The SLP Book Club

This week we're reading chapters three and four from Age of Opportunity by Laurence Steinberg, Ph. D. Chapter three is titled "The Longest Decade." We cover how the length of adolescence has changed over time, the reasons for this change, how puberty happens, why early puberty matters, and the impact of delayed adulthood. Chapter four, "How Adolescents Think," is all about the adolescent brain. We...

This week we're reading chapter two from Age of Opportunity by Laurence Steinberg, Ph. D. This chapter is called "The Plastic Brain" and really gets into how malleable the brain is during adolescence. We discuss the reminiscence bump, the different types of neuroplasticity, experience expectant vs. experience dependent abilities, how the brain works, the zone of proximal development, how to take a...

New year, new book! Throughout January and February, we're reading Age of Opportunity by Laurence Steinberg, Ph. D. We're starting out in this episode by covering the introduction and chapter one. We discuss the state of adolescence today and how our traditional approaches to raising and working with kids in this age group are misguided. We cover how the period of adolescence has grown: puberty is...

This week, we thought we'd do something fun and a little different. We're looking back on 2023 and reflecting on our favorite books, what we've learned, and the best SLP Book Club moments. We discuss Lisa Murphy on Play, The Seeds of Learning, Beyond Behaviors, Smart but Scattered, and The Whole-Brain Child. Reading NINE books this year has changed us as people and as therapists. Enjoy this recap...

This week we're wrapping up Uniquely Human by Dr. Barry Prizant. Unfortunately, Laura has the old, outdated version of the book, so she'll be covering chapters 11 and 12 from that version. Adrianne weighs in with important information from the updated and expanded version. We discuss the harmful effects of programs that claim to "cure" autism, the importance of developing a program that works for...

This week we're discussing chapter 10 from Uniquely Human by Dr. Barry Prizant. This chapter is called "The Long View" and describes the stories of multiple autistic people and their families from early childhood through young adulthood. This chapter is filled with hopeful stories about families overcoming adversity and persevering. It tells of some professionals who made a world of difference, an...

This week we're discussing chapters eight and nine from Uniquely Human by Dr. Barry Prizant. Chapter eight, "Wisdom from the Circle" is really a chapter for parents, but we can get so much out of it in terms of perspective. All families handle autism differently and we need to have empathy, support them in an understanding way, and join them on their journey. This chapter is full of advice for par...

This week we're discussing chapter seven from Uniquely Human by Dr. Barry Prizant: "What it Takes to 'Get It.'" This might be one of our favorite episodes of The SLP Book Club podcast yet, because it really gets to the heart of what it means to be a speech therapist, teacher, or other provider who works with autistic children. There are some people who just naturally get it: they pay attention, pr...

This week we're discussing chapters five and six from Uniquely Human by Dr. Barry Prizant. We start with chapter five: Emotional Memory. We learn about the impact emotional memory can have on all of us, but especially on people with autism. We discuss how emotional memory is tied to behavior, and how anything can be a trigger for a memory that has a big impact on a child. Dr. Prizant gives us stra...

This week we're covering chapter four of Uniquely Human by Dr. Barry Prizant. This chapter is about trust, fear, and control in autism. Dr. Prizant describes autism as a disability of trust. He describes how difficult it can be for people with autism to have trust: trust in their own bodies, trust in the world around them, and trust in other people. He describes the impact that fear can have on ch...

This week we're covering chapters two and three from Uniquely Human by Dr. Barry Prizant. Chapter two is called "Listen" and it covers the many ways children with autism communicate, including using echolalia. Dr. Prizant encourages us to listen closely and honor all attempts at communication. He describes the many functions of echolalia and scripting, which include not only expressing wants and n...

New month, new book! For November and December, we're reading Uniquely Human by Dr. Barry Prizant. This brilliant book is a must-read for anyone who works with or cares for children with autism. It helps us see that rather than trying to "fix" children with autism, we need to understand them and change our beliefs, attitudes, and actions. In this episode, we discuss the introduction and chapter on...

This week we're finishing up Beyond Behaviors by Dr. Mona Delahooke. But FIRST! A very special spooky SLP Book Club discussion! We tell our own personal ghostly stories to celebrate spooky season. Then we dive into chapter nine, which is about Dr. Delahooke's vision for the future and what we can do now to support children with challenging behaviors and their families. That's a wrap on Beyond Beha...

This week we're covering chapter eight of Beyond Behaviors by Dr. Mona Delahooke. This chapter is about supporting children who have experienced trauma or toxic stress. Dr. Delahooke describes the stories of four children she's worked with in the past who had histories of trauma and/or toxic stress. She uses these stories to illustrate how trauma impacts behavior and what we can do to support thes...

This week we're covering chapter seven of Beyond Behaviors by Dr. Mona Delahooke. We start this episode with a kind of spicy discussion about how we handle conflict with our neighbors, with strangers, and with people at work. Then we get into the chapter, "Behaviors in Autism and Neurodiversity: Handle with Care." We discuss the importance of always presuming competence, behaviors in children with...

This week we're covering chapter six of Beyond Behaviors by Dr. Mona Delahooke. This chapter is called "Working on Challenges from the Body Up to the Top Down." We cover the four steps to identifying and addressing causes of challenging behaviors, building the bridge from co-regulation to self-regulation, relational strategies, addressing developmental challenges, using play as a neural exercise,...

This week we're discussing chapter five of Beyond Behaviors by Dr. Mona Delahooke. This chapter is called "Addressing What Underlies Behavior: Working on Challenges from the Bottom Up." We discuss how to dig deeper and find the triggers when a child presents with challenging behaviors. We go over how to collect a thorough case history and track behaviors to find patterns. We also discuss tracking...

Today we're discussing chapter four of Beyond Behaviors by Dr. Mona Delahooke, "Safety is the Starting Point." In this episode, we cover personalized attunement, the therapeutic use of self, determining a child's neuroceptive state, the types of stress we might observe in children, the need for co-regulation, and how to provide cues of relational safety. We discuss our own experiences in schools w...

Today we're discussing chapter three of Beyond Behaviors by Dr. Mona Delahooke. This chapter is about understanding how individual differences contribute to observable behaviors. We cover how the physical body, sensory system, thoughts, and feelings impact the way a child behaves. Dr. Delahooke gives us real examples of children she worked with in each category, which gives us a really clear pictu...

Today we're covering chapter two of Beyond Behaviors by Dr. Mona Delahooke. Chapter two is titled, "Top Down or Bottom Up?" This chapter explains how to understand the origin of behavior before we try to respond to it. We discuss top-down behaviors that are the result of thoughtful intent, and bottom-up behaviors that are unintentional stress responses. We also cover the stages of social-emotional...

Throughout September and October, we'll be reading Beyond Behaviors by Dr. Mona Delahooke. Today, we're kicking things off with the introduction and chapter one. In the introduction, Dr. Delahooke explains why she wrote this book. In over 25 years working as a child psychologist, she observed that traditional approaches to treating challenging behaviors were repeatedly failing children who needed...

We're excited to bring you this bonus episode, our interview with Meghan Samuels, founder of Tiny Talkers Group Curriculum. We talk to Meghan about her career as a speech-language pathologist, which has included working in multiple settings before opening her private practice, Tiny Talkers Nashville. Meghan describes how she created the Tiny Talkers group format as a way to provide accessible spee...

Today we're wrapping up Lisa Murphy on Play: The Foundation of Children's Learning by Lisa Murphy. We cover chapter 17: Challenges We Face, and chapter 18: Final Thoughts. We discuss the common challenges educators run into when trying to implement the seven things with young children. We also go over Lisa's final thoughts: why she wrote the book, what happens when we don't build a foundation of p...

Today we're covering chapter 16 of Lisa Murphy on Play: The Foundation of Children's Learning by Lisa Murphy. This chapter is what the whole book has been leading up to, "Make Time Each Day to...PLAY." We discuss how adults have amnesia for what it was like to be a child, the process of play, the need for extended TIME to play, what children are learning when they play, and more. We also discuss o...

Today we're covering chapters 14 and 15 from Lisa Murphy on Play: The Foundation of Children's Learning by Lisa Murphy. In chapter 14, "Make Time Each Day to...OBSERVE," we discuss incorporating the five senses into all the activities you do with children. We cover the many ways you can explore through touch, including a plethora of ideas for sensory bins. Lisa goes into the importance of human to...