Hi, I'm Dr. Mary Barbera, Autism Mom and Board Certified Behavior Analyst. When
Lucas was two years old, before his diagnosis of autism, we took him to
speech therapy sessions weekly at our local hospital and the speech therapist
that worked with him was great, she really taught me a lot, I was in the room
and they also had an option to stand behind the 2-way glass so if I had my
younger son Spencer with me I would go behind the glass, if I was there by
myself I would go right in the room so that I could watch her work with Lucas.
At the time I had no idea anything about autism, about the verbal operands, I
didn't know anything about how to teach Lucas language. So it was great because
the speech pathologist worked with Lucas in front of me and then I was able to
get to see some of the things that she was doing. Now this was back in 1998 and
some of the things she was doing like blowing bubbles or using toys with
hearts and pairing the word were great for Lucas especially because he had some
words but I just didn't know how to get those words to come out when I wanted
them to come out so she was able to get some words out during those fun
activities. Some of the speech therapy sessions she was working on things like
prepositions, some versus all and none, is this an apple yes or no - these skills
were way too hard for Lucas, and I had no idea that they were too hard and
obviously she didn't either. But it took us years later till Lucas was able to
master those skills. Back in the late 90s I asked her I was like where can I learn
how to help him I have you know multiple hours a day when I could be home doing
things with him. She really wasn't able to direct me to any resources and
that's one of the reasons I've created three online courses now and wrote my
book. So to help parents and professionals learn proven
strategies to help kids increase language. I recently had a
question on our private Facebook group from a parent of a toddler who, like me,
took her son to speech therapy session and she unlike me where I had only drive
five minutes away to the local hospital she had to drive 70 miles away to get
to the speech therapy center. And the speech therapist there while she let her
in the room one time it was her practice that she wanted to bring a two and a
half year old back to her office by himself and have the parent wait in the
waiting room while she provided the speech therapy session. Mom sat in the
waiting room as directed but she could hear her son crying the whole way into
the room and actually heard him crying through the door and this, because this
mom is taking my online course, is really not what I recommend. I recommend pairing
and manding, making sure the child is happy. I kind of equated it to if I was
learning to fly a plane and you're trying to teach me to fly a plane and I
had no idea what I was doing and I am sobbing to the point where I am
hyperventilating - how much do you think I'm gonna really be paying attention and
learning the different controls in the panel. So a child should not be crying
during therapy. Now sure there are moments where a child cries and in the
skilled hands of a behavior analyst who knows how to address the functions of
behavior we can turn it around so it doesn't happen in the future. But a child
should not be crying routinely during therapy. So this mom asked on the
Facebook page was it okay that I let her take him back and we all said no. That
the parent needs to be with the child especially if they're not communicating.
And the parent really needs to be learning from the speech pathologist
making sure that the speech pathologist is pairing and manding and not working
on things like prepositions and colors and things that are too hard for this
child. And everybody needs to be on the same page. So if you are a professional
and it would really encourage you to not only tolerate parents in the room during
your therapy sessions but to encourage them to be in the warrant room to work
with them so that the child can reach his or her fullest potential.
So I'm a big proponent of the parent in the therapy room as much as possible and
not out in the waiting room. Thanks a lot for listening and I'll see you next week.