Nancy Kaufman Workshop: Part 1

In Houston where we live, there is a school that specializes in Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Nancy Kaufman is a consultant there, and usually comes out once a year to give a workshop. All the speech therapists that work there are also trained by her, often at her clinic in Michigan. 

Nancy Kaufman is the director of KCC- Kaufman Children's Center- near Detroit, Michigan. I took Chelsea there when she was 4 for an intensive boot camp, and it was WONDERFUL! I blogged about the experience HERE. 

Last night, Chelsea's school speech therapist and I were able to attend her workshop. She talked about:

1. The Elements of CAS Therapy
2. The 5 Word Lists To Teach Your Child
3. Pivot Phrases
4. Scripting Language at Home

It was a LOT of information, so I will be posting about it in sections. Part 1 is:

The Elements of CAS Therapy

• Clearly defined goals!
• Use multi-sensory cueing, then fade cues
• Strategic motivation/ reinforcement 
• Repetition, repetition, repetition!
• Make it fun for the child

With clearly defined goals, the parent watching the session should be able to easily understand which goals/ sight words/ target phrases are being worked on.

Multi-sensory cueing means that you use different modes to communicate to the brain what is desired. You say (auditory) "Say tummy". You give visual hand signals to help the child remember the letter sounds. You may touch the child mouth (tactile) to help their brain remember which muscles to move.

Multi-sensory cueing is a huge component of the K-SLP method, which is the method Nancy Kaufman developed to treat Childhood Apraxia of Speech.

Your child will probably need many cues starting out, but you want to transfer the responsibility of saying the word to the child, so you need to fade cues over time. The goal is to have minimal or no cues. 

Meet the child where they are! If their name is Matthew, give them a nickname and teach "Matt" before starting to target the difficult diphthong "thew". Work up from what they ARE able to do right now to the correct word production.

 

All toys ready for rewards, but not where Chelsea can grab them

Use highly motivating activities/ rewards to reinforce your child during speech therapy. Kids aren't intrinsically motivated ("I should learn to talk better so people understand me!"), so you need very preferred items that are accessible and handy. No using valuable speech time rummaging in cupboards!

Start small with reinforcement, especially if your child has had bad experiences with speech therapy in the past. You want to show your child that it is worth it to do what you want them to do, because they get a BIG payoff.

You want it to be MORE rewarding to use words/ verbal approximations than to scream/ cry/ grunt/ point. If they say "Too-tie" they get a cookie RIGHT NOW! Forget the whole 'wait for dinner' thing if it was a big effort to say cookie.

So, you may need to start with "Do this!" and hit the table. If it is easy for the child to do, they will do it for the reward. You can gradually increase the difficulty of the task at hand, as the child gains confidence that they will be constantly rewarded.

Do WHATEVER is motivating to your child! If your kid likes to spit into the sun, you can use a water bottle and spray it into the sunshine! Let them throw toys into a bucket of water, or have some very exciting toys that they just love that are ONLY used for speech practice! 

Repetition is CRUCIAL for successful CAS therapy! You are re-training your motor plans that have been developed and muscle memory is already in place. Repetition tells your brain "This is very important, so remember it!"