Latest / Inchstones with Sarah | Autism Advocacy & Caregiver Stories / Autism Parenting and AAC: Building Communication Through Collaboration with Rose Griffin of ABA Speech

Transcript

Autism Parenting and AAC: Building Communication Through Collaboration with Rose Griffin of ABA Speech · Inchstones with Sarah | Autism Advocacy & Caregiver Stories

• 0:01
  Speaker A: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the latest episode of the Inchdones podcast. You know that I love to bring on guests from every part of this autism world, whether it's fellow mothers and parents, practitioners, therapists, clinical directors, educational, anything that is influential in the world of the children that we raise on the spectrum. And today I have a wonderful guest that came to me through social media. And I always like to say that there are so many, you know, tsk ts poo poo ers about social media these days, but in the special needs world, it is so ripe with connectivity. And I'm so pleased to have with us today Rose Griffin of ABA Speech. And Rose, thank you so much for being here today and to share a little bit about your company and your story as a slp.
• 0:51
  Speaker B: Thanks for having me on. I'm excited to connect and chat today.
• 0:55
  Speaker A: Awesome. So, Rose, give us, as I asked you just a few moments ago, give us your why, what landed you in the position you are today as a speech language pathologist and why you do the work that you do.
• 1:06
  Speaker B: Absolutely. I actually had my mom gave me a career test my senior year of high school, and it said I should be a speech therapist. And I had no clue what that was. So I shadowed a family friend and we went to a nursing home, a school, we did home health. And I thought, wow, this is so amazing. You can help people all day, every day, and it's related to science. And I just loved it. And so I declared my major. I never looked back. And then my second year, I took position at the Cleveland Clinic, now called Learner School, but it was a specialized program for autistic learners. And that's where I really learned about applied behavior analysis and how to help students that were complex communication learners. And so that's how I became inspired to also become a BCBA. So being a speech therapist and BCBA, there's about fewer than 550 of us in the entire world. And I love just being able to talk about communication from that lens.
• 2:01
  Speaker A: Love that. First of all, wow, I didn't know that that number was so low. How can we buy out billboards? Because I think that that, to me seems like the most natural combination from someone who has sat in this world for so many years. I would think that that overlap would be so beautiful not only from a neurological standpoint, but from a educational and like, actual lived experience standpoint. Tell me what, tell us about that overlap and what, what it gives you as someone who's running their own practice now. That sounds phenomenal.
• 2:37
  Speaker B: Yeah. Absolutely. I know when I was at the Cleveland Clinic, I always call that my autism boot camp because it was a non public program for learners who engaged in unsafe problem behavior that was a barrier to their learning, a barrier to them accessing the community. And I just was amazed that, you know, we had a student that we worked with who was 18. He had been in special education services since the time of three, and he still had no way to communicate with the world. He was using very unsafe aggressive behavior to navigate his environment at 18. And we were able to help that student learn how to use an AAC device for the first time. And I just remember thinking, wow, this is unbelievable. This is so great. But then the other part of me was like, this is absolutely devastating that this person had to wait until 18. And so it just really put me on this trajectory of growth, of wanting to learn about academic aba because I was able to see that transformation in that student using speech therapy and aba. And so that's really put me on this plan of now having my own business called ABA Speech, where I too have a podcast called the ABA Speech Podcast, where we talk about autism and communication, and a membership called the ABA Speech Connection that allows speech therapists, BCBAs and RBTs to get their needed CEUs or professional development and really learn together and into dialogue about how to help students who are traditionally harder to help that are not responding to maybe what we learned in graduate school. And so that's really kind of my life's work, is to help that type of learner.
• 4:05
  Speaker A: I find that through the seasons of my own children's speech therapy sessions, both private and, you know, in center in school, that the number one thing that always rises for me is whatever communication is learned or whatever progress however it progresses, the connection between my child and their therapist always creates something that's beyond what can even be sort of like accrued or, you know, documented per se, because it's that connective time of even just figuring it out together feels worth it. I was just telling someone else there, I said, you know, they're like, well, how. How has Millie grown? And I think I don't necessarily have specifics that I can rattle off, but all I know is that she's learning these connective speech skills in this session with her SLP every week, and she comes out so much more available to communicate with me. Do you find that that's something that, that, that speech and that that combination of being a BCBA and SLP allows for to see that it's not just the communication it's that behavior, it's that, that co, that co regulatory behaviors that allow for just the full humanity of these children to come out.
• 5:25
  Speaker B: Yeah, I like that she's available to communicate how you said that. I think that was what was so interesting to me is how to help students who are just not, you know, they're not going to sit in a chair and do speech therapy like maybe we were traditionally taught how to do it. So how can we think out of the box to build a relationship with all students on our caseload? And I think that is what I'm passionate about sharing. Because when I think I felt really ineffective when I first started working at the Cleveland Clinic because I had never worked with students like that, students who did not sit and engage in therapy or students who would just sit and not engage in therapy at all. They were very bored with all the things I had to share. So I had to get really creative and I just made it my mission to make sure that I was helping to some support each and every student. And really once I let everybody know like this is the type of learner I want to support. Students who engage in unsafe problem behavior, students who engage in self injurious behavior. I want to make sure that 10 year old that has a perfect device but has never ever touched it has a way to communicate. Then you just get all those different cases because people are not competent in how to reach students. And I think it does all go back to that connection. And I'm actually, I'm writing a book that comes out in July of 2026 called called say it with Me. And it's all about naturalistic interventions for supporting students. And that's one of the things we talk about is the connect and engage approach. And we talk a lot about joint attention and a three part framework for how we can utilize that in our session. So regardless of age, because I've worked with preschool students, I've worked with students who are older than 22, we really want to try to infuse books, music and play. And I can use that framework for somebody who is 2 and newly diagnosed or I spent 10 years working in middle school, high school, which I loved that age group, it was just so functional and real world and I loved it. And how can we work on those same skills if that social reciprocity is still important for our learner? That is really where the art comes into. Being a therapist, which I love totally, totally.
• 7:24
  Speaker A: I'm, you know, having two children label wise with the same diagnoses yet learn and participate in their therapy sessions so differently. I've noticed that my daughter came along with the process and desired to learn with her AAC quicker than my son does. And I hear a lot of from parents so often saying, you know, what do you do when they don't have a desire to use the device or what is it? What are the barriers? And I always say that we can't say that they don't want to use it. It just hasn't been made for them to desire it yet. Like we haven't created that full total environment for it. What do you say to parents that. Cause there's a lot of listeners in my audience that when you have a child on the severe end, you feel like you're up against time and roadblock all the time. So when you share about like putting those methods into action, like the play music game, you know, with the, with a device or way to communicate, talk us through like that process and sort of the time that it takes and what it means to go through that to elicit that communication.
• 8:32
  Speaker B: Absolutely. And I think that we have to try to show our students that their communication is powerful. I think that's exactly what it is. And so I did have a student that I saw in a non public program, I'll never forget he was staffed to male staff to him in a safe room because he had that aggressive of behavior. And that was my student. I worked with him for three years. And it was sad because he came with a beautiful AAC device just absolutely set up perfect with real life pictures. You couldn't have set it up better. But it was just hard to work with him. And so his trajectory of growth was okay the first year we're just going to work on requesting and we're going to work on him carrying his device from different places in the classroom and we're going to work on some modified leisure skills or the play. And so I have some of these videos on my YouTube channel, like modified UNO, modified Scrabble, modified memory. And so we really just did that for the first year. It wasn't a lot of we weren't demanding that he use it, you know, for anything. So he was getting this learner history of like, oh, I want to jump on the trampoline, so I'm going to press trampoline. And so that first year we really focus there. And he loved his device and he would carry it. We would take him into the community, he would, you know, order a Dairy Queen. All these things that were such great milestones for him and so as his communication grew, then we started to work on labeling and phrase construction. He even had some verbal imitation targets. And this is a student that was 10 when I met him, so he was older, but he was just, nobody could reach him for so long. And then once he was in a specialized program, now many years later, he is working, he can work with female, female staff, just one to one. So that's exciting. And he integrates into the classroom. He still needs his own space for just sensory regulation and things like that. But I think once, you know, it's hard for school based SLPs because they don't always have the time to give students who may require more time. And then I know as a parent that's a uphill battle of trying to advocate for your child and what they really need. And I think a lot of people just don't understand how to work with students who may engage in behavior like that. And so that's why I love being dually certified is that I'm not an expert, but I just try my best. And both of those trainings together and certifications have made me uniquely qualified to work with students who may engage in that type of behavior and to share with others how to feel more competent in doing so.
• 10:57
  Speaker A: I think you hit the nail on the head with, you know, when the behaviors are high and there is a lot of confusion around why a child would not use a device or an AC or there's a lot of, there's a lot of behavioral pushback to learning per se. And these, these small modified ways I know as a mother can feel like such a detriment to what already feels like a, like a slower trajectory anyways. Right. And one of the things I, I had to come along years ago was knowing that that's, that very slow drip was still, and was still putting into the bucket and growing over time. And I love the example that you give about at first, that first whole year, like it might be a whole year to just having a child be okay with their AAC being around them, having it as a tool, using it in ways that they feel motivated to use it and to be supported in those. I think that that is lost so much and sadly is pushed away from quickly because they think, well, they're not incentivized by, by it, they're not going to ever use it. And that's not the case. It just takes slow immersion to knowing that, oh, this can be functional to get to express myself, but it's going to take a lot of time. And I think I like to sit in reality with the listeners that I have here on Inchtones in the audience. That catching up or pushing on the gas, that's not even in the playbook of our lives as mothers of children with profound autism. What is in the playbook is the belief that they actually can accelerate and that they can move forward. And I think that those examples that you just shared are a testament to that. And I thank you so much for what you do. Because the belief in students that might have been labeled as so behavioral that they're unreachable didn't affect how you went forth in your therapy sessions with him.
• 13:01
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. It was amazing to see his growth and seeing how he was able to just independently use his device over time. And he loved it. I remember one time he. His device was like broken or something and he had to take a paper copy home or something happened and he was very distraught about that. And I was like, he understands that, like this is very important for him. The other thing that I think is very important for students who have complex behavioral needs is having two iPads, if that's the system you're having, is one iPad that's in guided access so the student cannot get out of the AHC device and then one that is strictly for reinforcement. Now I'm over generalizing a lot of autistic learners and just my own kids to like, like their. Their device time. And so that's fine if that's a reinforcer for your child, but it just. Oh, I've done so many consults. Consults where you see somebody trying to get out of YouTube to get on an AAC program. And I'm going to tell you ends well. But you guys know that.
• 13:58
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I'll be, I'll be honest. You're. You'd be hard pressed to find a parent that didn't try to do that at least at once at one point and then realize really quickly I have fully different devices now. Like, like not even just an iPad. They get a. They get a small, very, very old iPhone 6. Yeah, that's like. That I can replace very. At low cost if it breaks.
• 14:20
  Speaker B: Right.
• 14:20
  Speaker A: That is not their device. Because yes, you're right. That overlap. Their struggles are so high. Why add in the struggle of knowing what this. This apparatus is used for? And it sounds so silly. Cause it's like, well, no, it's just the same thing. It's actually not. It's really, really not.
• 14:37
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's like, that's very important. So I feel like most people are doing that. But I just think it's so important to say out loud.
• 14:43
  Speaker A: It's good to. It's good to reinforce for sure. When you, when you talk, you know, to a parent whose child is profoundly autistic and you're bringing them into a session, or you're maybe talking with other SLPs or BCBAs about children like this, what are those first two or three communication targets that you like to prioritize? Like, you give that great example of the child of the older student of yours and focusing on what his, you know, focuses are? Like going on a trampoline or, you know, ordering ice cream came easy to him. What are those first two or three targets that can both help the parent understand the first two or three communication goals, but also sit scientifically in what you as a BCBA and SLP know to be true? What are those first two or three things that people maybe earlier on in this journey can understand?
• 15:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think the most important thing to focus on is joint attention. So what does that child's social engagement look like? Because that's oftentimes something that our students really struggle with. So are they alternating eye gaze between a person, an event, or a preferred item or activity, or are they pointing? Are they showing you things? Those are all different topographies of joint attention. And so I think focusing on that and trying to build rapport with your learner to make that connection, making sure you're using books, music and play. So for a younger student, the book might be Pete the Cat because in his White shoes. Because that's a great song.
• 16:14
  Speaker A: We know that one around here.
• 16:16
  Speaker B: Yes, and it's like a song too, which is awesome. But you can use the book. And maybe your play is bubbles because you blow them and then they go away and the child may look at you to do more. And maybe your play is modified. Simon says. So it's always Simon says, you know, Simon says touch your head. Simon says windmill arms, whatever it is. Now, for an older student, maybe when I was working in middle school, high school, we may still have that same type of framework, but maybe the book is a vocational unit. I have this, actually, just sold one last week. I love it. I took one year to make this vocational binder for my learners that were in ninth grade. And so it starts with just a literacy based activity and vocabulary and extension activities about vocational settings. So I knew my kids in high school were going to get to work at Old Navy and hang shirts and pants and things like that. So we would talk about that. In a literacy based way. And so, you know, your leisure may look different. Maybe you're playing modified Uno or modified Scrabble if the students have some print awareness. But it's still the same framework of books, music and play. And so for music, we used to do some of the students going on Spotify and picking a song and the students that could type in a song would type it in. Students that needed a text prompt to be able to type the song in. And then we would vote. Did we like the song? Did we not like the song? And so I always try to think to myself, especially with older learners with higher support needs, what does my typical day look like as an adult? I have some work and I have some leisure. And so I always think of it that way, especially for older students. So what are going to be important things to learn? Maybe vocabulary from different vocational placements and different job things from different placements. And then what is my leisure time going to look like? If your kid loves the iPad, that's great, but how can we increase that repertoire? Maybe they're learning how to play different apps on the iPad. Maybe they're working on something that's more collaborative. And so everybody's going to want their own downtime. Right.
• 18:16
  Speaker A: I mean, if everybody looked at everybody
• 18:18
  Speaker B: screen time, they might be outraged. But it's just having those moments of understanding that these skills are really important and communication is still communication. It might just look a little different as students get older.
• 18:31
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I think that we live again, you know, there's so much, there's so much naysay about the growth of this global village we live in and the apps and the AI and all these things. The gamification of social skills and games in general from. For children like my two, I mean it takes my breath away because it's actually been so helpful for them having agency in their free time, in their downtime or free time, you know, after school. My, my daughter, I don't know if sure I, I don't get paid for to, to say this at all, but abc, yeah. As an app has been so foundational to, to Millie, to my daughter Millie's learning. I can't even, I can't even sell it enough like because of the turn taking. Every, every game is such a turn taking game and it's helped her learn in ways that like I didn't even think were possible. And I think that, you know, I'm so glad that what you're setting up. And I want to jump into this next about your, your ABC I'm sorry, the ABA Speech Connection membership that you have. Because being able to share those kinds of resources within, I'm sure your community and the RBTS, SLPs, BCBAs, this is how we expand for these children. What is possible. So talk to us about the membership and what you, what you are growing in terms of the therapists and practitioners.
• 19:50
  Speaker B: Absolutely. I really just wanted to have a place where speech therapists, BCBAs and RBTs could learn together and do something that they're really excited about. So I share Daily on LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram. So when people join the membership, I offer a free onboarding call for everybody, which is really fun. So I was just on a call before this and the person said, you know, I feel like I know you. You know, I was like, that's not creepy because I same way about people. I'm like, oh good, the marketing is working. But you know, unlike some of the bigger corporate CEU compliance, you know, dashboards, we really try to just be personalized. And so I love getting to know people all across the world really that are in the membership and being able to, to be a support. So we offer CEUs. We offer live CEUs. AAC is a big focus for us because BCBAs don't really get any training on it yet. They're tasked with supporting students who use AAC and a lot of speech therapists. At least I was over 20 years ago when I started. I was just really overwhelmed and afraid of aac, to be completely honest. And so we try to offer pause.
• 20:53
  Speaker A: Can we press pause and go into that a little bit? Because that's so, that's so. That hits home so deeply for me and the community. Like I, I'm on a wonderful text group of like 40 different autism moms.
• 21:04
  Speaker B: Nice.
• 21:05
  Speaker A: And I'd say like 30 of us have children that use AAC. And it really is a, it's con.
• 21:09
  Speaker B: It's.
• 21:09
  Speaker A: It can be very confusing as a parent to know that that's not really a major 400 level course in the behaviorism in the BCBA track world. Tell us about why. And is that changing? Is that becoming more discussed and at a higher level in their higher level education and doctorate level programming? Can you help us understand that?
• 21:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great. So as a speech therapist, I took one course, but it was not really the most robust course and I really still felt unprepared. As a BCBA, you take zero unless it's an elective. That's very specialized. Most BAs don't get any training in AAC and even to offer CEUs for BCBAs. We are actually, we have courses in the ABA Speech connection now, but we're working on a 10 hour recorded course that will be for speech therapists and BCBAs to get 10 hours of CEU credit to take them from the beginning of AAC through feeling really proficient of collaborating with parents and being support to teams and understanding assessment. And how does the research, what does the research say about AAC from a SLP and BCBA lens? And so I think it's just, I honestly think it's easier probably for an SLP BCBA to do that type of course. And so we are working on that and that should come out in June of 2026. We just don't get a lot of training on that. But we're tasked with helping to support students who use aac. And so something that I do a lot about is training on AAC for BCBAs because I think that it's an area where you're never going to feel like a master because the technology is always advancing. Being in touch with the SLP literature and being in touch with the BCBA literature as far as what is working. And AAC is like language but it's just another mode. And so not getting hung up on that, but understanding the technology of IT and understanding how to support parapros and rbts and how we don't want the AAC to only be used during programming. As we say in the ABA world, there's just a lot of growth. And so most of my talks that I do for private clinics are for BCBAs and are usually about AAC.
• 23:24
  Speaker A: Right, well, thank you for that little side pause. Now jump back in and tell us more about how you know BCBAs and RBTs and SLPs can join ABA Speech Connection and sort of what that like you said, you have an intake process, you said. But what, what happens after that?
• 23:41
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So anybody can join@Abasespeech.org and we have group pricing for groups. So that's really nice. We support a couple larger multi state locations and why that's fun is that I can be on there and do clinical roundtables and answer questions about collaboration which usually come up around AAC verbal imitation or echoics as we may say as BCBAs. And so that's like a special way to be able to just talk about things and use as a sounding board. Definitely not an expert, I don't know it all, but I have worked in the schools and in clinical settings so I can offer that experience and, you know, I've been doing this over 20 years, so I have quite, quite the stories and knowledge to be able to share. And then everybody who joins can do an onboarding call with me, which is really just a time to talk. And so, you know, I'll show you around the membership. You can see all the courses that you have access to. But I'm definitely excited to learn about everybody's situation and their work and to be able to be that guide and support, that's phenomenal.
• 24:38
  Speaker A: I think the more niche that we can all get with what our superpower is and is such a boost for the world, the autism world. And you are absolutely a reason that what your superpower is is well beyond even the BCBA and SLP titles that you wear. But being this connective point to further the development of other practitioners in your space, I think is just. It's not only beautiful to hear and hear you so eloquently and so beautifully and happily discuss it, but to know that other practitioners and therapists are going to learn from you, Rose, is such a gift. So thank you so much for sharing your story and for being here and the work that you do for families. It's just such an important conversation. Parents and caregivers like myself are flooded in different ways with all these expectations for the developmental timelines of their children and how they're learning best. And I think that when you spend more time understanding those therapists and teachers that are around your children and what gifts they can do to the connectivity and watching communication blossom through these different pathways, it is never unnoticed by parents and caregivers. So thank you for what you do.
• 25:52
  Speaker B: Well, thank you for those kind words.
• 25:55
  Speaker A: Of course. Of course. Well, to everyone listening, thank you for spending your time with us here today. And Rose, we will have all of your information for ABA speech listed on the episode summary. And thank you just for being so incredibly helpful. And we will make sure that everyone can find you, whether parent, caregiver, therapist, clinician, any educational resource. We cannot wait to send them your way.
• 26:18
  Speaker B: Thanks so much for having me on.
• 26:19
  Speaker A: All right, you're so welcome. And friends, thanks for listening. You are not alone in this journey. And until next time on the Inchomes podcast,