#131: Autism Case Study Series - Part 1

Welcome to Part 1 of 4 of my Autism Case Study Series. I am going back over my last 20 years of experience in public education, non-public programs, and teletherapy working with autistic learners.

In this case study, I discuss a middle school learner in public education. He had recently come to the country and was completely nonverbal. I first began with AAC to give him a voice and start communication. He did have to shape up his point with OT to make this accessible, but from there we began to build rapport. I also started using sign language and the resource LifePrint for his teaching area.

For assessment, I did the VB-Mapp and collaborated on this with his teacher, paraprofessional, and BCBA. The collaborative piece was so important, and we were all working really hard to help this learner find his voice. The VB-Mapp is a great gauge of expressive, receptive, and social language skills.

I structured our therapy around functional goals for this learner involved in leisure skills, requesting, and sharing activities. I worked with this learner in solo sessions in his classroom setting twice a week, and once with group activities.

I used a variety of resources that were tailored to the likes and interests of the learner to gain verbal imitation, and from there I inventoried his sounds and began to build more words and phrases.

The focus of these case studies is to help and inform therapists on how to work with our hard learners. We can make this fun and functional, give these learners their voice, and change their lives. Stay tuned for part 2.


#autism #speectherapy

What’s Inside:

• A Case Study Series of autistic learners.
• From nonverbal to words and phrases to power of speech therapy and collaboration.
• Session samples for a nonverbal learner.
• The assessment process for an autistic learner.
• A case study from public education.

Mentioned In This Episode:
LifePrint
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