EPISODE 248

[0:00:00] MD: Okay, so on today's gratitude entry, I am going to give a, I am grateful for the state of Mississippi. Here is why, Dr. Amy LeBert from University of Southern Mississippi. Amy, if I got that wrong, I'm really, really sorry. She has invited me to come back and to present at the 2023 MSHA Annual Convention. I hope that you come join me and a bunch of amazing Mississippi Speech-Language Pathologists on Friday, September 22nd. Let me double-check that I got that date right because that would be embarrassing. Yes, Friday, September 22nd from 8 am. to 10 am. 

I will be going through how to conduct a clinical swallow evaluation for early intervention through school-age children, as well as how to write functional child-led goals that are just easy to collect data on, but also, they're purposeful and meaningful. Dear State of Mississippi and fellow colleagues, I am grateful that I get to come spend time with you at the Refugee Hotel and Conference Center in Flowood Mississippi. Again, Friday, September 22nd, 8 am to 10 am, so you all, sign up for the Mississippi State Speech-Hearing Association Conference, and I will see you there.

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:01:41] MD: Hi, folks, and welcome to First Bite: Fed, Fun, and Functional. A speech therapy podcast sponsored by speechtherapypd.com. I am your host on this nerd venture, Michelle Dawson, MS, CCC-SLP, CLC, the All-Things PEDs SLP. I am a colleague in the trenches of home health, early intervention right there with you. I run my own private practice, Heartwood Speech Therapy here in Columbia, South Carolina. I guest lecture nationwide on best practices for early intervention for the medically complex graduates. First BiteÕs mission is short and sweet, to bring the light, hope, knowledge, and joy to the pediatric clinician, parent, or advocate.

[0:02:28] EF: By way of a nerdy conversation, so there's plenty of laughter, too.

[0:02:32] MD: In this podcast, we cover everything from AAC to breastfeeding.

[0:02:37] EF: Ethics on how to run a private practice.

[0:02:39] MD: Pediatric dysphagia to clinical supervision.

[0:02:43] EF: And all other topics in the world of pediatric speech pathology. Our goal is to bring evidence-based practice straight to you by interviewing subject matter experts.

[0:02:52] MD: To break down the communication barriers, so that we can access the knowledge of their fields.

[0:02:57] EF: Or, as a close friend says, ÒTo build the bridge.Ó

[0:03:01] MD: By bringing other professionals and experts in our field together, we hope to spark advocacy, joy, and passion for continuing to grow and advance care for our little ones.

[0:03:12] EF: Every fourth episode, I join them. I'm Erin Forward, MSP, CCC-SLP, the Yankee by way of Rochester New York transplant who actually inspired this journey. I bring a different perspective, that of a new-ish clinician with experience in early intervention, pediatric acute care, and non-profit pediatric outpatient settings.

[0:03:33] MD: Sit back, relax, and watch out for all hearth growth and enjoy this geeky gig brought to you by speechtherapypd.com.

[DISCLOSURE]

[0:03:47] MD: Hey, this is Michelle Dawson, and I need to update my disclosure statements. My non-financial disclosures. I actively volunteer with Feeding Matters, National Foundation of Swallowing Disorders, NFOSD, Dysphagia Outreach Project, DOP. I am a former treasurer with the Council of State Association Presidents, CSAP, a past president of the South Carolina Speech Language and Hearing Association, SCSHA, a current Board of Trustees member with the Communication Disorders Foundation of Virginia. I am a current member of ASHA, ASHA SIG13, SCSHA, the Speech-Language-Hearing Association of Virginia, SHAV, a member of the National Black Speech-Language-Hearing Association in NBASLH, and Dysphagia Research Society, DRS. Additionally, I volunteer with ASHA as the topic chair for the Pediatric Feeding Disorder Planning Committee for the ASHA 2023 Convention in Boston, and I hope you make it out there.

My financial disclosures include receiving compensation for First Bite Podcast from speechtherapypd.com, as well as from additional webinars and for webinars associated with Understanding Dysphagia, which is also a podcast with speechtherapypd.com. I currently receive a salary from the University of South Carolina in my work as adjunct professor and student services coordinator, and I receive royalties from the sale of my book, Chasing the Swallow: Truth, Science, and Hope for Pediatric Feeding and Swallowing Disorders, as well as compensation for the CEUs associated with it from speechtherapypd.com. Those are my current disclosure statements. Thanks, guys.

[0:05:46] EF: The views and opinions expressed in today's podcast do not reflect the organizations associated with the speakers and are their views and opinions solely.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:05:54] MD: Okay, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in to this what I'm lovingly referring to as a back-to-school episode. I know some parts of the country started probably two weeks ago. My boys are starting in three weeks and this was the longest summer of our lives, but we are thriving and surviving. On that note, I am honored to have none other than Hallie Sherman. Hallie, I feel like my Hallie sounds very bluesy, mount me, twangy, so I'm so sorry if that comes out Ð 

[0:06:26] HS: No, you said it right. YouÕre good.

[0:06:28] MD: Oh, my God. She is a licensed speech-language pathologist and up until the end of this past school year, she was working full-time at public school in New York, specifically with fifth and sixth-grade students, but she also has experience working from preschool to high school. I know that all of you listening out there, we dibble-dabble across the life continuum, especially within the PEDs world, but I am assuming most of you know her because she's the CEO behind Speech Time Fun Incorporate. She has a Teacher Paid Teacher store, a blog, and an SLP Coffee Talk podcast. She does all of the things and we're going to get to all of the things. Hallie, thank you so much for coming on and what part of New York are you in? 

[0:07:16] HS: I'm in Long Island. You can't tell by my thick Long Island accent. 

[0:07:22] MD: My future sister-in-law is from Staten Island. 

[0:07:26] HS: Very similar accents, yeah. 

[0:07:28] MD: Yes. Yes, but you'd love her. She's the lobbyist. She used to lobby for the National Down Syndrome Society and is like a fierce advocate. Now she lobbies for a Mental Health Association, whose name just went out of my mind because of course it did. Yeah. So, hi. 

[0:07:46] HS: Thank you so much for having me. 

[0:07:47] MD: Thank you. This is Ð it's like, I love it when we get to do podcast crossovers, like it makes me very excited. Okay, you work with the big kids. I get them little and we do our things and then we send them lovingly to you all to do everything that I have shortcomings in like speech sound disorders. Once we hit two to three-word combos, I'm out. Syntax and grammar are not happening for me. But take us back to the beginning. How did you hear about speech pathology and what made this your calling? 

[0:08:21] HS: I am definitely an accidental SLP. On top of now, like an accidental entrepreneur in terms of speech that I'm fine. I went into college completely undecided. My mother is a preschool teacher for the last 25 years, always wanted to be an elementary school teacher. She said, ÒGo for teaching. Go for teaching.Ó I'm like, ÒNah, that's not for me.Ó Then my father was like, ÒGo for business.Ó I'm like, ÒNah, not for me.Ó I went in completely undecided. I always knew I wanted to do something with children, but I didn't know what. 

I happened to meet someone freshman year, a friend of mine. She was taking these speech classes. I'm like, ÒWhat's that?Ó She's telling me about it. I'm like, ÒSounds kind of interesting.Ó So, I took some classes and I was never the star student. I was that B student just by like without having to try. Anytime I had to make any effort, I quit in terms like, if I went to an honors class or things like that. Also, I'm taking these speech classes, which are very science-rich classes. I found myself actually studying and fascinated in it. IÕm like, ÒI guess this is my calling.Ó Then I just went and this is my personality. When I find something I'm into, when I find something I'm passionate about, I just dive fully in. 

I just spent every summer working finding any opportunity I can get, any internship, any experience. I wanted to just soak it. Besides, I was like becoming like a resume, like fill upper person, but I just found myself like subbing in preschools and camp counselors. Then I found a speech clinic in, I went to school in Buffalo, New York. I went Ð I was helping out. I spent a summer there working in their clinic just to be surrounded by SLPs and what they do. I just haven't looked back. 

Yeah, went to grad school right away, moved back home to Long Island. Decided to follow my college sweetheart. We ended up getting married and having kids now here on Long Island. Yeah, when I first got into the field, I knew I wanted to work in a public school setting, but at the time the school set the Ð it's still very hard to get a school job on Long Island, but I was determined. I was like, ÒI'm going to do whatever it takes. I'm going to do whatever I need to do.Ó 

I did my CF in a preschool. Then right after Ð finishing up that year, I just put my resume out every single year. First year I had a bite and got into a middle school in high school. I was a leave replacement. I just hopped leave replacement to leave replacement until I finally got hired as a tenure track physician in a public school in New York. Here I am, 16 years later. 

[0:11:08] MD: Nice. That's amazing. Okay. What I have found, because I've been fortunate to work in some rural locations and some city locations, is that there's so much beauty. If you step back and you take in what different opportunities, because it expands our scope, it expands our understanding of where our students or our patients coming from. So, having that experience with the preschoolers and the little ones, did that like help shape you for wanting to work with the older kids? 

[0:11:46] HS: I actually was Ð it the position that was available. I mean, to be honest. IÕll be honest when I walked in, they're like, ÒOh, yeah, we need someone like to start tomorrow.Ó I'm like, ÒI'm available.Ó Like, ÒOkay, so you're going in the fifth and sixth-grade building.Ó IÕm like, ÒOkay. Okay.Ó But I did Ð this little, but two years prior, I did work in a middle school in high school. So, I'm like, ÒOkay.Ó They're in between where I was and where I was then. I'm like, ÒOkay.Ó If I could take like what I remembered for my graduating elementary students. Then what I had when I was in the middle school. I just had to like, plot myself in the middle. I had to like, just get that perspective. Okay. I remember the fears of those graduating elementary school students like, ÒWait, I'm still continuing speech, like what's that about?Ó 

Then I remember my high school students like, ÒWait, I'm still in speech?Ó I'm like, ÒYeah, you are a kid.Ó So, I had to really get creative. That's when my first year anywhere in a school, your first year, you're really just learning that like the environment, you're not perfecting your craft at that point. The first year, I'm like learning, like what's lunch duty, bus duty, all that fun stuff. Then I had a couple years where I just was finding Ð this is like before Teachers Pay Teachers, before Pinterest, before speech blogs. There was nothing out there for SLPs working with older ones. It was like, ÒWhat, commercially available products?Ó That was all that was available. 

[0:13:10] MD: I literally removed all of their products from a clinic in the past. I kid you not, when I was the clinic coordinator at Francis Marion University, everybody only knew how to do flashcard therapy. I was like, how does this carry over to actual factual like content knowledge? So, I went in and I pulled all of that stuff off the shelves. The students thought I'd lost my mind. I was like, ÒNo, they don't come in and you wave a wand. They magically learn this. It has to be applicable. You have to understand the theory into action.Ó You know what? It was a huge positive change. 

[0:13:46] HS: It's a bit like, I was forced to figure it out. I was using ESL resources, reading teacher resources, because I'm looking at the goals that I inherited, main ideas, sequencing, inferencing like, I don't know how to teach this. I didn't learn this in grad school. That was when I started Speech Time Fun, because I was like, ÒIf I can't figure this out, someone else is struggling too.Ó That was why I was like, ÒLet me just start documenting this.Ó What I'm doing and figuring out on my own. I had a lot of behavioral issues those first few years when I had no idea what I was doing. 

[0:14:21] MD: Yeah. I'm just, you don't know this from Adam, but both of my sons have had speech therapy. My youngest one couldn't hear for the first two and a half years. We had some surgeries. Then he saw Dr. Angela McLeod, who's like, basically a goddess and they love her. She got him talking and worked us through all of his different sound patterns. Although I will miss him saying fire truck with an F substitute in the middle of church because we went to church on a main street in downtown Columbia across the street from the fire station. When he was like two and three, he was like, ÒYou get to fire.Ó And then drop the F-bomb. Preacher was always like, ÒSo, Dawson's howÕs speech therapy working out?Ó We're like, ÒWe're still Ð 

[0:15:05] HS: We haven't been discharged yet. 

[0:15:07] MD: Still a gold. But my oldest, he was a pandemic baby. He also had an early concussion. He struggled with spelling, could read, but spelling still, spelling is still, it still stumps us. It's been really interesting to watch how they navigated this because we just finished fourth grade, but staying motivated to want to go. I've watched as Ð because he's always been in university clinics. I've watched his professors. The grad students have had to shape intervention around his very passionate history buff battleship. It's been cool to watch. So, how Ð it's on my side. I can't be an SLP in that role. I'm like, straight mom. It's magic. They know you're not doing magic, but you are doing magic. How does it work? 

[0:16:07] HS: ItÕs funny, like now, if you said, like go back to the little ones. I'm like, I don't even know whatÕs a Paw Patrol, who's Ð I mean, I know about that stuff. I know about Paw Patrol and Bluey and all that stuff, because of my own children, but I'm like, then my own children at home. I don't want to work with that age anymore. When their friendÕs mom's, my parents asked me or family members asked me about early intervention, IÕm like, ÒYou're asking the wrong SLP.Ó But now once you start getting those, like aha moments with the older ones, fourth, fifth, sixth grade and up like you can't go back, because it's like, it's just so rewarding to be that one person in their day, in their week, where they feel successful. 

[0:16:46] MD: Yes. 

[0:16:47] HS: I find a lot of times my students there, they're in an inclusion set and they're in a resource room setting like speech is just one of the pieces of the puzzle. Unless, of course, there's [00:16:57 an art taken fluency cases], which still also they might also just be carrying that baggage around and might be getting counseling and some other things. But for the majority, like so many of my students are having severe learning difficulties and they're totally being told throughout their day that they can't do something. They're being pulled, they're given different assignments, they're being pulled to the back of the room, they're taking their tests in a different Ð they're constantly being reminded that their learning is different. 

When they're younger, oh, they get to leave the room and get a sticker. They're happy as can be. It's not so cute anymore to leave the classroom with some random teacher when you're a little bit older. They're become a lot more aware and it has that barrier. 

[0:17:40] MD: Yeah. Yes. Oh, I feel this on so many different levels. Then take us from the top. I know we Ð folks, just so you know. Behind the scenes, I always ask every single guest to send three questions they would like for me to ask. Then this is where those questions fall apart because we just get so excited in the conversation, but joy. I'm going to go back to them. Where do you start? How do you Ð also, doesn't this make you think of that huge counseling piece? Because ASHA started a SIG20 for counseling. Did you know they started that? 

[0:18:21] HS: No, I didn't even know that. 

[0:18:22] MD: Yes. 

[0:18:23] HS: That's amazing. 

[0:18:23] MD: It's a special interest group 20 and it's specifically geared for counseling. I haven't joined yet because we've had to buy new toilets for the house. That's where all my money is going, but eventually, I'll join. Toilets. But I feel like that's a huge part of what you're having to do with this age group. 

[0:18:45] HS: A lot of it is not jumping so much into goals and activities in the beginning with them and even in each and every session. I will spend five minutes just talking to them Ð how was your day. Yes. Rapport is essential to get their buy-in. You have to be fun. If you're too rigid and stiff, they're going to not want to work with you, like I don't care if you're working with high school seniors, be okay with some Jenga falling on the floor and some students welcome by. It's okay, like have some fun, like I've stood up Ð IÕve done the floss with my students. They've taught me how to floss or bottle flip and done. Teach me how guys. I don't know how to bottle flip. That's a sequencing lesson. There's so many things you can work on while they're teaching how to bottle flip. 

[0:19:34] MD: Yes. But you're letting them learn through play. We know from research that if they're learning something through play, they're going to learn it quicker and, in less repetitions, or learning cycles because they're fully engaged play. There's also a journal article called play. Play something or another, but it's a literary Ð it's like a research publication on the power of play, which just makes me tickle thinks that Ð 

[0:20:01] HS: And just because they're older, they're still children. 

[0:20:02] MD: Yes.

[0:20:03] HS: They still have interested. Their interest might be different. It might not be Bluey. You might be bottle flipping and TikTok, and whatever that Ð or at night Roblox, whatever it is. Find out what it is. Learn about it. Play around with it. Ask around. Let them teach you. It's okay. I also like to focus on their strengths. So many times, they're being told what they can't do, but just spending a session in the beginning with them being like, ÒHey, what are you good at?Ó I'm talking about it. Letting them know, like letting them know their goals, having them create their own goals. Maybe their goal for the year is to ask a girl at a prom. Maybe their goal is to get on the soccer team. It doesn't have to be speech related, but we can incorporate it or even just ask about it throughout the year. 

[0:20:51] MD: How often do you find that older students are actually aware of their goals? 

[0:20:57] HS: Oh, never. I have to tell them. Even if I told them in September, I have to remind them to like every month. 

[0:21:04] MD: Yes. Okay. If they're not aware of what their goals are, are they ever, like how do you just say, ÒHey, what is it that you want out of speech therapy or why do you think you're here?Ó How do you phrase those questions, those conversations? 

[0:21:22] HS: Definitely, in the beginning as they're coming and being like, ÒOkay, what are some things that are easy for you? What are some things hard for you?Ó Sometimes you can Ð depending on the students and depending on the groups. Sometimes you can just have that open dialogue. Sometimes I have them write down our journal or I feel like a questionnaire. There's first few days this way. It's like, ÒThis is between me and you. No one has to know anything about it.Ó But even just having something on your wall that has all the different types of goals, like vocabulary, quite answering questions, like comprehension, sounds, just some grammar conversation. I literally Ð yes, I literally, pointed to the wall. IÕm like, which one's hard for you? What did we work on today? That's what your goal is like. It's okay. 

Sometimes so many kids will be like, ÒI speak fine. Why am I here?Ó it's like, ÒOh, my goodness.Ó Like, ÒYes, it's called speech, but itÕs speech and language. I was like, ÒHave we ever once worked on sounds?Ó ÒNope.Ó Then even as I'm teaching my lessons. My introductions and my conclusions, I'm always reminding them like, ÒHey, has your teacher ever said, Hey, what is this whole thing all about?Ó Or, ÒCan you tell me in your own words? Is that easy or hard for you? I'm going to show you a way that's going to make it a lot easier so that when your teacher does this, you know how to be successful.Ó 

Not only am I showing them, okay, what I'm working on and why, but how it's going to relate to what they're doing in the classroom, because if they don't see how it's going to help them or again if it's like a conversation or something like, ÒHey, have you ever been out with your friends and had a hard time communicating x, y, and z?Ó Making it relatable to their life? They see how it's going to help them. Otherwise, we're really just doing something in a speech closet. I work in a speech closet. Why would they do it outside of your closet? Why are they going to do it inside your closet? Why would they do it outside your closet if they don't see why? 

[0:23:14] MD: I'm literally my first job was a speech teacher with a bachelor's degree in Virginia. They gave me an actual factual custodian closet. I had to remove the mop and the mop bucket in order to have a space. I was like, this is not safe to have the children sitting on top of the drain pipe, like, no. So that was the Ð and they're like, ÒWell, the last speech didn't have a problem there.Ó I was like, the last Ð 

[0:23:38] HS: She also [00:23:38 didnÕt stay]. She didnÕt stay. 

[0:23:42] MD: Yeah, but like, how many have you gone through? Like, let's start there. Then progress forward. Okay, so then my question is, do you Ð when you're holding these conversations in the small groups, like how many are in the groups? Because I always, granted, I was a speech teacher. I was an SLPA back before we had certified SLPAs, but I personally struggled with how to align the groups so that there was scatter shot strengths within the group to like, have somebody who needed a little more help, but could also facilitate examples in another child's weakness or strengths? 

[0:24:30] HS: Totally. I, unfortunately, schedule based on availability. I try to keep somewhat like level students, like I'll try to keep like, obviously, I only work with fifth and sixth grades with really only one of the two grades, but I'll try to keep myself contained students together, or I'll try to not fully mix and match completely. 

[0:24:49] MD: Yeah. 

[0:24:50] HS: Unfortunately, it's not really like everyone with the same goal, but they all can benefit from the same things. They're all working on those same skills in the classroom. You might not be working, like student A might be working on sequencing, student B is working on main idea, but they both need those skills in order to comprehend and go to the next level. 

[0:25:05] MD: Yes. 

[0:25:06] HS: Whoever is more who has a strength in that one skill, they can be the role model, they can go first, they can whatever for the other, and they can probably benefit from the repetition strategies anyway. Let's be real. If they're with you, they probably can benefit from the repetition and modeling again. Yeah.

[0:25:25] MD: How much fine motors Ð okay, when you're talking about like the sequencing and all of this. I always found that when I was doing intervention, I had to bring in tangible objects. I don't know if that's because I have the ADD, ADHD and can't sit still and like focus without some type of Ð you all as we're talking about this, I'm like stimming in my hands or flying. But I would bring in there was an activity I found in a book once upon a time where it was like a rope that you work down the different objects on the Ð do you know what I'm talking about? 

[0:25:54] HS: The Expanding Expression Tool. 

[0:25:56] MD: Yes.

[0:25:56] HS: The EET. Yeah. Yeah. 

[0:25:58] MD: Oh, my God. I haven't thought about that thing in years, but I love that. 

[0:26:02] HS: ThereÕs like the Brady, the storytelling braid, the story grammar marker, all those types of things. 

[0:26:06] MD: Yes. But like that to me was always, like if I brought in that physical activity for the students, I felt like they were more successful with that than just sitting still and stationary. I mean, this is anecdotal evidence 15 years later. 

[0:26:23] HS: Well, I'm like, let's stand up and play some Jenga. Let's play like let's move around the room, knowing your students and their learning styles is also another thing you can do in the beginning as you're learning your students. There's so many free learning style quizzes online. Let them take it. Let them learn how to advocate for themselves. Oh, I need flexible seating. Oh, I need to stand up. Oh, I need a wobbly chair. I can't sit in these rigid chairs. I need frequent breaks. I need to hum while I'm thinking. Let them act, like let them learn it. You hear about it too. Then teach them how to advocate for themselves, because who says they have to be sitting down in a chair with a paper and pencil. 

[0:26:59] MD: Thank you. You have girls. Two girls. 

[0:27:04] HS: I have two girls. I have a nine-year-old and an almost, but this is erring of five-year-old. 

[0:27:09] MD: Yes. I have the Goose and the Bear. We're two boys, but they are, especially the little one. He's like, ÒI tried to tell my body to be still, but it does not want to learn that way.Ó Where they were in South Carolina and the start of the school, we've put them in a different private school, it allows for learners that can't sit still, like you're allowed to move. But the fact that we have to say allowed this day and age with this much research behind learning styles is scary to me that we're still in classrooms where neurodivergent children canÕt move their bodies. Yeah. 

[0:27:49] HS: That's when we become an advocate for our students, as well. Like, ÒHey, we know Ð we have proof that it's working in our therapy spaces with these things like you're not seeing in the classroom because you're not giving them the space to be themselves and learn the way they need to learn.Ó 

[0:28:06] MD: Okay, so how does this tie into their reading levels? How do you tie this in? Because this is outside of my purview. I mean, I know a little bit about reading therapy. We've had some great other SLPs on in the past that have talked about like the Orton Gillingham or the Wilson's readers or a really cool approach from a private school in Mississippi, but beyond that, I don't do much with literacy. It definitely surpasses the two-to-three-word vocab. 

[0:28:37] HS: Well, if you look at there's a Scarborough Reading Rope, and it's like a whole rope thing visual. The part of it is like, okay, language comprehension, background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, literacy knowledge, plus word recognition, which is phonological awareness, decoding, and site recognition. All that stuff is our domains, like other than the site recognition, like site words, which still we can follow that like Ð 

[0:29:03] MD: Wait, this is the Scarborough Reading Rope? 

[0:29:05] HS: Scarborough. Yeah. S-C-A-R-B-O-R-O-U-G-H. Yeah. 

[0:29:11] MD: Okay, I found it. Yes. Okay. 

[0:29:15] HS: Then all that together combined makes a skilled reader. So, reading is really complex and it really is a language task. Our students that are struggling with language maybe early on, those EI students that you might have Ð your preschool students, if they don't have these foundational skills, they're going to be weaker readers later on and have weaker comprehension. 

[0:29:38] MD: Okay. Folks, if you've never seen this image, it's beautiful. It's literally a braid and it's how all of these little pieces intertwine into the braid and build upon one another, but I've never seen this graph before. That's wonderful. 

[0:29:55] HS: Right. Isn't it just so amazing to see when you see it in like right in front of you, like, ÒOh, my goodness.Ó Vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning that is us. 

[0:30:03] MD: Yes. 

[0:30:04] HS: We are that piece of the puzzle. 

[0:30:07] MD: This is Ð okay. I hadn't heard about SLPs engaged in literacy at all until I went to South Carolina, because where I went, where I worked as an SLT, we had the other, the nearby colleges, just like the College of William & Mary. Hi, dog. Yes, me. The College of William & Mary, they have master's degrees in literacy, where you just go to school and get a master's degree and have to teach readings. We had our reading intervention specialists and reading comprehension. Reading acquisition was not covered in my undergrad coursework or in my grad coursework. This was like a foreign concept.

I moved to South Carolina and the University of South Carolina, which is right down the street and I would get their students. They have the scroll up. They have all of these dyslexia, deep literature, and researchers right there, but it was like a whole new concept when the students were coming to me for early intervention. They're like, ÒWell, how do you engage in literacy or pre-literacy skills?Ó I'm like, ÒWhat are you talking about?Ó 

[0:31:06] HS: Their vocabulary and just word knowledge and concepts is pre-literacy skills. Our students become if they don't have an adequate vocabulary. If they don't have the background knowledge and things like Ð they're going to have a harder time getting words into their long-term memory to be able to read more fluently, because they're just not familiar with the words in front of them. It has not, even they can decode all they want. If they don't have that vocabulary piece, they're going to struggle. 

It was interesting, it was until my daughter, who's now in thorough grade, started getting into more of the advanced reading levels. I'd ask Ð I remember her asking her second-grade teacher, I'm like, ÒWhy is she not progressing like she was last year?Ó She said, ÒBecause once they get to a certain level, it becomes more about comprehension than the decoding.Ó Well, think, okay, our students, they can decode, but they can't comprehend. They're going to be stuck at a reading level. 

[0:32:00] MD: Yes. 

[0:32:01] HS: So, a lot of times our students are weaker readers, because here's some evidence of why that could be, and they're in a third, fourth, fifth-grade classroom, reading maybe at a second, third-grade level. Is it that they're not capable of learning or they're not capable of learning with that reading material? They do not have the vocabulary or background knowledge or language structure in order to comprehend that reading material. That's why it's so essential that if we're not teaching reading or teaching language, why do we have to, if they're in fifth grade, why do I have to bring in fifth grade material? Why can I bring material at their level? 

[0:32:42] MD: You can still marry it to their passion. You can find printed word material that a fifth grader may find appealing but at an easier level. Okay, so then my next question is, I know that that will take time and energy to actually look for those resources, but like, you did that for us. 

[0:33:04] HS: Yes. There's tons of resources out there; newsela.com is one resource right there, that you can take a news article, things that are relevant in the world right now. It's a free site. All you need is a Google login. You can literally find something when the World Cup was going on, there was World Cup articles, whatever is current, like right Ð they are constantly adding things. You can also search. There's five articles that are old about Fortnite. Feel free to use them and your students can tell you what's like been new since then. You can literally just change the Lexile and it just changes the reading level. It gives you five options for that one article. 

[0:33:40] MD: That's amazing. 

[0:33:42] HS: you print it out. You can white out where it says, like reading level or whatever your students won't know and done. That's just one example of like how you can literally just change the Lexile from right then and there. 

[0:33:54] MD: It's called Newsela?

[0:33:56] HS: Newsela.com. 

[0:33:58] MD: Okay. 

[0:33:59] HS: Someone might say, it might have been Newsela, but I call it Newsela. I don't know. 

[0:34:02] MD: This is lovely. I just found it. Yes. Wonderful. Okay. 

[0:34:07] HS: You literally just click an article and it says like there's a drop-down menu and honestly just go to the lowest one. You can play around with it and you'll see the Ð as you go higher up in Lexile, the vocabulary is more challenging. The sentence structure is a little bit more complex. The length of the text is much more complex. It's just like, ÒOkay, where are my students at? Where do they need to be? Do they need to be using or are you they learning at the paragraph level? Where's the breakdown?Ó Teaching them where they are at and building their confidence starting where they can be successful. Get them that quick win. 

[0:34:47] MD: Okay. I'm just thinking, I have a very dear friend who is a certified brain injury specialist, but she works with adults, post-stroke, but post-TBI. Her and I were having a sidebar conversation about like when the brains are covering, she's got readers that want to read, that I am sending that to one of my girlfriends for her adult patients because that's a phenomenal tool. Okay. 

[0:35:08] HS: It's new. It's written for kids, but it's just new at a simplified level. 

[0:35:14] MD: This is brilliant. Okay. Give us another one of your favorite resources. 

[0:35:19] HS: Another favorite one is DOGO News is another news website. It doesn't have different reading levels, but it has embedded videos. It's a great one where you can Ð it's very wordy and I might just simplify it from my students, but I like that it has videos to build in that background knowledge. I always am doing pre-reading strategies like, ÒHey, what do you know about zebras?Ó I'm making this up. They might have videos about zebras right on that website to just introduce them to the concepts. 

You can have that conversation and then read the article because we all know if your students have that background information and that buy-in, they see the benefit of it. You can see where that breakdown is before introducing a concept. Then you can teach them to do that same thing for them, ÒHey, your teacher just gave you something to read on x, y, and z.Ó If you're not familiar with it, you can go to kiddl.com or one of those other kid search engines and learn about it before you read that article. 

[0:36:21] MD: We, BrainPop Jr. is a favorite in our household. Has your daughter discovered BrainPop Jr? Yes. 

[0:36:27] HS: I love BrainPop Ð 

[0:36:28] MD: They love BrainPop, but it also has in it some videos, so that kids that learn that way, that visual learning cell can really soak it in. They have the world's worst dad jokes. I don't Ð you all if you're listening, my husband is a connoisseur of bad dad jokes and like Ð 

[0:36:51] HS: Hey, at the end of every podcast, I tell them bad dad jokes. It's really, okay. 

[0:36:54] MD: Do you really?

[0:36:55] HS: Yes. 

[0:36:58] MD: He has a cheat sheet. He has Ð I found it in the notes tab on his phone, because he was like, we were getting something for the house, not a toilet, but something else. He was like, ÒBaby, put it in my notes.Ó So, I was like typing as he was taking measurements. Then there was his dad cheat sheet of bad dad jokes in his notes tab. I didn't burst his bubble and let him know that I found his adorable little bit like Ð 

[0:37:18] HS: Jokes are a great way to build vocabulary and build rapport with students, as well. One of my favorite ones, and at least gets that smirk for that student that will not want to show me any emotion. How do you get a tissue to dance? 

[0:37:34] MD: How do you get a tissue to dance? I don't know that one. 

[0:37:36] HS: Put a boogie in it. 

[0:37:41] MD: That's good. 

[0:37:42] HS: That's a good one. You can add that to the cheat sheet.

[0:37:45] MD: ItÕs always Ð you can say blow on it to a kid, but that's what my husband would say when the children aren't around. Yeah, sorry, that's a little [inaudible 00:37:56] humor early in the day. Oh, God. What do you call a cow that can't walk? 

[0:38:02] HS: What? 

[0:38:03] MD: A hamburger. That's not funny. It's so funny. I grew up with raised beef cattle. My husband was like, ÒYeah, but they're delicious.Ó I was like Ð 

[0:38:14] HS: That's amazing. But it's true. ItÕs like, BrainPop has some good visuals. I also, Mystery Doug is another site that is free that all you need is a login. I mean, if you share it out to like five friends, and I think three of them have always been like other email addresses of myself and my husband, you can get access to the archives. It's like five-minute videos on anything. He has a new video every Monday. One time was all about magic, or how are rainbows created, or how was chocolate invented. That Mystery Doug is a good man. It's like five-minute videos, so you can work on comprehension skills, but also use it to build that background knowledge before a reading task. 

It doesn't have Ð also comprehension doesn't have to always be reading. We can do listening. There's other modes of learning. Just making it interesting and exciting for our students and using their interests if they're Ð like there's a YouTube channel called Colossal Questions. There's one on like, why do we fart? Like, if they're into Ð like, why not? There was one on how was fast food created? I think something on like, why do we get brain freezes? Whatever they're into like the history of YouTube. Just like use it. Why not? 

[0:39:33] MD: Colossal Questions. 

[0:39:35] HS: Yeah. ItÕs a great YouTube channel, like three-minute videos. 

[0:39:40] MD: My sweet bear asks colossal questions at least once a day, that makes mommy's brain hurt. I'm just going to turn him onto that one, because right now he's on meal fun time. Meal fun or something like that. They do science. It's all science questions. Bless his heart. His little eight-year-old self is scattershot on the fifth to seventh grade reading level. We're trying to keep up and keep pace but finding something that's still appropriate for his emotional intelligence, which is Ð that is challenging and has a special place in its own. 

Okay. This question comes to mind with the movement towards respecting neurodiversity and autonomy. How that piece takes hold, because for fifth and sixth grade, you're still below that minimum 14-year transition requirement conversations and that, but you're still building their independence to get to that point where they can have those leadership positions in their IEP meetings and in that stage. How with this movement towards neurodiversity affirming care, how do you see that carrying over with this age group to like buy in? I know that's a very big question. 

[0:41:06] HS: ThatÕs something that I see like it's, we're not fully there yet. I will be honest. I recognize it in my therapy room. I find that the schools in general are not there yet. They're getting there, because of like the flexible seating and just more acceptance. It's still at the Ð I see a lot of the expectation of like let's try to make them like a neurotypical. Let's like try to make them like this. I stopped writing goals for that long ago because first of all, is that really benefiting anyone? I can't, I'm not here to change. I can't, that's not why they're with me. That's where the having them creating goals of themselves of what if they want to get out of speech?

Showing them what we can provide for them and then letting them help come up with their personal goals. That's okay. Teaching them to advocate for themselves, like, ÒHey, I need more time.Ó Or, ÒI need help.Ó Or, ÒI don't want to do this.Ó Teaching them like just to reject and to say like, it's huge. 

[0:42:16] MD: Yes. 

[0:42:17] HS: It's huge. Like why do they have to? Like, right? Just teaching them that power of rejection saying, ÒI don't like something.Ó ÒI don't want to do this.Ó ÒI need more time.Ó ÒI need a break.Ó Giving them that permission and the scripts or what have you to give them what they need and to advocate for themselves is huge. 

[0:42:39] MD: That happens in the feeding world, like we get the goal from the parents. So, to compare it to my world in the world of PFD, we may have a child that has limited food options, right? We know picky eating is not a thing. This is not that we can take that and toss it in the chuck-it bucket, right? They have a limited food repertoire for a medical etiology, right? We're seeing a behavior that's based off of the sensory experience that's based off of a medical diagnosis, whether or not it's yet known, right? It's one leaning to the other, leaning to the other. 

When we have caregivers come to us in therapy and they say, we want our child to eat this, this, and this. We say, ÒOkay, well, when do you present it? When do you eat it?Ó They themselves may not ever eat it, which is funny to me, like if a parent is like, ÒOh, we want them to eat more vegetables.Ó ÒOkay, well, how often do you eat vegetables? What vegetables do you eat?Ó But they don't actually eat vegetables. It's not something that's available in the home. That's an unrealistic expectation for me to ask a child or if they want a little one to eat a sandwich. Okay, like I can see the value in wanting them to have breads. Maybe they need carbs for whatever reason. Why am I going to ask a child to eat crust, if they don't want to eat crust?

 I was raised that if you eat the crust on a sandwich, you're going to get a hairy chest. I purposely avoided, but I did. I was petrified. So, like I wouldn't need the crust on my sandwiches because anyone had a hairy chest like my dad. It's really funny. I told that to the boys, you need to eat the crust. You're going to get a hairy chest. One of them was like, ÒOh, dads got Ð my husband. ÒHe's got a really hairy chest.Ó So, he eats the crust. The other one was like, ÒNo, dad looks like he's part werewolves.Ó So, like he will avoid. He really does. 

It's like, he avoids, but when I'm in therapy, and we're looking at the goals. In private practice in the EI, you inherit goals are written by other clinicians, right? It's the same concept of you can get through life without eating crust. You can get through life without eating a plethora of vegetables, as long as you have a few solid good ones, you're well balanced, but like, what is that tiny human's goal? What are they telling you? 

[0:45:03] HS: That's true. Who says they can get through life without having a conversation on a non-preferred topic? That's what, they're going to find people that want to have conversations on the preferred topic. 

[0:45:15] MD: They will. They will. Oh, my God. I had one little guy who only wanted to talk about vacuum cleaners. I learned so much about vacuum cleaners. His grandma was like, ÒHe's never going to find another friend who wants to talk about vacuum cleaners.Ó Well, he found somebody who wanted to talk about chainsaws. They would talk at each other, but they bonded talking about chainsaws and vacuum cleaners and trying to make connections between the two. It was beautiful. That I will always walk with Ð I didn't really want to learn that much about chainsaws. I saw a scary movie one time that was scarring, but like vacuum cleaners. 

[0:45:49] HS: Hey, you know what? It's finding that connection piece and showing them, ÒHey, it's okay.Ó Here's how to advocate for yourself and teaching other students around them, it's okay, this is how we accept everyone. 

[0:46:03] MD: Yes, but how often do school-based clinicians in your neck of the woods, actually get the opportunity to go into a typically developing classroom to talk about neurodivergent conversation patterns and social skills? 

[0:46:18] HS: We honestly don't, because we're so busy. What I do enjoy though is, and I might be saying something that I'll regret later, but that's why I do enjoy like lunch duty and things like that because I get to see how like just the students in general play and interact and how I see my students interact. It's an opportunity to just like observe and take a step back and see how what's going on. Because so many times we don't see them in their environments. 

Luckily, that's where like collaborating with the school administrators and school psychologists and the social workers and the school counselors who might have more of that ability to go into the classroom is an opportunity to, ÒHey, I've been just subtly sending links to articles and stuff to my colleagues.Ó I'm, I don't want to be pushy, but you might find this interesting. I'm just like, ÒYou might want to read this, because this is what I've been reading up on.Ó

[0:47:24] MD: Bears, classroom when he was in first grade. He came home and he goes, ÒI have a friend who has, I have a friend who has the tism like Uncle Matthew.Ó My brother-in-law. I was like, ÒOkay, that's what we call Ð that's Uncle Matty calls it as the tism. this is just what is you need to packed off some. I'm like, ÒOkay, so he has, he has the tism.Ó He goes, ÒBut his tism looks different than Uncle Matty's. He calls it autism not tism.Ó I was like, ÒOkay, so that's itÕs technical term and yes.Ó 

The little boy, when he was new to the class, came into the class and spoke to the class about which I just thought this was profound. He had his mom and him and his mom went through and they talked to the class about how sometimes when he's overwhelmed, he needs to hide under the teacher's desk, right? Because it's too loud or there's something, but I understand it was a luxury of a moment, because we were at this lovely little charter school, right? It was very much a Mr. Rogers opportunity, friend Rogers. 

Sometimes I wonder when we're doing goal writing specific for our patients and the students that we work with, if we truly are going with total access and there's a technical term for it, the access to equitable access to barriers, the term will come to me later, but when we're looking at the world from that perspective, shouldn't we be going into typically developing classrooms and talking to them about neurodivergent communication patterns? Shouldn't this be part of their core curriculum on how to communicate and engage with everybody? Why is the burden always on the ones that we've been called to serve? It just, I'd like to wave a wand and make that part of mandatory core curriculum. 

[0:49:21] HS: I know my daughter, I know, and I don't know about the school I even work in, if that's really is touched upon, but I know my daughter has come home and was like, ÒMommy, we learned about Down syndrome and this and that.Ó She's one time just came home where sheÕs like, someone came into my room, I think it must have been the social worker or something. I was talking to them. It was just part of the SEL curriculum. 

[0:49:42] MD: What is the word SEL? 

[0:49:44] HS: SEL, like Social Emotional Learning, I think it was part of that curriculum or some curriculum, maybe social studies, no idea. It was definitely a part of it, which I thought was very fascinating because she came home asking me about and we talked about it more. I'm like, ÒYes, some of the students that mommy works with has some of those things.Ó Like, ÒOh, okay.Ó Just brought her awareness. 

[0:50:06] MD: Yes. 

[0:50:07] HS: That was interesting. It's like, ÒOh.Ó Like it starts the dialogue. I think it's beautiful that they were talking about it. 

[0:50:14] MD: Yes. Okay. We've been talking about goals and we've been talking about this, but how do we make this fun for us to work on like critical thinking goal, like how do we make it fun? Because I that that's the name of your podcast, like your Ð well, that's the name of your podcast, but the name of your company is fun. 

[0:50:34] HS: Using their interests. If they're into farting, using their interests, incorporating games, winding articles on things. If they're into chainsaws, I bet on wanderopolis.com. I bet if you type in chainsaws, you might get a whole article all about chainsaws. I know there is one on refrigerators, like how is a refrigerator made or the history of the refrigerator. I did find that one, but if they're into soccer, there is a YouTube video on a soccer, it's soccer player, miss or fail or score or miss or something like that. They can predict whether or not the soccer player is going to go.

Let them use that as part of the lesson. I am Ð I love using Pixar shorts and even YouTube videos, this one, the Snack Attack, there is coin operated, there's, oh my goodness, this is a million videos under the sun that I love using. Oh, my goodness. One Man Band, Glued is one or kid is obsessed with video games. Just using that. I plug those into Edpuzzle, another free site where you can embed comprehension questions. So, this way, you set it up once and you have it forever. It pauses the video at that moment, so you can talk about things, ask the question, it becomes itÕs Ð you get to select when you continue with the video. 

It's just the kids love it. Wait, I'm not writing, I'm not reading. No, we are still working on main ideas, whatever we're working on in a way. Also, again, just getting them that quick win, showing them using a graphic organizer, something as simple as that. Show them, and don't use the graphic organizer afterwards because then it becomes like a memory task, show them how to use it, like while reading or while watching a video, like any graphic organizer. Say you're working on summarizing. I like using some money wanted, but so then, and having them plugin as they're watching the video, as they're reading. They know exactly how to verbally tell a summary afterwards. So, just teaching them that strategy to be successful. 

[0:52:30] MD: Okay, when you said graphic organizer, my brain tried to dig deep in the recesses of fifth grade. I was coming up with the like, what is the Frank, the Lisa Frank folders thatÕs far as I got. I was like, this is Ð 

[0:52:47] HS: Students don't know how to like, they donÕt know what to listen for, so we can give them a visual or some tool so they know. Okay. Okay, let me take that cognitive overload out of it and say just listening just for this and teaching them to do chunking. Okay, I'm going to Ð we're going to read a little bit or we're going to watch a video or listen to it. There's, oh, my God. There's the six-minute podcast, so there's a podcast that has many episodes, it's all six minutes long. Another thing that you can, it's like a mystery. You have to start at episode one, otherwise, youÕll be very confused from experience. 

I was like, ÒWho are these people? Who are they looking for? I need to start at the beginning.Ó But it teaches, it's just different modalities, but again, using that same strategy. Whether you're using the Expanding Expression Tool. Again, using all these different things are fun, and engaging, and motivating for our students. Again, showing them our thinking about our thinking, and showing this is what I do. If we just give them a tool and say, ÒHey, good luck. Let me know how that goes. Let's keep practicing it.Ó My favorite quote is Albert Einstein. ÒIf you do the same thing over and over again and expect different results, it's insanity.Ó 

[0:53:54] MD: Yes.

[0:53:55] HS: Like we have to Ð like these students have been exposed to these skills in the classroom and it's not sticking. We have to do a different approach. We have to take that SLP lens. What thing from that rope are they missing? Is it the vocabulary? Is it the sentence structure? Is it the print cons? Whatever it is and hone in on that and show them how to build that weakness using their strings. 

[0:54:20] MD: I love that. Okay. Can we talk about how you took your frustrations at your lack of ability to find product, to find content to meet your studentÕs needs and you filled the void, you did it yourself. Can you walk us through that journey, like how you became an entrepreneur and then what you have crafted yourself because I want to shine your light because you've done a bloody phenomenal job, so share it. 

[0:54:54] HS: Thank you. Well, again, I found that there was nothing out there for my students reading levels that was age appropriate. I was finding things, that look like a second-grade activity with cutesy graphics and cutesy topics and bubbly fonts. I'm like, my students are 12 and into TikTok, not into like Sally goes to the amusement park. Also, some of my students might not have had some in the background. I've wanted things that were relevant to my students, their experiences and their interests. I started creating it. I was like, if this doesn't exist, I'm going to write it. 

I started writing things that are about articles about Nintendo or take whatever they're into at a simplified reading level, simplified sentence structures, so that they can be successful. I started researching, like graphic organizers and strategies are needed in order for them to compensate for their weaknesses and figure it out. I embed them into Ð I started embedding them into my resources this way. Other SLPs don't have to spend hours searching and researching and trying to find it out themselves, like here's the article, here's the activity, here is the visual aid, here is the graphic work, whatever I need to teach them how to do it. I started just, I started making it available for other SLPs, because I figured if I needed it, someone else needed it as well. 

[0:56:14] MD: Okay. I don't know how Teachers Pay Teachers works, because I, one of my girlfriend's left and she was like feeding therapist, typically aren't on there. I'm like, ÒYeah, I know.Ó How do people find you? Where is that? 

[0:56:29] HS: On Teachers Pay Teachers, you can search Speech time Fun or if you go to shopspeechtimefun.com, it'll redirect you directly to my Teachers Pay Teacher store, where I have over 600 resources. I lost count after 600, but I've been doing this for 11 years now. I have everything there. You can search by skill. You can search by a concept, like I have things on summarizing. I have things on prefixes and suffixes. I have things on working context clues. I have just comprehension packs. I have since Ð I love using videos. 

I have video companion packs, which I can provide the questions for you, so you can ask the questions while watching these fun YouTube videos, so I Ð 

[0:57:07] MD: Data?

[0:57:08] HS: Yeah. 

[0:57:09] MD: I know people love the data. Are there like there's ways to like keep track of the data when they're going through? 

[0:57:15] HS: Some of them. The teachers have like a checkboxes and things you can check off as you're going through it. You can mark down right then and there. When it comes to data, a lot of it is also, I really am passionate about the teaching first data second. I think it's important to spend maybe the first five minutes or the last five minutes, maybe two minutes to collect your quick data. Again, that anecdotal data is so much more important. What was needed to be incorporated or have we shown to them in order for them to be successful? Was it the paragraph level? Like whatÕs the story? Was it a visual aid? What did you have to model? Did you need numerous prompting? What was needed in order for them to be successful? 

I find that so much more beneficial in designing future lessons and how to tailor it to their needs and how to tell our prompting and our guidance and our pace. That's the beauty of what we do is no one's forcing us to go to the next when we have a curriculum app. That's why I find it so important. At the same point, that's why I do create a digital data tool for my SLP Elevate membership. This way they have a digital data tool in the beginning at the end. They can easily plug in their goals, plug in their data, and then move on and go back to teaching because that's what we're there for is teaching, not data. 

[0:58:38] MD: Okay, so much to unpack in that. One, I love that you're not harping on the data, because that's just, but that's also neurodiversity-affirming and trauma-informed. Like Erin co-hosts with me. She's actually seeing patients all day today. She normally, when her and I can align schedules on Thursdays, we record together, but in one of the projects that we're working on, we're talking about trauma-informed goals. When you actually write a trauma-informed goal for speech therapy, the goal, you embed the strategies and the supports within the goal. It's not like an afterthought, because you have to target this from the perspective of those individuals may always require those interventions and those supports to be a successful independent communicator or eater in all settings. That's okay. 

We all need some level of support and scaffolding ourselves. It's just that over time, we've learned to forge that for ourselves or put ourselves in situations where that's readily available, right? If we shift it and embed that from the beginning, I feel like that's another way to build confidence for the students, because they don't have to worry about the rug being pulled up from underneath of them. I just love it. 

[1:00:00] HS: Also, just spending the time, especially when you're evaluating the student or collecting your baseline data, to really get a true impression of what your students need, that we can really write a goal that they can attain. We don't want to write a goal where they're like, I don't know how they're going to get this by June or in a year. Then at the end of the year, they're like, ÒOkay, am I going to roll this goal over?Ó Like, ÒNo, we want them to be successful.Ó Doesn't mean they're graduating from speech. It means they're graduating from that goal and they can move on to the next thing. 

[1:00:28] MD: Yes. 

[1:00:29] HS: The better we understand where they're at and how they learn, we can write a goal that is appropriate for them. 

[1:00:35] MD: Yes. Okay, wait, you talked about a membership. What is this? 

[1:00:39] HS: Two years ago, I realized people were sending me, how you have like over 600 products in your TPT store. I want to buy everything. How do I know Ð I'm getting lost in what to find. I started a membership SLP Elevate, where every month members get a themed, pack of resources, like giving them all the activities any for the common goals for older students. I figure May was TikTok, June is ice cream, July is sea creatures or water parks or August. One of the two is one of the two. It's just all things relevant to older students and they get fiction passages, not fiction passages, all written at a lower Lexile level, but it's still topics motivating to older students. 

[1:01:28] MD: That's amazing. 

[1:01:31] HS: They get the goal bank. They get a digital data tool. They get access to me to ask questions and things of that nature and tons of tutorials and stuff. 

[1:01:39] MD: Okay. Beautiful. Okay, take us to your podcast. What can folks find on your podcast here? 

[1:01:44] HS: Every Monday morning, I provide the jolt of inspiration, like your cup of Joe, to get you through your week, including a joke of the week, which you can literally take and steal and place on a wall or dry erase board for your students when they come in. My students are always looking for my joke of the week, but I have covered topics on all things from keeping students motivated, to working on vocabulary. I bring in various guests that all work with older students or just related topics related to the field and all just fun and motivating and 20 minutes or less. Every Monday morning, you can find me on all podcast platforms. 

[1:02:20] MD: Cool. SLP Coffee Talk, with beautiful purple glasses. 

[1:02:25] HS: Yes, because everyone loved the way I say coffee and talk, so why not? 

[1:02:30] MD: I love it. Okay. All right. The question that I ask everybody at the end of the podcast is, it's an I love you note to my grandma, right? Because my grandma raised me. She always said, ÒAll right, so what are you going to do with your love money? Where's your mad money yet?Ó Whenever we had mad money, she wouldn't go to antiquing, which was a junk shop. Let's be honest. Let's call it what it was, but if you have any love money or mad money left over and somebody wants to tie that or donate it, is there an organization, or a nonprofit, or a scholarship you'd like them to send it to? 

[1:03:01] HS: One thing I love to contribute, at least annually or biannually, as much as I can. I love to go and DonorsChoose and find SLPs around the country that are looking for resources to help their students. I always try to donate to them. You can go on DonorsChoose type in Speech Therapy and help out SLPs around the country just trying to fund their speech closets or whatever they need. Some people looking for iPads, color printers, Velcro, books, just different things. So, you can find SLPs local in your communities, or neighboring communities, or just browse and just can contribute 25 bucks, whatever price is comfortable for you. 

[1:03:42] MD: Oh, my gosh. Nobody has in all these episodes, nobody has said DonorsChoose for SLPs. That's amazing. Thank you. 

[1:03:50] HS: Welcome. 

[1:03:50] MD: Yes. Awesome. Okay. Well, Hallie, thank you so much for coming on. This has been a joy. I am grateful we get to kick off 23, 24 school year. Also, doesn't that feel weird to be saying that already? 

[1:04:04] HS: That's really weird. That's really weird. I'm not even done with 2023, yet. 

[1:04:11] MD: I feel about that, but okay. Folks, if you are on the land of the Instagram, check us out, First Bite podcast and Hallie or what is your Instagram handle? 

[1:04:21] HS: Speech Time Fun. I'm on Facebook, Instagram. I'm on Twitter and checked out, but I wouldn't really say I'm there. Facebook and Instagram is really where I hang. Then my podcast. Speech Time Fun. 

[1:04:34] MD: I mean, I'm on Instagram, but I also have my favorite account. If you ever need something, it's called roundboys or round.boys.com. It's spherical animals in motion. It's the greatest Instagram account you're ever going to find. They leave and then they fall. Okay. There you go, folks. There's my contribution to today's podcast. Please check out roundboys.com or whatever it is. Maybe not .com. That could go to scary places. It's on Instagram. Okay. Hallie, thank you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[1:05:06] ANNOUNCER: Feeding matters guides system-wide changes by uniting caregivers, professionals, and community partners under the Pediatric Feeding Disorder Alliance. What is this alliance? The alliance is an open-access collaborative community, focused on achieving strategic goals within three focus areas; education, advocacy, and research.

Who is the Alliance? It's you. The Alliance is open to any person passionate about improving care for children with a pediatric feeding disorder. To date, 187 professionals, caregivers, and partners have joined the alliance. You can join today by visiting the Feeding Matters website at www.feedingmatters.org. Click on PFD Alliance tab and sign up today. Change is possible when we work together.

[OUTRO]

[1:05:58] MD: That's a wrap folks. Once again, thank you for listening to First Bite: Fed, Fun, and Functional. I'm your humble, but yet, sassy host, Michelle Dawson, the All-Things PFDs SLP.

This podcast is part of a course offered for continuing education through speechtherapypd.com. Please check out the website if you'd like to learn more about CEU opportunities for this episode, as well as the ones that are archived. As always, remember, feed your mind, feed your soul, be kind and feed those babies.

[END]

FBP 248		Transcript

	©Ê2023 First Bite Podcast	1