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A passionate clinician, executive director, and entrepreneur with keen strategic and intellectual ability evidenced in professional accomplishments, clinical staff mentoring, and advising and teaching students, professionals, and parents across the country. Landria has the opportunity every day to work and live in her purpose by working and training people with special needs and their families. Landria is described as a dynamic, informative, energetic, and captivating speaker. She is a certified and licensed speech-language pathologist with specialties in autism, assistive technology, behavior, and communication. As the granddaughter of a woman who’s communication abilities were cut short by a massive stroke, she understands first hand the impact of impairment on the family. Landria is currently the owner and Executive Director of SLC Therapy, a private therapy firm located in Connecticut and Michigan focused on Empowering Families and Expanding Independence. Through her leadership at SLC Therapy, Landria has created dynamic and innovative programs for families that include Flourish!, a center based educational program for learners with autism, and the use of videoconferencing (Teletherapy) technology to provide families access to therapy service. In addition, Landria is focused on empowerment through partnerships with organizations to enhance community services. Landria is the creator of The Empowered Parent, a parent e-magazine focused on support for families of people with special needs. Landria was recently selected as a professional expert on a documentary focused on Autism in the African-American Community. Landria is the author of the social curriculum Keep the Conversation Going, which focuses on social cognition, conversation fluency, and social skills. Education B.S. Speech and Hearing Science University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign M.A. Speech Language Pathology Northwestern University Certified Speech Language Pathologist American Speech Language Hearing Association DIR Level 1 Practitioner Certification: Compton P-ESL Certificate: ADOS Training, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor PROMPT-Introduction Verbal Behavior, Dr. Vincent Carbone Achievements 40 Under 40 Business Professionals in Fairfield County 2009 Someone You Should Know Award, Bridgeport Black Pride 2007 People’s Bank Community Award 2006
Blog » SOCIAL SOAP BOX
The school year is coming to a pleasant close and we have been able to collaborate with many districts and parents for the new IEP! Many questions surrounding social communication are formed:
“What should we work on?”
“Can we really measure social goals?”
“Isn’t social communication subjective?”
These questions return periodically, but not as frequently as the goal for turn-taking and the elusive phenom of “Your Turn … My Turn”.
Let’s put a few things to rest!
1. What should we work on? There are social language development norms that should always be used for treating and creating goals for social communication. Evidenced Based Research can be found in many fields that include speech pathology, sociology, psychology. The target for social goals should always include social thinking or social cognition, theory of mind, reasoning, flexibility, experience sharing, referencing, and verbal communication. Please not the emphasis on verbal communication as being last! Because it is the surface skill, we tend to work on that first…it should be a shared priority with those things that are hidden but necessary in social interaction. What are those hidden skills? Social thinking and engagement to name a few.
2. Can we measure social goals? Absolutely. Just need to know what is being measured. The goal has to be written in a measurable way or as discretely as possible.
3. 3. Is social communication subjective? No social language development has established norms for typical development. Therefore it is not subjective. However, social skills are subjective. Social skills are what parents and society teach anyway. That includes polite greetings, “speak when you’re spoken to”, etc. Social skills depend up on the culture of age, color, geographic space, economics. Social communication is the engagement, flexibility, declarative language, perspective taking, and much more! Social communication work takes the people who verbally label items to demonstrating the surface skill of verbal interaction. The difference between social skills and social communication is that social skills training builds a house with a very weak foundation…destined to fall!
4. 4. Your Turn…My Turn. Can we teach it? Be careful about how Your Turn My Turn is being taught to your child. Picture several children playing. When do they really verbalize “Your Turn”. Is it at every turn? Or is it when the person is not engaged, does not move fast enough. Your Turn/My Turn is really a nonverbal social thinking act rather than something to tell a person. We figure out it is our turn when we play with our friends. We are only informed that it is our turn when we are not participating at the level expected by the other players. When they tell us its our turn, what kind of vocal tone is used? Is it a patient tone? Does it include a long statement “Jennifer, it’s your turn”. Nooooo! Typically we say things like “Hey take your turn”, “Go,”, Hurry Up”. Most times, we use an impatient tone or a humorous tone. So what should we then teach? Engagement, Rhythm, and Social Thinking.
Until Next Time….Landria
©2009 Keep the Conversation Going
©2009 Landria Seals- Social Soap Box
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