I am bubbling over with excitement! And yes a lot this excitement has to do with the fact that it is finally summer with warmer temperatures and less alarm clock wake ups. But much of this excitement comes from introducing this summer’s Summer Series – Cooking Up Communication. Get ready to learn all about how to increase communication skills in all types of learners! Communication is key to decreasing negative behaviors, increasing academic success, and an overall improved quality of life. What’s not to love?!
We have had a lot of great changes happening over at The Autism Helper and one of our best additions over the past year was adding on Sarah Gast our resident Speech Language Pathologist. I feel like I was an SLP in a past life and Sarah and I love brainstorming different strategies and interventions to get our kiddos communicating more effectively. I love the expertise and insight that Sarah brings to The Autism Helper and we have been working together on this summer series just for you!
Communication instruction is not just the job of a speech therapist. It’s the job of a classroom teacher, paraprofessional, parent, sibling, BCBA, OT, etc. Communication is such a major factor that effects all facets of our children’s lives and abilities. In order to be successful you have got to implement a team approach.
The Summer Series Setup
We are going to break down the summer into 3 groups of learners. Our students by no means fall perfectly into 3 groups. Life couldn’t be that easy. But in order to organize our strategies, we are going to make it simple.
- Level 1: nonverbal or limited verbal abilities; working on mastering foundational skills in order to move on to more complex material
- Level 2: emerging verbal abilities; mastered basic skills and working on more abstract concepts; foundational academics
- Level 3: verbal but may struggle with complex expressive/receptive language; working on more advanced topics such as higher level grammar skills, extended writing, multi-step mathematical concept, and sophisticated social skills.
We are going to spend two weeks on each type of learner sharing interventions, strategies, and approaches. We will spend one week on Receptive Language and one week on Expressive Language.
Receptive Language: the understanding of language
Expressive Langauge: how one expresses wants and needs.
Keep in mind – communication takes lots of forms! Just because your student is nonverbal doesn’t mean they don’t have receptive and expressive communication.
Pour yourself a lemonade and get ready to learn! Summer series are a great way to read up and a specific topic and get those creative juice flowing. Get some ideas for the next school year while your toes are dipped in the pool. Happy summer 🙂
This post is part of the Cooking Up Communication Summer Series!
Click here to learn more!
- Planning for the Fall: Part 4 and 5 – Visually Structured Tasks and Routines - January 30, 2026
- Using TAH Curriculum for Homeschooling from a Homeschooling Parent - September 10, 2022
- Using The Autism Helper Curriculum for Homeschool - August 8, 2022
13 Responses
where will these Levels take place.
<3 Sounds great!
How does one sign up for this awesome opportunity?!
Perfect for the classroom I’m working in – it’s called non-categorical, but we have some asd kiddos mixed in – and a true mix of capabilities. I appreciate all the extra learning I can squeeze in to add to my skill set.
I’m excited to follow this series, your other information has been so helpful this past school year as my room turned, all of a sudden, into an ASD preschool. Those were the kids we had last year, usually I have more of a multiply severely impaired preschool room so I was keeping (barely) one step ahead of my kiddos this year following your blog and a couple other good ones I found. Thanks so much for all the sharing you do and for all that you do for your students.
Same question as below. I would love to be involved. I have level 1 students and 1 borderline level 2!
Victoire, there is no signing up. Just show up to Sasha’s page here and enjoy. I have loved this series for 2-3 years now. If you Like her on you FB page, it updates each time she blogs. Enjoy!!! Get ready to learn tons.
SO excited for this communication series!!!!!!! You guys are amazing and this is jsit what I needed help with this summer!!!!
No need to sign up! Just stop by each day for new info! New posts will typically be up Monday-Friday on the topics according to the calendar approve. Also – there will be a link to see all related posts as well! 🙂 Enjoy!
So great to hear Erica! Thanks for reading and hope this series is helpful to your kiddos! 🙂
No need to sign up! Just stop by each day for new info! New posts will typically be up Monday-Friday on the topics according to the calendar approve. Also – there will be a link to see all related posts as well! 🙂 Enjoy!
Thanks, Susan! You know the drill 🙂 SO glad to hear the past series were helpful. Hope you enjoy this one! 🙂
Thanks, Gina! Hope you enjoy 🙂