Professional Development
Course Offerings
Professional Levels: All workshops, webinars, in-services and presentations can be modified from basic to advanced levels depending on audience needs
Intended Audience: Speech-Language Pathologists, Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, Audiologists, Adoption Professionals, Speech Language Specialists, General and Special Education Teachers, Administrators, Child Study Team Members, Mental Health Professionals, Nurses, Pediatricians, Guidance Counselors, Psychologists, Social Workers, and Parents.
Contact hours: We offer a range of services depending on the audience needs and requirements including:
1-2 hour webinars
2-3 hour presentations
5-6 hour in-services
1-2 day workshops
Professional Workshops and Presentations
Workshop Title: Assessment and Intervention of Children with Developmental Disabilities and Genetic Disorders
Workshop Description: Although developmental and genetic disorders affecting cognition, communication and functioning are increasingly widespread, speech-language assessment procedures for these populations remain poorly understood by many speech-language professionals, resulting in ineffective or inappropriate service provision. This workshop will discuss common developmental and genetic disorders affecting cognition/communication (including Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome, Klinefelter Syndrome, etc) of children in the schools. It will describe cognitive and communicative deficits associated with high frequency syndromes/disorders, instruct participants on how to individualize and utilize functional assessment batteries to test these children’s speech/language/communication abilities as well as how to provide functional and relevant intervention services in both individual and group settings.
Workshop Title: Special Considerations and Challenges in Assessment and Treatment of Bilingual Children with Developmental Disabilities
Workshop Description: While many children who learn several languages during childhood exhibit appropriate language milestones in both languages, there are some children who present with evident dual language acquisition difficulties, often without a clear reason for the delay. These children are frequently referred for diagnostic assessments due to their dual language based learning deficits (which typically begin to manifest in their primary language first). This workshop will focus on how to provide effective evidence based practice diagnostic and treatment services to bilingual children with suspected and confirmed language deficits. It will discuss normal developmental progression of dual language learning, describe how language impairment signs manifest in bilingual children, list assessment challenges, explain unequal linguistic skills distribution (how communicative and cognitive language mastery differ from home/community vs. school environment) as well as go over latest clinical approaches to assessment and intervention of bilingual children.
Workshop Title: Behavior Management Strategies for Speech Language Pathologists and School Based Professionals
Workshop Description: In recent years more and more school based speech-language pathologists have to work with children who present with behavioral deficits in conjunction to speech-language delays/impairments. A significant portion of work with these children in therapy sessions involves successful management of inappropriate behaviors such as excessive inattention, hyperactivity, aggression, opposition/non-compliance and/or apathy, which interferes with successful objective completion and goal attainment. This workshop will explain what type of common challenging behaviors can manifest in children with select communication, psychiatric, and neurological disorders. It will outline behavior management strategy hierarchy from most to least intrusive methods for students with differing levels of cognitive functioning (high-average IQ to varying levels of MR). It will list positive proactive behavior management strategies to: prevent inappropriate behaviors from occurring, increase students’ session participation as well as improve compliance and cooperation during therapy sessions.
Workshop Title: Inattention, Hyperactivity and Impulsivity in At-Risk Children: Differential Diagnosis of ADHD in Speech Language Pathology
Workshop Description: Inattentiveness, hyperactivity, and impulsivity are the most common presenting behavioral problems in at-risk children (internationally and domestically adopted children, victims of abuse and neglect, etc). This workshop will discuss select speech language causes of hyperactivity and inattentiveness in children and teenagers beyond the ADHD diagnosis, including traumatic brain injury, auditory processing disorders, severe language disorders, as well as social pragmatic language deficits. Workshop participants will be able to describe multiple speech-language causes of inattentiveness, impulsivity and hyperactivity in at risk children, identify which formal and informal assessment batteries can be used for determination of differential diagnosis, as well as be able to create various treatment hierarchies for optimum intervention effectiveness.
Workshop Title: Social Pragmatic Skills Assessment and Intervention for Children Diagnosed with Emotional/Psychiatric Disturbances
Workshop Description: The number of children who present with autism spectrum and non-spectrum emotional, behavioral, and psychiatric disturbances (oppositional defiant disorder, reactive attachment disorder, mood disorder, etc) has been steadily increasing in recent years. Many of these children attend district schools and due to high incidence of communication issues associated with these conditions, speech language pathologists are frequently included on the team of professionals who treat them. This workshop is aimed at increasing the participants knowledge regarding aspects of social pragmatic language. It will describe the role of speech language pathologist in assessment and treatment of pragmatic language and social cognitive abilities of school-age children. Participants will learn about common pediatric psychiatric diagnoses and the impact of psychiatric disturbances on language development of school age children. Participants will be able to utilize the latest formal and informal assessment instruments to assess pragmatic language and social cognitive abilities of school age children in order to qualify them for appropriate services. Finally, the workshop will cover current proactive behavioral intervention approaches professionals can implement to decrease challenging behaviors and increase compliance and cooperation of children with psychiatric disturbances.
Workshop Title: Understanding Executive Function Impairments in At-Risk Pediatric Populations: Implications For Professionals and Parents.
Workshop Description: Executive Functions (EF) are higher level cognitive processes involved in inhibition of thought, action and emotion (including self-regulation, task initiation, task organization and planning, cognitive flexibility, working memory and recall, etc). While the refinement of executive functions continues to develop through adolescence and onto young adulthood, the development of executive functions begins in early infancy. However, these emerging executive functions can be effortlessly disrupted by a number of adverse environmental and organic experiences (disease, trauma, psycho-social deprivation, etc) which may often result in subsequent impairment of various executive functions. This workshop is aimed at increasing the participants knowledge regarding aspects of executive functioning in children. It will describe the role of speech language pathologist in assessment and treatment of executive function in pre-school, school-age and adolescent children. The workshop will also discuss various risk factors affecting executive function development in children. It will teach participants to utilize the latest formal and informal assessment instruments to assess executive functions in children as well as how to provide children with impaired executive functions with optimized intervention services.
Workshop Title: Speech and Language Challenges of Internationally Adopted Children: Guidelines for Adoptive Parents and Professionals
Workshop Description: Institutionalization affects every child’s speech-language development. Signs of delay can be obvious or obscure; show immediately or years later. Speech-language screening, evaluation, and reevaluation may be necessary for appropriate diagnosis and treatment. This workshop will review major feeding/swallowing/oral motor, speech and developmental language milestones. It will discuss how to identify warning signs of speech language delay in different age groups (birth-3, preschool, elementary, middle and high school age children), shortly after the time of adoption as well as outline signs of atypical speech language development post adoption in above populations (including specific areas at increased risk: auditory processing and social pragmatic language development). The workshop will also describe appropriate speech language assessment strategies (based on age) unique to internationally adopted children, teach participants how to implement relevant language facilitation methods to improve the child’s speech language abilities post-adoption, as well as list free informational resources available to parents and professionals.
Workshop Title: Recognizing Speech-Language Deficits of Children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders: Implications for Assessment and Treatment
Workshop Description: Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD), Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAE), Partial Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (pFAS), Alcohol Related Neurodevelopmental Disorders (ARND), Static Encephalopathy Alcohol Exposed (SEAE) and Alcohol Related Birth Defects (ARBD) are all names for a spectrum of disorders caused by prenatal maternal alcohol consumption. While statistics on FAS vary significantly it is estimated that 1 out 1000 births are affected by FAS. Limited information exists among professionals regarding how FASD related language deficits manifest in children, how they should be assessed, and what type of language based intervention should be provided in order to improve these children optimum capacity for functioning in academic and social settings. This workshop will describe physical, neuropsychological and behavioral aspects of FAS, explain how prenatal alcohol exposure affects brain development and postnatal function, outline how signs of FASD related speech-language deficits manifest in children of different age groups (birth-3, preschool, elementary, middle and high school age children). Finally the workshop will instruct participants on how to select assessment batteries to test these children’s speech/language/communication abilities as well as how to design functional and relevant intervention services for this population.
Parent Workshops and Presentations
Workshop Title: Early Parental Identification of Speech-Language and Feeding Difficulties in Young Adopted Children
Description: This workshop describes major milestones of normal speech language and feeding development as well as lists signs of speech-language delay in IA children. It teaches participants how to promote advocacy for their child to obtain necessary services, as well as discusses professional, school based, and community resources available to parents to help remediate/facilitate their child’s delayed speech- language and/or feeding abilities
Workshop Title: Improving Language Abilities of Adopted Preschool Children: Functional Strategies for Parents
Description: This workshop provides an overview on how to facilitate development of language skills in internationally adopted preschool children. It offers easy to use implementation strategies for parents as well as lists useful free and low cost resources.
Workshop Title: Improving Language Abilities of Adopted School-Age Children: Functional Strategies for Parents
Description: This workshop describes fun and functional ways of improving your adopted school-age child’s language abilities. It describes the hierarchy of language acquisition skills as well as offers ideas and suggestions for successful implementation of strategies to increase your child’s cognitive language mastery and promote maximum learning success.
