In today's episode, Kelly discusses why she wrote the book  Speech Sound Disorders: Comprehensive Evaluation & Treatment   and how the everyday clinician should utilize it. What I like about Kelly's book is that it includes discussions about children with autism spectrum disorder as well as other developmental delays. And she includes nonspeaking children as well! 

Important aspects of Kelly's approach come from other disciplines like occupational therapy and psychology. Along with DTTC, Kelly has come up with a formula for successfully working with many children exhibiting speech sound disorders. But make no mistake! The book is not meant to be a "how-to" cookbook. The recipe for success is ultimately up to you SLP’s.  

Kelly Vess has been a speech pathologist for over 17 years. She works in a school district with kids in an early childhood program. Kelly is also a clinical instructor and mentors graduate clinicians. She has presented at various venues and can be found presenting online as well. 

Kelly's book is called Speech Sound Disorders: Comprehensive Evaluation & Treatment and it is available for purchase now and it is published by Thieme.

Here is a video clip from the book...one of over 120 you will find with the book.

Please check out our earlier episode if you haven't already (which covers her use of the complexity approach).

Links/Mentions/Notes:

Kelly Vess's website

Kelly's YouTube Channel

Helen Tager-Flusberg's talk on YouTube 

A general outline of Narrative Intervention by Trina Spencer & Douglas Petersen (I included this link because most SLP’s in the US will be able to access this paper without a paywall).

DTTC (Dynamic Tactile & Temporal Cueing) training opportunity

Check this out too!

A paper from 2011 by Rvachew & Nowak that calls into question the usefulness of the complexity approach

I want to clarify a point I made about Down Syndrome and SSD’s. Periodically I have done literature reviews looking for evidence for the treatment of SSD’s in special populations. One can argue (successfully) that there are in fact a number of published papers when searching with the keywords “Downs Syndrome” & “Speech Sound Disorders”. Some academic textbooks on SSD’s do include sections on special populations. But the focus tends to be on features of the SSD’s. Regardless of the intervention anyone ultimately uses, my eternal question remains: what do you do when “look at me and say what I say” doesn’t work?

(By the way, I came across this interesting citation. It’s another paper by Rvachew & Folden. I haven’t read it yet. (It goes to show that maybe I’m just not looking hard enough!)

I think Kelly gave me waaay too much credit for the implication that I am keeping up on the research. Like most working clinicians, I have enough time to barely scratch the surface of published papers. I placate my anxiety with a subscription to The Informed SLP. But yes...I do read some papers every month in addition to those curated reviews landing in my inbox. But I am no scholar. 

Lastly, that ABA term I was trying to remember is “extinction burst”. 

Disclaimers: 

Conversations in Speech Pathology is a podcast meant to provide an ongoing dialogue about topics important to the practice of speech-language pathology/therapy. The show, its host, and guests do not provide medical or therapeutic advice regarding individual clients. Parents and other professionals are urged to seek the advice of a licensed professional for specific concerns regarding communication disorders/delays.

It should go without saying that practicing clinicians will need to do their homework to determine best practices. Please do not accept as gospel everything said on this program. 

Please send all correspondence to jeff@conversationsinspeech.com

Thank you for listening!

Jeff