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THE SJ CHILDS SHOW
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THE SJ CHILDS SHOW
Episode 287 with Jessie Ginsberg aka Sensory SLP-Enhancing Speech Therapy with Sensory Strategies
Ever wondered how sensory strategies can transform speech therapy? In this episode, Jessie Ginsberg, a seasoned speech-language pathologist and mother of four, shares her innovative approach to integrating sensory techniques into speech therapy. With years of experience running a clinic in Los Angeles and creating online programs, Jessie provides invaluable insights into understanding the sensory system and its critical role in effective communication. She also discusses her new book, which aims to make essential educational resources accessible to families everywhere, regardless of their situation.
We navigate the often daunting journey parents face when seeking professional help for their child's communication issues. Jessie highlights the essential role of speech therapists, especially for late talkers, preschool kids, and those with autism. She emphasizes the importance of early intervention and offers practical steps parents can take at home to support their child's development. This episode also covers key communication milestones to help parents gauge their child's progress and the significance of trusting parental instincts in choosing the right therapy.
Delving deeper, we explore understanding sensory differences in autism, advocating for a strengths-based approach that views autism as a unique neurotype rather than a set of challenges. Jessie shares the benefits of play-based therapies and introduces an exciting sensory gym that combines physical activities with educational elements. We wrap up with a focus on the specific language needs of children and highlight valuable resources provided by Sensory SLP, including Jessie's "Ready Set Connect" book and its associated bonuses. Join us for an inspiring conversation filled with expert advice, personal stories, and a wealth of resources to better support your child's communication journey.
Welcome to the SJ Child Show, where a little bit of knowledge can turn fear into understanding. Enjoy the show. Welcome to the SJ Child Show today. I'm so glad to have you here. Wonderful conversation. I know that we're excited because we've been waiting and now it's build up, so that always makes it fun. Tell us a little bit an introduction and a little bit about yourself and what brought you here today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, my name is Jessie Ginsberg. I'm a speech language pathologist, I own a clinic in Los Angeles for over 10 years and I also have online programs that are global where I teach other therapists and parents how to support their child's communication using sensory strategies. And I should also say I've got four kids. I'm a mom of four boys, so I always have that perspective working with parents as well. But you know, I really just kind of stumbled into. It's funny because my you know social handle and kind of known as the sensory SLP, and that was just something that slowly became over time.
Speaker 2:I was doing podcast interviews and it was enough people who had said to me so when did you become the sensory SLP?
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I'm like am I that person Like I don't recall ever calling, and then I just went with it. I love it, but to me there's just such an importance of speech therapists being able to understand the sensory system and parents being able to understand their kids' sensory system, and it just makes such a big difference in our lives every single day and I just really wanted to bring more education forward to professions and people who otherwise may have not received that kind of education that kind of education.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so important across the board because I think that when you are in a specific field, you sometimes take for granted or don't even know what other fields do and other parts of therapies and modalities that are available, and there are so, so many, and it's great to have kind of more of a detailed look so that we can kind of dissect and see what's best for your child, what looks like they would progress better with what types of therapies, and that's something that I think is important to look at as a team, as I'm sure that you do often in you know, team building, if you will, and making sure that everyone is working together to support that child in their needs. Looks like we have a little bit of a funny technical lag here, so I apologize for that. That's happening. What do you say? What is the kind of typical day look like for you? And then we'll kind of get into more what sensory speech therapy is and looks like.
Speaker 2:Well, that's a fun question. Okay, I wasn't expecting that that's a fun one, because I love to ask that question to other people. So every day is very different. But essentially I'm running two businesses. I have our clinic in LA, getting four kids ready off to school in the mornings and then starting my day, and usually I'm focusing on what can I do online for the first half of my day, and then the second half of my day usually goes to the clinic. But you know, I do a lot of supervising in our clinic, working with our therapists, training our therapists and a lot of stuff like this A lot of writing, a lot of writing, a lot of training, a lot of speaking.
Speaker 2:I just wrote a book that came out recently and thank you, yes, very, very excited about that.
Speaker 2:So that was kind of the goal of the book, because there weren't really that many ways necessarily for people to come and work with me and my team. You know, we have families who might drive an hour and a half to come for a 30 minute session and I feel terrible about that and I'm like I just want you to know you don't have to do this, you know, okay, but some parents, it's just they want to learn this so badly that it's worth that for them. It's just, they want to learn this so badly that it's worth that for them, and that was you know. The huge benefit for me in putting out the book was now I can get this information into the hands of people, no matter where they are in the world and no matter what kind of budget they're working with, because everyone can get this book I love that Accessibility is so, so important, especially for information, and it's so hard to imagine that there are places still that have, you know, limited access to information and as far as the internet and things like that goes.
Speaker 1:So hopefully Elon did a little bit of help with that.
Speaker 1:I think that it's beautiful that we can reach so many people through books and through in that way. Plus, the online aspect of that also gives it such an easier access for individuals that don't have to drive, you know, in busy LA traffic. I'm in Utah, so I don't have to worry about that. Yeah, I completely get you know how important it is when you find something that you love and especially find something that is going to work for your child. You'll do anything to do that, and I completely get that, and we'll be going through that this next year.
Speaker 2:We'll see how that turns out. I mean, I think in therapy one of the most important things for families is just to find people who can support them where it just feels right, you know. And so many parents say how do I know that? You know I'm in the right kind of therapy, or how do I know I'm doing the right thing and I'm? You just ask yourself, does this feel good? Because we know and we have gut instincts as parents when something doesn't feel good. And we have a parent who was just in my office this week and she said at the last clinic they were in, her son would come in and he would cry the whole session and the therapist would say, no, it's okay, we need to work on him being able to take these demands and this is normal. And you know she was like but it doesn't feel right, are you sure? And she is one of the families who started driving to come and see us and she would come in.
Speaker 2:And there was this day where I was. I happened to be in the waiting room. It was maybe his second time coming or something. And he's a little boy. He carries these huge stuffies. They're like his emotional support. So he comes in, he's this little boy carrying these huge animals as big as him, and then he just plops them on the chair in the waiting room. And then, when the therapist opens the door, he just runs back and his mom looks over at me and she just starts crying. She's like he's never done that before. Like what am I? Chopped liver? He didn't even say goodbye to me, he left his stuffies, and but it's. That's how significant it is when you find therapy that feels good and it's the right fit. You're just gonna know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and isn't that interesting that you would say that, because it's such a human thing, right, follow your instincts, follow, like that's what we're always taught. But when it comes to parenting a special needs child, I think that so many people get caught up in their own imposter syndrome, basically, and question themselves and how would I know? Like I don't know enough, how do I know that this is the best and things. So I love that. You said that you have to just feel good about it, and it is so true.
Speaker 1:Even when you have in-home therapy, if you don't feel good, if your child isn't responding well to the therapist, if they're not building a trust relationship right away or within a very short amount of time, then you need to just search out other options. And it's okay and I think that parents fear that it's not okay that they'll be looked at in some way, that they're, you know, not going, not doing everything they can, and that's just not the case. Like, doing everything you can involves creating that safe environment, that nurturing environment for that child to grow and, especially, being excited to be somewhere. That's where so much can happen and so much positivity, empowerment how empowering for that little guy to be able to do that, to leave his stuffies behind and go into that for himself, and good for you guys for fostering that environment there for them. Yeah, it's so important that parents hear that it's okay to not to go with the first person or even doctors, right? We people just need to be very picky.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think parents think, like, well, I need to do the right thing. I was told to do this and now I'm here and I'm doing this and it doesn't feel good, but this is what I'm supposed to be doing. And it's like I don't know who said this quote, but it's like the you know, fear of the, the pain of the. Would you rather live with familiar pain or unfamiliar pain? No, so it's like, well, I know this doesn't feel good, but I'm here and I'm doing it and I know what it is. Is it worth uprooting? You know, I'm here and I'm doing it and I know what it is.
Speaker 2:Is it worth uprooting? You know these, this, what we've created to go and try something new, and you know it's just we don't know what it's going to be like. So it feels risky. Yeah, and a lot of parents do reach that point. Yeah, and unfortunately, you know, a lot of parents, I don't think, necessarily listen to their gut quickly. They have to reach the point of realizing you know wow, this really does not work for my family.
Speaker 1:I see that a lot at least to therapists, like, is there so much need for more? And like, as far as like waiting times and things like that, what are you guys seeing across the board with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very hard to get therapy covered by if you want it covered by your insurance. You know I'm in California. There's very. Our clinic is one of the few left that takes insurance. I that's a very, very um hard decision to make as a business owner, because insurance isn't fun and insurance sucks and um, it's not like the most the way to make the most money. But I really feel like parents need to have access to services and if a parent is able to use their insurance and come to two sessions a week, instead of pay privately and come to once a week, I'd rather them come twice a week.
Speaker 2:But it's it is. It's very okay. I'm here to learn from the therapist and what can I be doing at home? So there's so much you can be doing at home so it shouldn't have to feel like I'm taking my child to this expert and they're the one who knows what to do. You know, no great therapist would say I'm the expert in your child. The parent is always an expert in their child. So you know, taking advantage of the sessions that you have by asking the questions you have and by making sure you do know what to do at home so that you do feel like this is extending beyond the therapy room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that. Let's go kind of into that as a parent. What should we be looking for? What types of steps? Why would we reach out to a speech therapist? What types of things would encourage us? Why would you say we would need to come and find a speech therapist?
Speaker 2:us? Why would you say we would need to?
Speaker 2:come and find a speech therapist? Simple answer, I guess, is that you know child's having trouble communicating, in whatever form that is I could speak to. You know, speech therapists do a lot. Obviously In our clinic we see a lot of little ones. So we see a lot of kids who maybe are late talkers and just aren't hitting those milestones of a certain number of words by a certain age. We see a lot of kids in preschool who you know they've been home with their parents and then they go to school and then teachers say, hey, you know we're having trouble understanding him or we're not really seeing him interact with his peers like the other kids and they're recommending it. So we see a lot of referrals coming from like milestone appointments with doctors starting preschool or starting some kind of school. And then we do have a good number of parents who are just proactive, which is awesome. But you know, one of our specialty areas we support families with is is therapy for autistic children. So that's something that we get a lot of referrals for.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and the growing number will, I'm sure, be increasing more. Next year we'll see a whole nother set of ratios coming out. That'll be interesting and in that it's so important that people understand kind of the availability of speech therapists for specific learning disabilities, autism, what about? Where would you suggest someone go if they aren't? My head just went if, what kind of things at home can we start doing as parents, if we're practicing our, you know, with our toddlers, for example, what things should we be looking for? What are those milestones if there's new parents listening?
Speaker 2:Oh, what are the communication milestones they should be reaching? I mean, generally speaking, we say you know, at least one word by age one, at least 50 by two, but most kids will have around 250 by two, wow. So that's kind of the simplest. And 50 by two, wow. So that's kind of the simplest.
Speaker 2:Other things you know, at least in autistic kids who are young, we'll see differences in joint attention. So you know, neurotypical joint attention would be, you know, child looks at the toy and then they look at their play partner and then they look back at their toy. And it's this referencing going back and forth, whereas with a lot of young autistic kids what we'll see is their attention will shift in different ways. So they might have a longer period of time where they're paying attention to the toy or the object versus referencing back and forth the toys and the object. And you know, I am happy you brought that up because I am a person who takes a strengths-based approach.
Speaker 2:When we talk about autism we don't talk about quote red flags. We talk about autism as a neurotype. There are no red flags, there are characteristics of autism. A lot of people might say this child struggles with joint attention or has difficulties with joint attention, but in reality it's. This child has a different kind of joint attention. This child has autistic joint attention, and autistic joint attention does not look like neurotypical joint attention.
Speaker 1:I think it's so important that we're breaking those stigmas, because it's so much new information for so many people that don't know it and it's really hard, especially I mean of course, on parents, but teachers, how do you see you guys, as speech therapists, helping out the teachers when it comes to that school age kiddos?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the biggest I don't want to say misconception, but I think maybe mindset barrier it's more of is that we can't give kids the individual attention they need because there's too many of them in a classroom, you know. And when we go in with that mindset into a classroom, then that prevents us from even trying to better accommodate a child. And it's a long-term plan, right. So if we do what's easy, everything else is going to be hard. If we do what's hard now, everything else in school is going to be easy. So if we can take the time to really figure out what a child's individual needs are upfront, everything else is going to be easier and happen more naturally and we won't have to come back and like it doesn't have to be a reactive to every problem kind of situation.
Speaker 2:You know, something that I really preach is how can we be more proactive about our kids needs, because right now it feels like we're in this world where we're just solving the problem of dysregulation, like, oh, the kids dysregulated, how can we, how can we get them back to be regulated? It's like, well, why aren't we talking about how we can be more proactive? Why aren't we talking about how can we better set up the environment or set up the routines for this child or their accommodations, so that we don't have to play the game of. I think of it like a seesaw, like balancing dysregulated, regulated, like that's not a safe, comfortable state for kids to live in?
Speaker 1:Absolutely no, that's really hard. When it comes to other forms of therapies, what do you generally see, that is, are there things that are related to speech, like maybe myofacial things, you know, things related to the mouth, or does that also? Do you guys also have maybe like partners or people you refer for that purposes? Because I know that some friends that have their son, you know, had a lot of trouble swallowing at the very beginning and the first thing they did was actually send them to a speech therapist who then sent them to the myofacial people. But what about that? What do you think, kind of do you know when to refer someone for those purposes too?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think that I personally feel like every therapist should be as specialized as possible. And it's hard because sometimes, when you're starting a business and you just want to take all the clients and like, there was a time where I was seeing like so many different kids like and different things, and it was like I was just spending all my time learning, trying to figure out rather than trying to hone down, see a select number of types of kids you know. So, yeah, absolutely there can be a lot. There can be, for I guess, whatever the concern is, there can be a lot is their clarity of speech versus, like swallowing. They would need to go to a feeding specialist, oral facial myology we do some of that here but I would say those are all things that are pretty different than, like, the therapy we do for autistic kids, whereas the therapy for autistic kids is more based on building their communication, maybe using devices to communicate or any kind of AAC, really focusing on, you know, helping improve engagement with back and forth interaction and a lot more play-based.
Speaker 1:I love that too. Play-based is just the best type of therapy.
Speaker 1:I think I feel like my son that was, his best success in therapies were those play-based therapies, and it was so hard too, because he has he's profoundly gifted, and so you find yourself on the edge of algebra how do we do that? But there are, there are so many ways. In fact there's. I am excited to talk about sensory stuff because we're we are going to go to a new sensory gym this fall as part of the scholarship program that we we got got and I'm really interested and excited to see.
Speaker 1:Number one, because physical it's physical activity is hard for him and he struggles with doing a lot of physical activities and I think this will be really great. But number two, they involve math and science and things that he loves integrated into this gym that you know also has like lights and sounds and all these you know things that sounds awesome, amazing. Yeah, apparently they use the program for like nasa and the nfl and and the NBA to help players kind of get to be more aware of everything around them on when they're on the court or on the field and things like that, and you know fast reflexes for making decisions quickly and all of those things. So it'll be really interesting. Um, tell us a little bit about the kind of the sensory part and, for those who you know don't know maybe what the sense really is, explain that first and then we'll go deeper into that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, our sensory system is really how we take in everything around us. So, as we all know, you know the basic five senses sight, hearing, smelling, taste, touch. I was like, did I get them?
Speaker 2:We also have our vestibular system, which is our sense of balance, and then we have our proprioceptive system, which is where we take an input from our muscles and our joints. So you know, I really got deep into understanding sensory, because the majority of autistic kids have sensory differences and when I was even just starting out, before I knew anything, I had literally I did not know anything. I would show up every week going what did I get myself into?
Speaker 2:I had the very first autistic boy I ever worked with, who was three. He was non-speaking and I just I saw him for three-hour sessions because this was this play-based type of therapy and I'd spend three hours every Monday morning thinking what am I doing? This is so hard, I cannot get him to engage with me. He would just zip around in and out of all the rooms in the clinic. The only time he would ever sit still is if he had cars. But when he had cars I didn't know how to get him engaged with me and it was like every week I had no idea what to do and my supervisor came up to me one week and said hey, we want you to take a video of that kid for our next supervisors meeting so we can review your therapy. And that meant me taking a video and them 20 supervisors in the clinic watching it. And my heart just sank. I was like, oh my God, are they going to fire me? Like there's no way they're going to think I'm the worst therapist of all time.
Speaker 2:But what that did was kind of lit a fire for me to figure out. What can I do so that I actually look like I'm helping this child? And I have this whole thing on video, which is the best part because it was so long ago now. But I have this on video where I set up a CD player and put on some music and he ends up climbing up onto the table and we start dancing together and then he looks down and he jumps into my arms and then he runs back up onto the table again and I look at him and I say go. And he says go, and that was like one of the first things I'd heard from him and we just did that over and over for the entire rest of the session and it was for him, that movement that really helped engage him. It was the music, it was the movement and anyway they ended up hating that clip because they were so upset.
Speaker 2:I let him stand on the table. Oh goodness, I know. I was like there's like an 18 inch table, the toddler table, so it's just kind of funny. Then they're like why did you let him stand on the table? And I'm like did you not see like how amazing this was? Yeah, so, um, that kind of you know, I started working a lot with the OTs in the clinic, the occupational therapists, and doing a lot of co-treatment sessions together and learning more about the sensory system, but I just I had kids where all they needed was, you know, to be pushed on the swing or jumping or running or deep squeezes or some kind of like sensory experience, and that really is what helped them to become more regulated.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting our body's responses to things, and even in my own experience, you know, I just got my diagnosis like two years ago, and so when I kind of searched back into my childhood to figure those interesting things out, one of the sensory thing that always was for me it was hearing and these little tiny ears, and so I had always kind of thought that it was well, probably it's because of that sensory hearing, but the garbage truck I was so afraid of garbage trucks for my whole life Cause I would have to like hide under pillows. When they came in the seventies, I was so afraid of garbage trucks for my whole life Cause I would have to like hide under pillows. When they came in the seventies you know, date myself there because they didn't have you know the quiet breaks or anything, and it was just like this horrible experience for me and it wasn't literally wasn't until these, the last maybe like eight months that my husband was like you know, you really need to talk about how garbage day is still such a hard day for you. It's like you don't have to have those, that doesn't happen for you anymore. But really it created so much trauma for me and you know, back then it was just like you're being a drama queen, you're're just overreacting all of these things.
Speaker 1:So I think it's great that now we kind of give humanity and awareness to those things for children and understand that, like when they show pain and fear in something around them, in their environment, that the best thing to do is look into it and realize that it's their own way of trying to communicate through their behavior. Whatever is happening, and the best parent and adult you can be is to discover more about what that might be and be curious about how you can help navigate those changes for them and support them. Yeah, now I'm done. Now I can have a Friday. I'm good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean what I always. I think one of the most important things to know about our sensory systems is that our sensory systems affect how we experience the world. You know so. We cannot possibly be able to understand how a child might experience the world if we haven't lived in their exact sensory system. You know so. That's why, like what you're mentioning, and just validating and coming with curiosity and compassion is so important, because just because you know it didn't hurt you doesn't mean it doesn't hurt them. And you know, just because some woman went through labor with no meds and whatever, it doesn't mean that anyone could do it and not pain. Right, we all have different ways that we experience the experience the world.
Speaker 2:But you know, your story is not uncommon and I have an autistic friend, an SLP.
Speaker 2:Her name's Jamie Boyle and I wrote about her in my book because it's a story of she got an autism diagnosis at 35.
Speaker 2:She enrolled in my sensory course to help her clients because she was an SLP and she had no idea that she was actually learning about herself. That wasn't her intention and she said that after learning her sensory needs and making some simple accommodations in her life and one of them was major sensitivity to sounds, but after giving herself some accommodations and things that she could do differently, it just completely changed her world. I mean, she went from living her whole life overwhelmed and overstimulated throughout the day and then melting down every single time she got home every day, and just making some of those simple changes completely changed the way she was able to live and she didn't have to come home and experience meltdowns every day. And you know, I wrote about that in my book because it's just the the idea that how incredible would it be if we could help our kids with this from the time they're really young, instead of having them go through their whole lives before discovering how to make life easier and, you know, feel better for them.
Speaker 1:Right. And how do we start to bridge that conversation with our kids? What kind of conversation do we have with them about their senses and how to kind of listen or explain them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that question because it's something I think about all the time. You know, my kids right now are one, three, five and just turned eight so, and my eight year old is super, super sensitive to a lot, anxious. So we've had a had a lot of conversations about things like this too you know, of course, with our clients in the clinic as well too. You know, of course, with our clients in the clinic as well. But really just helping them to understand, first of all, like this is something that I like versus something I don't like, you know. So in our clinic we'll have a questionnaire for kids to kind of go through and we'll give them different scenarios and they can talk about if they like it or if they don't like it. And if it's certain sounds like do you like when the music is really loud, or do you like when the music is really soft? Or do you like music while you're doing your homework, or do you like it to be quiet when you're doing your homework? Or do you like the door to be open so you can hear the wind, or do you like the TV running in the background? And just talking to them about what makes them comfortable. And I think all too often we make assumptions for our kids. You know I like to do my work in silence, so that means they probably like to do their work in silence too, you know. But for some kids, like having soft music or something playing in the background, can be really calming or regulating for them. So just starting to like, when you notice they really don't like something, talking about it, and, like you said, coming from a place of curiosity, you know, and maybe even asking more specific questions, like I'll do my poor set, I'll be like well, was it like the sound, was it the texture? Was it like? What was it exactly? And I tried to really dig in to get them to think about it. You know, because a good place to start to is I like to help kids or just people in general, figure out what they're like.
Speaker 2:I call sensory triggers, meaning something that, like this, happens and you're just immediately dysregulated. For me it is wool sweaters, oh or um. My partner, chris, it is like he, he could. He's the loudest person, he loves loud music. The kid screaming doesn't bother him, but the second he hears someone crunching me. Really it's like you've got to get out of that room, you know, and sometimes the triggers we have don't necessarily fall in line with other things, like we may love music but hate one specific sound. So instead of like making generalizations, like well, am I sensitive to all sounds, you know? I just say take that one thing out, put it over here. We know that's one of our triggers. And what we know about triggers is we either want to avoid them or try to minimize them. You know our job is not to try to get a child to like it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no compliance. I'm so glad that they're changing, you know, that idea that that's like the most important thing. I think that I've learned so much. I mean, I just had a grandbaby two weeks ago.
Speaker 1:So now, I'm a grandma and so 20 years of parenting has taught me, you know, and three different individuals, which you know as well as I do. They're also very different and you cannot parent the same one the same way as the as any other. And it's really, really now. I'm totally lost my train of thought here. Come on, get back to it. I'm having a real trouble today. I'm just so funny.
Speaker 2:I keep saying like, on that note, I keep saying like you have one kid and then you're like, okay, and then you have the next kid, who's probably the opposite of the first. So then you're like, okay, well, I know how to parent this kind of kid, because I had that one, and now I know how to parent their opposite, which means when I have the next, it's going to be one of those kids. And then you have the next, and the next is completely different. And then I had my fourth, and my fourth was completely different.
Speaker 1:I'm like there is no one way. No, there's no one way, and it's it's important that we really give each kiddo their own.
Speaker 1:Oh, now I know what I was going to say but we really learned to follow and now I know what I'm going to say but we really learn to follow. And that's hard as parents. I think that a lot of parents want to get in there and we know it all and, like you said, we do this, so our kids must like it this way and things, and we really put a lot of ourselves on our kids' lives, our imprinting over them. But it's really really important that we kind of step back and we've learned to follow our kids and then we can learn about them, and not only in that they feel cared for and seen and heard and valued.
Speaker 1:When you want to follow and when you want to, you know well, show me what you're doing in Minecraft this week, like, show me the things you're building, and it really can create so much um excitement to in that relationship building with them. When you are willing to do that, and I think you have to just kind of get your ego kind of kicking back a little and say you know, especially these kids today with their they're in this era of information that we are, no, no idea what that's like as a little person. Um, we have to be kind of um a little bit understanding that they're going to. Things are going to happen differently than than we've seen ever before. We almost have to ride this wave with them and not expect them. Like you said, compliance, compliance, because that's not going to work, especially with the really younger generation, who is going to be people we can't relate with as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. That doesn't even work for people like in their 20s right now?
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, it's so interesting, isn't it Like how generations? How is this even possible? Right, I'll survive, yeah, by learning, learning, learning, learning, and that's the best thing we can really do. Tell us about your book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's called Ready Set Connect. I wrote the whole thing before it had a title and I was like I it was, the hardest part of the entire book was the title, and it really came together. You know, ready set connect the whole thing is really about how we can help our kids become more regulated so that they could be more engaged and learn how to communicate, and it was just a step that I really feel as therapists speech therapists we miss getting taught. You know, we don't learn those things in school. What we learn is a kid comes to your office, they're not talking. Your job is to get them to talk. You've got to work on language, got to work on you know, and what that results in at least a lot with autistic kids is when a kid comes into our office and our goal is I got to get them saying words, that turns into a session that is very, you know, compliance driven and very structured. How can I get them to say the most words? And then what we end up with is a kid who can say I want juice, I want milk, I want train, I want, you know, I want a lot of things, but then we're not seeing this.
Speaker 2:It developed into this abstract, beautiful language. You know, I want juice is not the same as the Spider-Man movie just came out and if we don't have any plans tomorrow, can we go and can we invite my friends? Yeah, that's an entirely different level of language. So in the book I describe my analogy, which had originally been published in our the American Speech Language Hearing Association publication, about how never end up with a staircase that is stable. So it's really, you know, a collection of stories of different kids. I've worked with the concepts, I've learned from that and then how you know you as the reader can take those concepts and start implementing them. But really about the importance of a connection driven approach as opposed to compliance driven. I love that.
Speaker 1:And I love it even more when I tell you the next story, because the very first interaction we had with DJ when he was, he was diagnosed at 16 months. 16 months, so it was very early, it was. And I don't even know if he had a diagnosis yet, as we were just with early intervention. You know, I'm like trying to remember, but that was one of the therapists. We had a couple that tried, you know, like you said, tried, tried nothing was working. Like you said, tried, tried, nothing was working. It didn't feel good.
Speaker 1:And finally this lady stepped in and she said well, why don't we try playing ready set go? And that was our first. His first like sound word that he made was go as well. And it was, yeah, ready set go high five. Ready set go run. Ready set go high five. Ready set go, run. Ready set go do whatever. Jump ready, you know, and we used that for everything after that. You know, it was like the best thing we could have ever learned, ever in our, you know, at that beginning stage, and it was just like you said, it was that beginning of creating that relationship. It was him understanding that we were in this with him, you know, and he was a part of it with us and it was just we're.
Speaker 1:Today, I still I love that therapist. I still, you know, am friends with her on Facebook. I just lots, of, lots of props up to her for for doing that. And it wasn't, you know, he, he didn't start speaking until he was four, four and a half maybe, and we found that it was diet changes, that that made our changes for us. But that's a whole different thing. That's, you know, can be, can be gone into in such detailed discussion. Um, but it's so, it's so neat when you make that uh connection. And now I like to joke, and you might, you'll probably be able to find this funny now, dj, today um is speaking.
Speaker 1:I, I don't, he's not wonderful in his uh, you know, uh, reciprocal conversations back and forth. Uh, he does study languages. So he knows 134 languages. Uh, how to identify them by text or sound. If he hears it, he'll understand exactly what language he's hearing. It's incredible, but I always joke that you know he knows 130 languages but he doesn't speak English very well, won't make that communication, you know he doesn't. He doesn't do that very. We're still working on those, those skills, but it's, it's interesting that how how unique language is for everyone and really how important it is as a parent to discover what's best for your child. To discover what's best for your child as far as you know their language needs or support systems go. How can we find out more about you, support you, all of that good stuff.
Speaker 2:I'm online at Sensory SLP so on social at Sensory SLP you can get ready set connect book. If you go to ready set connect bookcom you could get the book. There are also, you know it's also on Amazon, but if you go to that website, ready set connect bookcom you will also get access to bonuses. So you get a free training that comes with the book. You get the audio book for free as well when you go to that page. Um, a long free event is coming up for anyone who purchased the book. So lots of awesome stuff, nice, coming up yeah, so it right.
Speaker 1:That will lead you to the link and to all the bonuses and sensory SLP, where you can find her on her other social medias and good stuff like that trying to type that come on fingers and there we go. Perfect, amazing. Definitely go and and check her out, support her, uh. Check out the book, learn how you can better understand, um, how to help your child if they are struggling with speech, um, and, of course, you know, go and and connect, mostly to learn more about all. It sounds like you have some really great resources on your page and everything, so I'm excited to go over and check that out and it was so nice to have you on today and to meet you and get to know you better and I look forward to staying in touch for sure.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you so much for having me here. So grateful to be here.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, and you have a wonderful day you too.
