmations is a little bit of a buzz word topic with people posting images of letter boards on their bathrooom or videos of dads and daughters reciting them back and forth. But are there actually benefits to using positive affirmations with our children and if so, how do we do it realistically?  In this episode of Helping Kids Thrive, Nicole is joined by Br...

Guest: Aimee Buckley, Founder of Study Help, Inc. Does your child struggle with motivation to complete homework tasks after school? Do you find that every evening is a fight in order to get homework accomplished? During this episode of Helping Kids Thrive, Nicole is joined by Aimee Buckley, a high school teacher and the founder of Study Help, Inc., an online tutoring platform that connects top qua...

Guest: Kayla Plutschack, OTD, OTR/L Does your child have trouble remembering directions, staying on task, keeping track of their things, or completing projects/routines independently? It could be a difficulty with executive functioning skills. In this episode, Nicole is joined by pediatric occupational therapist, Dr. Kayla Plutschack, for a discussion around executive functioning skills. They disc...

Guest: Rebecca Lofthouse, LCSW According to the CDC, suicide is the second leading cause of death for teens and according to the World Health Organization, "half of all mental health conditions start by 14 years of age but most cases are undetected and untreated." As licensed clinical social worker, Rebecca Lofthouse, mentions during this episode, treatment for mental health conditions is vitally...

Guest: Hannah Scotten, M.S. CCC-SLP If you have a child that produces sounds incorrectly, it can be challenging to understand why this is happening. While, we know that parents are not speech therapists (nor should they feel like they need to be), it can be helpful at times to know more about what could be affecting your child's speech. During this episode of Helping Kids Thrive, Nicole chats with...

Guest: Debbie Anzelone, Special Education Consultant If you're a parent new to the special education scene, IEP meetings can be intimidating and the documents can be overwhelming.  In this episode, special education consultant, Debbie Anzelone, speaks with Nicole to provide a parent's guide to IEPs. They discuss what happens in an IEP meeting, how parents can best prepare for an IEP meeting, and w...