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- Stacy A.
- Collins
- No
- 852 Homestead Avenue
Havertown
Pennsylvania
19083
United States - Early Intervention Independent Contractor
Havertown
Pennsylvania
19083
United States
For children who have moderate to severe CAS, I would specifically focus on using the DTTC (Dynamic Temporal and Tactile Cueing) approach. I was able to start training with Sue Caspari back in 2015 along with working as one of the four therapists in her 2016 Summer Intensive Program in Swarthmore, PA using the DTTC approach. The first step of assessment and making a treatment plan is to complete the DEMSS (Dynamic Evaluation of Motor Speech Skill) if possible, take a full case history and assess the child’s current phonetic inventory in order to determine a starting point. Then, with the family’s assistance, we select specific therapy targets to begin working on in treatment based on functionality and meaningfulness of words, speech sounds they can attain and new movement gestures they can produce with maximum cueing. We select a small group of targets and intensively practice these in blocked practice format while providing varied levels of visual, auditory and tactile cueing as needed until we can fade using the DTTC hierarchy. During this practice, we also are aware of the child’s prosody, intonation and stress patterns as well embedding these features into the practice at the same time. As a child becomes more independent and accurate with these productions, they move to random practice as we integrate new targets.
Parents are directly involved in my sessions or watch via video to see therapy techniques and cueing used. Parents are provided specific home practice targets each night to carryover at home. Specific cues used in therapy are taught to the parents and they practice them prior to departing. We are in touch via e-mail or phone consistently as needed. Parents provide a suggested target list as well and continue to edit it as we progress.
I have used sign language, simple PECS communication boards, and varied voice output systems including Proloquo software and Unity 45 software with my clients. I am not an AAC expert so team up with other SLP’s on the case that have more expertise in this area as needed to collaborate on behalf of the student to improve their overall communication. I have always encouraged families to use some alternative means of communicating if verbal speech is not yet consistently available to them to prevent frustration and allow them to build communication confidence. We collaborate and work together to determine the best choice based on the child's individual needs.