Episode 33: How to Help Your Child with Communication Device Needs with Courtney Burnett, SLPA and special needs parent
Join me and Courtney Burnett, SLPA and special needs parent in discussion communication devices (AAC or Augmentitive and Alternitive Communication Devices or "talkers")!
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Episode #40: [Parent Spotlight] Emotions and IEP Prep with Victoria Coure
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Episode 33- How to help your child with communication device needs and the IEP! With Courtney Burnett, SLPA – 3:23:22, 3.29 PM.mp3
Beth [00:00:00] Hey, there. If you have a child who struggles with communication, you definitely want to stick around and listen to this podcast today. I have Courtney Burnett on who is talking all about communication systems and the IEP. So stick with me.
Beth Intro [00:00:15] Hi there. Welcome to the Elevate your advocacy podcast. If you are a parent of a child with a disability in the United States, this is exactly the podcast you’ve been looking for. I’m Beth Liesenfeld, an occupational therapist who has participated in over 400 IEP meetings for all ages from 2.5 To 21 years old. With all the different case managers and parents I’ve worked with, I started to notice some parents had approaches that inspired the school team to rise up and support their child, which resulted in a more effective and supportive IEP plan. After feeling lost and finding support in an online course for my own parenting journey, I got to thinking that there must be a great, easily accessible resource for parents to teach them the amazing strategies I saw working so well in the school setting. When I couldn’t find anything even remotely close to what I was looking for, I decided to find a way to share what I’d seen parents do in all of those meetings, but also find out more from the experts and other parents. Thus, Parent Friendly OT was born.
Beth Intro [00:01:15] At Parent Friendly OT, we believe that every child deserves an informed adult advocate to speak up for them. We also believe that every parent has the capacity to be that advocate. They just need some guidance to know how to do it. Don’t forget to snag your free Parent IEP Get Started Pack at www.ParentFriendly OT.com/Pack. Just one little disclaimer that while I occasionally have lawyers on his guests, I myself am an occupational therapist and not a lawyer, and I don’t give legal advice on the podcast or in any of my online trainings. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.
Beth [00:01:53] Hello and welcome to the podcast, I have Courtney with me. Thank you so much for joining me and so excited to talk about AAC.
Courtney [00:02:02] Thank you. I’m Courtney Burnett, I work as an SLPA, which is a speech language pathology assistant. That’s why it’s an acronym, because it’s so long! But I also work as an IEP coach and disabilities advocate here locally in my community and really servicing people throughout the United States.
Beth [00:02:23] You have a lot of clients all over the U.S. but you’re based in Arizona, right?
Courtney [00:02:27] Yeah, I live in Arizona. I work in home health care, which I love going into the family’s home and really helping customize their speech and language services and helping them integrate it. And that’s really where where we’re going to get into these topics. But it’s where I saw the parent coaching need is when I left the school system as a school based SLPA and went into home health is when I really started to see not just the struggles I have as a mom, raising a child with a disability, and navigating the school system for her. As a parent, I realized that those experiences were not like and a lot of people have them, and that the struggles I had, other parents were having to. And I wanted to really be able to help them. So that’s how I kind of navigated into offering the consulting and coaching as well.
Beth [00:03:17] I think we should probably start with acronyms, especially surrounding this. So let’s go through a couple of them. Do you want to start with AAC?
Courtney [00:03:27] Yes, AAC is augmentative and alternative communication, and it really is an umbrella term for any type of communication device, switch or button that’s different than verbally talking and speaking. So that’s really where that term comes in. And another important one is a speech generated device SGD, and that’s really through the medical side, and we’ll get into that. And then just because Special ED loves acronyms AT is assistive technology, and that’s really an important term to understand on the school side.
Beth [00:04:05] Perfect. So I’ve been looking for an AAC specialist to come on the podcast and we’ll talk about the different ways that districts do this. But we have a contractor that contracts with the same district that I contract with, and I actually worked for them straight out of school because they’re an outpatient clinic that specializes in AAC. And she is so busy that I could not get her on the podcast. She’s so slammed. So I do want to address that, it’s a pretty specialzed knowledge that not everybody knows a lot about AAC, and we even chatting before we hit record on this that really some people know about this stuff and some people don’t.
Courtney [00:04:49] Absolutely, and you’re right. They are so specialized and there’s so many kids needing services and needing evaluations that between evaluating and, in our state here in Arizona, also being a trainer, which is helping families actually get to know the communication device, implement it, so that it doesn’t end up back in the box. Because that’s what happens when parents don’t know what to do or how to use it and they’re stuck in overwhelm, then I’m going to start that next week and next week turns into next month. And so, you’re right, with the trainers that are out there, there are few and far between. And they’re very busy doing that. And so it’s actually hard to get training and support even for the school personnel because who is going to do the training?
Beth [00:05:39] And if somebody is listening to this and they’re not quite sure exactly what we’re talking about or if their child would need an AAC device, can we talk about some different skills that are maybe missing that AAC helps with or some common diagnoses that use a pretty typically?
Courtney [00:05:58] Yes, absolutely. Autism is number one that I see in my practice personally. Also, children who have Down’s Syndrome, who maybe are verbal but have difficulty pronunciating, and outside of a very familiar listener, most people don’t understand them. That creates a lot of frustration for the child or adult when they know they’re saying something, but only their mom can understand them. So that’s really important. My daughter has cerebral palsy, and we see a lot of children with that diagnosis as well, but eye gaze or communicating with their eyes and activating that device with their eyes or switch use, which is actually just a switch button that they can touch without touching the iPad’s screen. So there’s a lot of different options. So I’m an AAC advocate and a huge fan of it, so I’m going to say that I feel like most children could benefit from it, especially if you’ve tried a lot of other interventions and you’re not seeing progress on their speech goals. Or you’ve been doing weekly speech therapy, we are doing the home program that our speech therapist recommend. We do these certain things every week. That’s like a home program that a lot of therapists send out for carry over and you’ve been doing those things and you’ve been attending therapy. And it’s just it’s not working and your child is frustrated, and you’re frustrated because they’re that usually leads to meltdowns, screaming, tossing things, because receptively, the child is receiving the information. They know a lot of our kids are very, very good at that. And then expressively, they can’t express it. And so that’s where the frustration comes down. They have an idea, they have thoughts, obviously, and feelings because they’re a little human, and they can’t get it out. So I equate it to when your computer is malfunctioning and you’re trying your best to, you have a deadline and you’re trying to get it out and everything deletes or the files lost. And you know, you should be able to handle yourself better, but you’re like hitting the computer, shutting it down, getting really frustrated. It’s because you can’t execute what this idea that you have and you want to share it and get it out there. That’s like an adult example of it. But our kids are the same. They know what cup they wanted, maybe they normally really love milk, but today they want a chocolate milk, and you’re as a parent of a child who’s not speaking because I have one. You’re constantly trying to be a mind reader and try to figure it out. So when you’re going to your go to items and they’re not working and you’re like, well, oh no, I don’t know what they want now. And it ends up in this huge meltdown that’s stressful for families and for the child. And so we’re going to get into that more here in the podcast of old school and new school. But that is one of the things that an old school approach was. These certain things had to be in place before we offered it and that we thought by offering it early, it would prevent a child from wanting to talk, or it would prevent them from developing spoken language. And really, the research is strong and it’s saying absolutely not. And anecdotally, in my practice, I can tell you it has only increased my client’s ability to spell, speak, articulate everything, vocabulary understanding categories because that’s one of the things the system does really well has just gone through the roof. I have not had one single kid or adult. Who has had a negative impact from having a communication device.
Beth [00:09:57] One of my clients that have actually been seeing for four years now. She got an AAC device really young, didn’t have any verbal speech at that time. And a year and a half after she got the device, she started talking, started talking sentences. We were doing awesome. She was an amazing natural user of the AAC device. And then ABA, because she was talking, took away the device, and we’ve just seen so much regression in her and she’s just so dysregulated. She’s just not herself anymore. And it’s so sad. And we’re like, bring back the device, bring back the device. Her mental health is more important than just the verbal speech, right?
Courtney [00:10:48] Right. I don’t have a research article that I can say right now, but I can tell you that through my own practice and the kids I’ve seen, especially with the autism diagnosis and the sensory needs. Sometimes my client only uses verbal, but she always has her device with her. And I’ve noticed when she’s in dysregulation with her sensory will turn to using the device and that is what she can do at that moment through motor planning because she’s memorized where the buttons are, how to get there and what to say. She’s able to do things that she can’t do verbally in that moment because her body’s dysregulated. And I think that’s a really important story you shared and an important note to make for parents. We don’t need to feel like because they’re talking, we need to remove it. Rather, look at it as a huge win that they’re talking and using their device and it’s working. I always tell families there’s nothing easier than just talking, like there’s nothing easier than that. So if the child can and is capable of doing that, they will. But this is really important to have with them at all times because we don’t know when we’re going to get frustrated and start to feel like we need our coffee or whatever we need to regulate ourselves as an adult. Same for our kids. And that really leads to another old school mentality of, you know, they have to be completely have no spoken words being completely. I’m trying to use the word non-speaking because I’ve been listening to the community, but I don’t want say non-verbal. It’s OK if you’re using both, I want to tell families that too. I really try hard to follow different accounts and seek different input and to understand. So if you’re wondering, is that the same nonverbal non speaking? We’re a lot of people are transitioning to non speaking because nonverbal, a lot of adults felt like that was giving a sign that they had nothing to say, and they have a lot to say. So that’s where the non-speaking term has really I feel like in the last two and a half years really taken off.
Beth [00:13:07] Yeah. I’ll link them in the show notes on the website on www.ParentFriendlyOT.com as well under this episode show notes. But there’s a couple Facebook group accounts. One is autism inclusivity and the other one is Ask Me, I’m an AAC User and it takes you months to get in and approved to that one. But I just recently got approved a couple of weeks ago, and that one is really cool as well because you’ll have people just coming into the group and saying, Hey, I use AAC about half of the time when I have anxiety or I have selective mutism, right? It’s so amazing to hear from the actual people that have that, but I do want to go back and circle back into this old school mentality of like those basic skills. So if you have, and we were talking about this a little bit already, but in the schools there are people who have been there for 30 years and they learned from their mentors, right? And you were talking about that before we hit record and AAC is pretty intimidating even for professionals. So what is that old school mentality? What should parents look out for if somebody says, Oh, your kid doesn’t have this yet, they’re not eligible for AAC? What what would those things be? What is the old school mentality?
Courtney [00:14:33] Yeah, so there’s a couple different ones. One is, this idea you have to be able to isolate down to one finger and be able to activate a very small button because the buttons are the what you click on the screen are small. But the truth is, that’s where our OT and assistive technology come in, because we can do eye gaze switch access, so there’s a lot of different ways to access a device. So if you’ve been holding off and thinking, that’s really great. But my child’s hands, they don’t unclench. And so I there’s no way he could touch a screen. There are tons and tons of new technology coming out all the time, so that’s a really big one. And then this idea, we’re coming back to the acronyms again, but PECS the picture exchange system, which is visual cards. And the child would pull them off the velcro or grab it, slide it across to the therapist or parent. And then they would get the items, let’s say goldfish on there. They would get goldfish. It’s not bad on its own. I think there’s still places where that’s really helpful when we’re making choices or maybe doing a very specific activity with very specific vocabulary like what glitter thing do you want? They could grab the color and that and what say what they want. But overall, it’s very limiting because you, as the parent, clinician or teacher, are still deciding what you think they want to say. So you’re still predetermined in their thoughts and ideas. And we just can’t do that. Nobody can do that. Not even as a parent who is raising a child who’s not speaking, who’s about to be 18. Even when I think I have everything that she usually does means this, next week that changes and that no longer means that. So those are some of the things I see. And also while they can speak so they have some vocabulary, if we do this, it will limit that. That’s an old school belief because research and ASHA has tons and tons of articles out saying that’s not true. You can have both. They can be integrated. It’s like I have my smartphone and I use that to communicate. And sometimes I prefer texting and I don’t want you to call me on the phone. Does does that mean I shouldn’t because I can talk? I shouldn’t have my my phone to text on because I should just use my voice for that? So I love helping families and parents and really the IEP teams think about it, technology, the way we use it and how we use what we have and how it’s integrated and makes our life easier. But it’s not a one that fits everyone. You have people who I’m sure you did have this as an OT. Some parents really prefer that quick text message. Other people are like, go to my email, I want to be able to see it in my email. And then you have the parents who really want that phone call and they want that live conversation with you because that’s how they process information best and it’s really no different. Our kids are all of the things you see as an adult and the different ways of communicating, our kids want those same things.
Beth [00:17:52] Yes, I love that. I love that different modes when we use the phone and the texting vs voice, that’s a perfect example. I absolutely love that. The other thing I just wanted to add from an OT’s perspective, I’ve come to see is vision therapists. So I don’t know if your kiddo has CVI, which is cortical vision impairment, but sometimes the vision therapist will not want to do eye gaze with a person who has CVI because they think that they can’t see the whole screen. But there’s tests now that you can test it, and you can see what they can see and what their hot spots are and kind of see what they can access and what they can’t. And then you can arrange the buttons to accommodate for that, too. So I’ve seen Vision Therapist kind of argue against this, I guess System too, which is also like an old school belief. I love the try it method, you never know until you just try it. And that’s what the process is with getting one is you have to try a bunch of devices to see what’s going to work. So that’s a perfect segue way actually to getting into how do parents get this for their kid?
Courtney [00:19:08] Yeah. So there is several different ways, and I referenced this back when we were talking about acronyms at the beginning of the podcast. To refresh, the AT is assistive technology and SGD is a speech generated device. And that’s really important when we’re talking about funding options and how do you get a communication device so you can get one through your private insurance and that’s going to look like. Although I will say private, true, true private insurance is really hard because a lot of the policies aren’t updated enough to have speech generated devices under durable medical equipment. So when I say that term, durable medical equipment, that is usually what we think of for a wheelchair, a gaite trainer, a walker, that is the category in insurance that an AAC device would fall under. But most people, most children and on a recent Instagram post I did, overwhelmingly, the majority comes from a Medicaid plan. So whether they qualify through a waiver or how you get access to that, so a Medicaid plan is the number one funder. And I think that is because the population that they’re serving a good portion of that population are people and individuals who have different medical needs and complex medical needs. And so I think they’ve updated and there’s been a lot of advocacy around that. So I think that’s why it is generally, I won’t say easy, because working with insurance companies is never easy. But I will say easier is working with people who are at least familiar with getting reports like that. And OK, this is where it goes.
Courtney [00:20:56] And then in the school system, it would be through assistive technology. So there is a box or some sort of marker they have to put on there. A child does not need assistive technology. I always chuckle when I see that because, there’s so much that’s covered with assistive technology, from a pencil grip, to a slant board, to communication devices and everything in between. So I really encourage parents to have a deeper conversation at the IEP table because if nobody brings up the need, sometimes that box just gets checked. Doesn’t need because nobody brought up that, hey, they could speak into this. You know, we’ve been working on this handwriting goal for a long time, it just doesn’t seem like we’re making progress. I wonder if we should switch gears a little bit and do a voice command system where they’re learning to type and using all this amazing technology we have literally at our fingertips now. And but if the mom doesn’t know or the dad doesn’t know how to bring it up, maybe the OT’s not sure how the team would respond, so they’re not sure if they should bring it up. It just doesn’t get brought up and done. The long answer there is you can get a communication device through your school system under assistive technology, which is protected under IDEA, which is that the federal guidelines, which individual education programs fall under. So it’s complicated. That’s a federal guideline. And then each state has to set up their system of implementing IEPs. But the federal guideline is the king or queen of the show. The IDEA tells us this is absolutely what has to happen. And then each state can interpret that and come up with their systems. But it is possible. But there are limitations. I think that parents should think about with that option, such as the team has to decide if the system goes home at night. Does the system go home with them over summer? And if you move or change school districts at all, you most likely will either have to purchase or return the communication device because you don’t personally own it. It’s a service that the school district was providing when your child was a student there.
Beth [00:23:26] Yeah, and I’ve seen some of our parents through the schools, the school is very hesitant. This is like the secretive part that I hate and I love on this podcast that I get to tell all these secrets. But what the school doesn’t want to tell you that they need to have that device because what’s the average cost of an AAC device, isn’t it? When it’s when it falls under durable medical equipment, it’s thousands of dollars, right?
Courtney [00:23:54] It’s absolutely outrageous. I always tell my friends if it’s an adaptive piece of equipment for the disabled community, you add at least three or four zeroes after it. So you a dedicated device, which traditionally is in an iPad. It’s like a computer system that’s $10,000-15,000. I call it the dark side of this stuff is even an iPad, that then gets this app put on it and a case. So if you were to price that out as an average citizen, it would be one price. But because it goes through the medical system, it gets bumped up like sometimes 2-3 thousand dollars more than if you were to just go buy an iPad, the app, and a case, which is outrageous. This is one of the problems in getting care in our country overall, I feel like is because there’s all these roadblocks where we inflate, in my opinion, these prices because their medical equipment or because the children are getting access to it for their disability.
Courtney [00:25:10] The other way parents can get it is privately or through a grant. So I did want to touch on that because there are a lot of different devices that you can go out and buy on the app store. You go on to the App Store, you can put it in and you can find some. So I strongly suggest that families still find a SLP speech therapist an OT someone who understands these different apps and the child’s needs because as a parent, you might just go grab a app that you think looks good or is the least expensive, and it might not be the best layout for your child’s needs. And the only way you can really know that is by still going through a loaner program, trialing some different devices. And then I have had families get grants so they’ll come to the agency that’s doing this amazing grant, which is so wonderful and they’ll bring the recommendation, so here’s the recommendation I got. Then they help secure the device and the funding for the device, but just to go out and guess. It’s a language system. It’s like you learn Spanish or you’re learning ASL. It’s a whole system and you’re going to have a lot of trial and error and getting in there and learning it. So you don’t want to invest in a system that’s not going to work for you or your child, and then you have to start all over.
Beth [00:26:45] So just to summarize real quick, people can go through Medicaid, and I do want to say a lot of this trips up parents as well. Medicaid, at least in Colorado, you can verify this in Arizona. In Colorado, it is not the Medicaid that’s based on income. It is the Medicaid that is based on disability. So I have a lot of people even call the Medicaid system and they fill out the wrong application and they get denied and they give up. And it’s because that case manager didn’t understand that they were looking for the application for Medicaid for disability. So you can get it through Medicaid and disability type, and then you can ask the school for an assistive technology evaluation. They should be able to provide that or but there are some disadvantages for that or I have had parents buy an iPad by the app that we suggest to them and then buy a case for it. But there’s drawbacks to doing that, too. Do you want to talk about those drawbacks or do you want me to?
Courtney [00:27:49] Yeah. So there’s all these different like your I equate it to like you’re on a hike and there’s like lots of different turns and twists, and it’s not labeled very well. And you’re like, I’m just praying that when I get off this trail, I’m where I should be. And it’s so frustrating because special education and navigating the insurance, just like you said, terminology and all these different nuances. There’s a hard learning curve, and that’s where we learn a lot of families and kids fall through the cracks. And when I say fall to the cracks, it’s a delay in access. It’s a delay in getting it. It’s through various reasons, language barriers, all these different reasons. And so they don’t end up their kid and stop not getting it or getting it years after, it would have been optimal to get it. So if you go the route, like I said, that private pay like the parents like, thank you for telling me what my child needs. The insurance denied it. I’m not having it. I very much relate to that parent, so I’m going to figure out a way to get it. So they go out and they get it and they buy it, whether it’s through a grant or personal funding. Then the next step would be if your child’s in school and has an IEP, is to go back and have an IEP meeting where you’re going to bring in, hopefully this eval you had that recommended this device and how you obtained it was privately, that’s fine. But then you’re going to have the team agree that they are accepting that your child needs this AAC device to access their education. And that’s very important that families understand that because that agreement is where you’re going to be able to get it officially put into the IEP document in some capacity and then get it integrated into the goals.
Beth [00:29:43] Absolutely, yes. And when you bring it to the team, talk to us about if you get some resistance from the school about this AAC device, like what does that look like? How do you interpret that resistance from the team?
Courtney [00:30:00] Yeah. So they’re going to be a lot of different reasons. But the number one reason that I have found both as an IEP coach, and as a mom, is when different team members are not familiar with communication devices. So a misconception, I feel like, is that as parents feel like at the IEP table, there’s these experts and they’re they should know about this because that’s their job and they should. But also, they might not have actually covered it in their curriculum from where they graduated, from the program they went through if they didn’t have a mentor teaching them about that, it’s not like it’s required. And so that’s where it gets really tricky. And as an SLP, I can speak to this. A lot of SLPs are responsible for this portion of the IEP, the communication, communication goals, implementation. So if your leader, if you will, of this IEP table has no idea, they’ve never actually had a kid with a communication device, and now they’re being asked to write goals and give training. It’s going to be really, really hard for that professional to say, Hey, I don’t know. I don’t know, and I need help, because that’s really hard to say. You don’t know something that parents and maybe even your admin is expecting you to know. And so that’s where asking good questions at the IEP table. They don’t have to be aggressive. They can be very kind and saying so this usually falls under an SLP’s umbrella, do you feel comfortable with that? Do you have you had a lot of experience with that? Another great one would be, what can I do to support you in implementing this at school? Because even though it’s not a parent’s job, our primary caregivers job. If you don’t ask the questions, often times, either directly or indirectly, the messaging from the school is we don’t want to just be given out all these services because all these things cost money. So a lot of times the professionals feel like they can’t fully speak what they feel because this is their place of employment and they’re not sure as that ever been done here. What does that look like? Am I asking for something that’s unreasonable? When really they’re not. But that’s how they feel. So asking those questions would really help open the door for good discussions. And it’s the perfect time because IEPs and IEP meetings are a legal document. It’s a legal meeting, even though I’m not a lawyer and you’re not a lawyer. That is what it is. It’s an agreement between the school district and the parents on what their child needs. So if those meeting notes from that and everything, so why once you bring it up and you start having those discussions? If the therapist was just sitting on the edge, like, should I say something? Should I not? You’re going to open that door for them to say yes, say you need help, say what you need so we can get it added to the IEP.
Beth [00:33:13] Perfect. So before we wrap up, I’m wondering if you have maybe two really quick tips about getting the AAC device into the IEP and maybe what sections to do? Just give us two quick tips before we wrap up.
Courtney [00:33:30] Absolutely. The present levels is a great one because it’s describing where your child currently is and what’s going on, and that’s at school and home. It’s really talking about where they’re at. And so that is one of the few places in the IEP that you can be pretty specific on what you’re using because it’s just stating what you’re currently working on. So when we get into over where you might list out equipment or supplementary aids of services, sometimes we have to go to more of a describe the students using a high tech device with 60 position layout because if the device breaks or something, the school needs that flexibility to offer something similar. That is not exact because there’s so many different device options like we said before. So that’s where you would get a little bit more vague. Another option, too, is when we’re talking about our goals and then, you know, there’s what’s achieving the goal. So if the only option is verbally answering and the child not verbally answering, then they wouldn’t get credit, if you will, for meeting that goal. So total communication or even having it like sign, point, gestures, AAC device, verbal, it allows all team members to know that we are accepting all forms of communication, which, by the way, you should because the child is still communicating and our goal should be to help them access their education and prepare them for their future. In their future, they can answer in different ways and still be able to exist in society and have a job and live independently and all those things.
Beth [00:35:16] Perfect. Thank you so much for coming on today. Where can parents find out more about you online?
Courtney [00:35:24] Absolutely. My website super easy, it’s www.CourtneyBurnett.com. So it’s my name. And when you go there, I have a freebi, The Visual Communication Tool Box. It is over 10 pages of breaking down the acronyms. Helping you understand visual communication is a term I was using because AAC is an acronym, so I wanted them to know its picture cards, its communication devices. So I put that together and it’s on there. And then Instagram and Facebook is where I’m most active, and that’s @CourtneyBurnettAdvocate. So all of those are on there, and I give a lot of tips and stories. I also share examples of us in action with my daughter, really helping families visualize what it looks like. As you know, it’s underrepresented of what does that actually look like in real life and when somebody is having a meltdown or you’re trying to get out the door for work. And by the way, you’re trying to model on this communication device. So I really try to be vulnerable and share like, this is a win. This is an old belief I had. I did this. Don’t do that. Don’t you hand over hand? So really sharing like where I started and where we are now so that parents can really see themselves and know that they can do it. And anybody listening, I just want to assure you that you can do hard things. And even though it’s hard and different, find your tribe and find people who get it. And that is the beautiful part about social media, I know there’s negative parts too. But the beauty that I see in my life, different from where I started with my daughter was social media. That’s how old I am wasn’t really a thing. And I felt very alone and very isolated. And where I feel like with my Instagram account, I’m able to educate, help families give them hope and let them know that there’s beauty and joy, even in the hard things. There’s hard things that are happening. That’s still true. But the shift I really want to help families make is you can be happy and find joy and find your groove and really live a beautiful life and your child can use communication device and you can learn to navigate their sensory needs. It’s a learning process, but you can do it, and it’s so beautiful when you get there, when you kind of find your groove. And so I just don’t want families to give up before they find their groove because it’s beautiful when it happens.
Beth Intro [00:37:56] Perfect. I’ll link all of those up on the show notes at www.ParentFriendlyOT.com. Thank you so much for coming on.
Courtney [00:38:03] Thank you.
Beth [00:38:05] I really hope you enjoyed our conversation about communication devices today. It can be quite a complicated topic, so if you have questions, please DM me on Instagram or send me an email at hello@parentfriendlyot.com and let me know if any part of that was confusing, and we can talk about it more. Thank you so much for listening today. I so appreciate you sharing this podcast, and subscribing, so that you make sure that you don’t miss a single episode and don’t forget to go online and snag your Parent IEP Get Started Pack. You can find it at www.parentfriendlyot.com/pack, and in that pack it has an eligibility or re-eligibility map so that you know the steps of the process. If you’re going through that this year and also you have a professional’s guide, so you not only know who could be on your child’s IEP team, but what their role is within the team as well. You’ll also get a sheet with 9 really quick IEP tips that you can have at your meeting to remind you to keep your child at the center of the meeting. Ask for data, come with priorities and little tricks like that, so don’t forget to snag that. It’s at www.parentfriendlyot.com/pack. Thank you so much for coming and sharing this time with me, and I hope you learned a ton. I will see you on the podcast next week at the same time. Same place! Thank you. Bye bye.