Did you read the article in the ASHA Leader yesterday? My 4 Favorite Tips to Involve Parents in Treatment August 17, 2017, By Jonathan Suarez? It corresponds with our
Auditory Verbal Principles of guiding and coaching families.
Jonathan Suarez, MS, CCC-SLP, shares that SLPs are experts in speech and language development whereas, parents, however, are experts on their child. Like LSL practitioners Jonathan suggests we take advantage of this time and teach the parent simple ways to help their child every day.
He wrote about a child who had SLP sessions twice a week for 18 months which comes out to 156 sessions.
Jonathan said, "If I went to 156:
personal training sessions, then I better be all muscle.
cooking lessons, then I should cook like a master chef.
college courses, I could earn at least two degrees, maybe three.
coached basketball practices, I might finally accomplish my life-long goal of being an NBA player.
finally, as a parent, if I attended 156 speech-language sessions, I hope I learned enough to help my child work on the concepts at home."
I thought this was an illustration we can share with parents or colleagues who still believe more therapy must be better. We know that coaching parents and getting other family members involved usually allows the child to make faster progress.
