School of Speech Ep 24
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[00:00:00] Announcer: Welcome to the School of Speech podcast presented by SpeechTherapyPD. com. School of Speech is designed specifically for the school based SLP to come together to discuss current topics, tackle difficult situations, and share our insights. Our goal is to bolster confidence, celebrate our triumphs, and foster a community that's Dedicated to the excellence in the school setting. 

[00:01:30] Carolyn Dolby: Well, hello. Welcome, everybody. I am Carolyn Dolby and I am SpeechTherapyPD. com's podcast host for School of Speech. School of Speech has been designed for all of us school based SLPs so we can come together. We're going to explore current trends, share insights, and really champion our expertise. Our goal is to bolster our confidence, celebrate our triumphs, and foster a community dedicated to the excellence in the school setting.

[00:02:01] Super excited for today's episode. It is titled Positioning Yourself as a Literacy and Executive Functioning Expert in your, on your school team. And as school SLPs, we are experts in language, cognition, and other essential areas that really impact how a student functions in school and beyond. So today, we are so blessed.

[00:02:25] We have Dr. Karen Dudek-Brannan. She is here to show us how we can position ourselves as literacy and executive functioning experts on our school team, so that we are making that impact. Within our direct therapy sessions as well as district wide. Karen's here. She's going to navigate us through those barriers that that the barriers for effective collaboration.

[00:02:50] She's going to help us develop strategies that are going to build trust and form alliances with other disciplines. As well, what I'm excited, we will be leaving with an action plan that will really impact direct intervention and build district wide practices that support students language and cognition.

[00:03:10] Alright, as we start settling in for this great episode, I do have some housekeeping. Each episode of School of Speech is 60 minutes, and we will, and it is offered for ASHA CEUs 1. 0. 1, excuse me, 0. 1 ASHA CEUs. Now we want to get you started, so those of you that are listening, get ready. We would love for you, I think it would also help Karen kind of know, Who's listening?

[00:03:36] I'm going to go over some of our financial disclosures. So, Dr. Karen owns a company called Dr. Karen, LLC. She's also paid for trainings and resources for clinicians, educators, and caregivers. And which she earns, she has a website, dr karen speech.com and dr. Karen eck brannan.com. I will, I will actually get those.

[00:04:02] In the chat because I wanna make sure everyone's spelling that right. She's also receiving an, an honor an honorarium for today's participation for non-financial. The views that she is sharing are her own and are not a reflection of the views of any current or past employees. For me, I am a Salary District SLP Specialized Support Clinician in the Pacific Northwest.

[00:04:25] I'm also compensated for my graduate courses that I teach at the University of Houston in Texas. I also am a consultant for school districts across the nation that support program development in dysphagia, feeding and swallowing, and also staff training. I also receive compensation from Speech Therapy PD for hosting School of Speech.

[00:04:46] For non financial I am still a member of Texas Speech and Hearing Feeding and Swallowing Task Force. I volunteer for Feeding Matters, and I'm also ASHA Special Interest Group member of 13, 14, and 16. Enough about me. All right. Let's get to know more about Karen. Dr. Karen Dudek-Brannan.

[00:05:06] She's the founder, I think I already said this, of and operate, owner and operator of Dr. Karen LLC. This is a company that is focused on empowering therapists like us and educators to design interventions that support language, literacy and executive functioning. She has a doctorate in special education and director of special education and assistive technology credentials from Illinois State University.

[00:05:31] State University as well. If that's not enough, as well as a master's and a bachelor's from Illinois, Illinois State University in speech language pathology. She spent 14 years in the school system and has held various roles in leadership and higher education, teaching and mentoring clinicians. She is also a host of the DeFacto Leaders podcast, and this is where she shares evidence based practices and her own experiences, along with guest interviews on topics relating to leadership.

[00:06:04] To education and health care reform. She also currently holds a management role with the Illinois department of children and family services. We are in great hands. Y'all welcome. Karen, thank you so much for joining us. How are you for having me? I'm doing all right. I'm happy to be here. So excited. As I'm going to start taking a look in the chat because we got a lot of people jumping in letting us know we got a lot of novices out there and some immediates.

[00:06:30] Okay. Oh, okay. I love this. I'm sorry. I'm going to do a shout out to Laura. Laura. Sorry, I'm calling you out because you just said something that before we started the podcast, Karen and I were saying, I bet some of us are going to be like, wait, we have executive functioning issues. Laura said novice, but she struggles with, with executive functioning.

[00:06:50] So, we are so glad you're here. Cause I think you are definitely in the right place to get some guidance with that. I want to start. I want to know more. I want to know your journey. Like what led you to really focus on literacy and executive functioning? What, how, how did you get here? 

[00:07:08] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Oh, yeah, that's a long story.

[00:07:10] But and I did want to just share about about your comment that you just made that, you know, Almost every time I present about executive functioning, somebody says, I need to, I need to work on this myself. So I definitely something that I'm always working on as well. So, I, I can't tell you how, how many times I hear that, you know, every week, but to go back to your question about how did I end up here?

[00:07:33] So, when I 1st started I really wanted to be a medical SLP. I didn't really see myself in the schools. I just thought the medical courses were way more interesting. And I thought that my language therapy course was really. Confusing and overwhelming and I left that course thinking, what am I going to do when I'm out in the field?

[00:07:51] Like, where do I even start? And so I did end up getting a school position because there was so much need in the schools and thought that I would just stay there to finish my CF and ended up staying there for 14 years. But really what I found was that. A good portion, I mean, I would say, you know, close to half, maybe more at some times of my caseload was language and I didn't really feel like I had a good system for language and there wasn't really a clear cut protocol and there were so many students on my caseload that needed support in that area that I just couldn't.

[00:08:29] I couldn't not have a plan. And often with those students, I felt like I was getting to the end of the IEP. And it's like, what did we actually accomplish when you're sitting there filling out your, your, your goals and your, your progress reports? So that was frustrating. It's, you know, it's hard to show up to work when you feel like you're not making a difference.

[00:08:47] I think that's probably one of the biggest pain points that I hear from SLPs with language therapy is where do I start? And then with executive functioning, really, I only. We touched on it in TBI, which was an elective, not even a required course. That's where I heard about executive functioning, but there really wasn't a tie in with language and cognition.

[00:09:09] And interestingly enough, the graduate program that I went went through actually revised their curriculum. So it's language and cognition through the lifespan because these 2 things go together so much. But. That did inspire me to go back and get my doctorate in special ed, not speech pathology for a number of reasons.

[00:09:26] But what that allowed me to do was focus on the content that I wanted to, which was, what am I supposed to do as somebody who's working with school age kids to support language in a way that makes sense for my role that takes into account that I am working in a school. I'm not working with the medical model.

[00:09:47] But also that acknowledges my expertise. And while I was getting my doctorate, there's with the special ed doctoral program, you have some overlap with the director of special ed credential. And I really liked those courses. So I decided to get it. Get that as well. And there was a lot with how do you work as a team?

[00:10:07] How do you not just evaluate students, but evaluate programs and design programs and design services with the whole team instead of just thinking about direct treatment, which is, of course, a really important component. But when you're on a school team, you can't just think about yourself in a silo. You have to think about where you fit on that whole team.

[00:10:25] And I found that that was really important when it came to language, because. With, with both language and executive functioning, it's, it's our role. And based on our background, we have such a valuable, we can be such valuable assets to our team, but it doesn't just fall on us. So we have to figure out how can I be this person that can kind of emerge into a leadership role, but at the same time, figure out how to leverage the other people on the team and.

[00:10:54] Figure out how they can support language as well, because it's not something like, I think everybody on the, on the, that who's listening right now knows that language impacts everything and cognition and executive functioning impacts all areas of life. So, yeah, so that kind of brings me to where I am now, which eventually I did start creating my own programs, which is what I do with my, my business and my podcast.

[00:11:20] And. Kind of brings us up to the present. 

[00:11:22] Carolyn Dolby: Wow. Wow. Wow. Amazing. I'm so excited that you agreed to come talk to us. This is fantastic. Just what you said just really hits home. We are school based. We are school based speech pathologist and we have to work within that system. And I think. As speech paths, we count we, we have come into this.

[00:11:43] I don't know if we've come into it. It's just our calling it because of the type of people we are. We are helpers. And we want to help everybody and do everything. But you said something and I want to make sure that everybody heard that we aren't in this alone. Yes, we are experts, but we're not experts.

[00:11:59] In a silo. I love those terms that you used. I think that's what I really like about this podcast is we are reminding ourselves that we have such a vast purview. Our scope is huge, but we really have to find our way within the system of education. So as we find our way how can you get us started?

[00:12:22] Cause I'm a novice. And I want to know how. How can school SLPs that maybe didn't have any executive functioning coursework, 

[00:12:32] how can we become, develop expertise? Because I'm not sure I feel competent. I mean, I feel competent in language. I'm not sure I feel competent in executive functioning.

[00:12:43] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah, and that's a great question because, and, and this is again, getting, getting to the shifting our mindset to thinking of ourselves as clinicians, but also thinking of ourselves as leaders and realizing that we can do a lot with direct intervention. We obviously have to have really good protocols for what we're doing when we're working directly with students.

[00:13:06] But we also have to think about how can I take this that I'm doing with my students directly. And scale it and I'll explain what I mean by that later, but sometimes we have to flip flop the way that we plan because we're thinking very micro and we're really good at thinking micro, like, I have a student in front of me.

[00:13:27] I'm going to be really specific about how I scaffold and, you know, intuitively and analytically just figuring out what do I do when I have a student in front of me, but what we don't necessarily get trained in is, you know, How might I scale that and share it with someone else documented in a way that can be, it can be shareable so that other people might be able to implement some of these strategies?

[00:13:52] Maybe not exactly the same way that. You would, but that they can do it somewhere else. So that maybe you can coach or train somebody. So we almost have to flip flop and start thinking about ourselves more in the micro. So, instead of just thinking about what do I do with my students in these sessions?

[00:14:11] And how do I spread it out and share it with other people versus how do I think about this online? And then I have a whole service delivery plan that my students, my student needs, and think about all the resources that are available to that student and based on how those resources are allocated on my team, the people that I have available, how does that inform what I'm doing in my sessions because that might, because a lot of times people feel like they can't get to both when it comes to language and executive functioning, because there's not enough time, but if you know that you have the right systems in place, And other people might be working on executive functioning, and maybe that informs what you do in therapy.

[00:14:51] It can help you to prioritize better. So that's the mindset shift that I think would be helpful for people to make is switching from the micro to the macro and thinking about. The bigger picture, and so what I, what I like to refer to as. Planning for service delivery versus just planning for therapy, which is kind of broader.

[00:15:13] But what I often were you going to, did you have a question? 

[00:15:17] Carolyn Dolby: Tell me about what do you mean plan for service delivery? 

[00:15:20] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah, so, and where I was going to go with that was that I think. What I often tell people is that you, you really want to make sure that you have a solid language therapy protocol, not, not that I'm saying that, like, we can really clearly distinguish, like, you should work on language 1st, and then you should work on executive functioning, but for SLP specifically.

[00:15:45] Because language, like, we need in order to be able to engage in internal dialogue for strategic planning. If you don't have the vocabulary and the syntax to do that, then it's really difficult to do some of those higher level processes. And so a lot of times, if you're planning, you're working on things like inferencing, or if you're wanting students to be able to think into the future and visualize the steps in a process.

[00:16:13] Or self regulate or, like, be able to talk them talk to themselves when they're in the middle of something to figure out what they should be doing. If you don't have the ability to use temporal conjunctions, for example, and you don't have strong syntactic skills, and that's going to be really difficult for you.

[00:16:29] So I recommend. That 1st, like, you want to make sure that your language therapy protocol is really, really solid. So sometimes if you're overwhelmed, I recommend figure out your language therapy protocol 1st, and just make sure that you're embedding a lot of executive functioning work into language therapy.

[00:16:47] But. To go back to your question about what, what do I mean by planning service delivery? So, I think with language, but more so with executive functioning, because when you think about the things that you would need to be working on, like, like, and maybe we could even go in a few minutes, go to a full definition of executive functioning.

[00:17:10] But yes, I mean, It's really difficult to effectively address it. If you're just focusing on direct treatment, we really have to be training other people to scaffold in other environments. So, when I say planning for service delivery, I'm saying, like, what are all the different models that you're using in order to support students?

[00:17:32] So. If you are going to make sure that a student had support in their classroom and someone to model self talk cue them and remind them to use strategies, then you would need to figure out how do I train that person in order to do that? How do I make sure that I am maybe developing some resources so that the student has something to take with them?

[00:17:55] So, when I say service delivery, I'm thinking about. We have direct intervention, which, of course, we know how to do. We have coaching and consultation. We have materials. I see creating materials and resources and trainings as another form of service delivery, because we could take something if your language therapy protocol is really good, and you're not just good at delivering it, but you're also good at it.

[00:18:22] Documenting what you're doing, because and like, you're so clear and what it is that you could write it down and explain it to somebody else. Then you could create some kind of a training or some kind of materials for somebody. So that could help you with training and then formal trainings as well. Like, could you be doing some kind of professional development or some kind of ongoing, like, professional learning community in your building?

[00:18:46] So. So, those are all different models. I know a lot of times with service delivery model, we think about, like, classroom based versus direct therapy. And that's 1 way to think about it, but it's also those other things. And then engaging in some kind of strategic planning with your team. So, that's that's what I mean, when I say service delivery planning.

[00:19:08] Carolyn Dolby: Thank you for actually, thank you very much for clearing that up. But okay, here's what I'd like to do. If we could back it up. 

[00:19:15] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yep. 

[00:19:15] Carolyn Dolby: And let's go over the full definition of executive function. Yeah, I'm wondering that myself. And then I might want to come back around to the service delivery because I had a thought. I'd love that. 

[00:19:31] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah, I agree. I think it's good to define first. Yeah. 

[00:19:35] Carolyn Dolby: Yeah, so let's go to executive functioning. 

[00:19:38] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Okay, yes. Yeah, this is probably where we should have started. 

[00:19:43] Carolyn Dolby: I know, but that's okay. You know, not there again. 

[00:19:46] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Executive functioning. You have to plan and visualize in advance and. And adjust see, we just used our executive functioning skills to adjust our plan and.

[00:19:59] Reshift because we were, we were going down a different path. So coming back to executive functioning. So I think typically when people, people explain it, they think about like time management and organization, which of course is part of what executive functioning is, but it's a lot more than that. And I think sometimes when we think about just it's being organized is that what we end up doing when, when it comes to service delivery is that.

[00:20:27] We might give students things like checklists and planners, which Maybe a small piece of what they need, but when we just give them the planner, a lot of times people are saying, well, I'm already working on executive functioning. Like, I'm, I'm giving them a planner. I gave them a checklist or I give them a, like, a visual schedule and it's still not working.

[00:20:44] They're not using it. And that's because there's a lot of internal processes that go along with actually using tools like that. So to actually define executive functioning, we're talking about things like. Our ability to pay attention. So are we able to attend to a task? Are we able to to look at something?

[00:21:08] And so when we're kind of, if you typically, for example, if you were to Google a definition of executive functioning, you would see things like attention. You would see things like inhibition. Are you able to inhibit? So, for example, you want to say something and you realize that somebody else is talking.

[00:21:27] Are you able to inhibit that? And because you realize that that now, you know, I should probably let this person finish what they're saying. So things like working memory, your ability to. Hold information in and immediately use it, both auditory information and visual information, your ability to initiate a task, your ability to visualize what that task might actually look like.

[00:21:51] So what does the end goal look like? And what does it look like? What are the steps look like to get there? And then also things like, like fluency. So when we're talking about fluency, it's the ability to generate ideas really quickly. So for example, When I'm going downstairs and trying to figure out what I want to eat for breakfast, I'm generating some ideas in my head.

[00:22:14] Maybe I have one idea and then I go to the fridge and I realize that, oh, well, what I wanted to make isn't in there. So I need to come up with a different idea. So if you're able to generate ideas quickly, you can adjust on the fly. And then we have shifting, which again kind of goes along with what we just did a few minutes ago, where you have a plan, you're executing the plan and you realize, you know, what I'm, we're kind of going off track here and we need to readjust.

[00:22:40] So, you know, again, like, my plan isn't going things are not going as planned. So I realized that I need to go back to some of my ideas that I had in my head and. Come up with another 1 here, so that's shifting. And that fluency is really important. And then the self monitoring and regulation. So how this typically presents in kids is that, you know, again, we have the attention issues, which is a common 1.

[00:23:04] So, kids that appear to be off task. Or maybe hyper focusing on 1 task kids who have learning challenges kids who have a difficult time general generalizing kids who have responses that seem to be like, it's there a heightened emotional response where it doesn't seem to fit the situation. Like, they get really upset and you think, oh, I didn't, you know, I didn't think that would be a situation where they would get so upset.

[00:23:33] So kind of those, you know, yeah. More intense emotional responses. Then again, of course, we have the, the time management piece and the ability to sense time and to actually feel the passage of time when you're doing something. So both to figure out how long is this thing going to take me and also to be able to sense that time while you're doing something.

[00:23:56] So you can adjust. And so that's why time management is a big piece, because sometimes if you struggle with executive functioning, you might either think that something's not going to take as long. And so you don't give yourself enough time. And so then you don't complete it on time, or you inflate something in your head and you avoid it.

[00:24:17] And now there's a negative consequence because you've avoided something, because, you know, maybe somebody else can see it only takes 5 minutes, but in your head, you don't want to do it. And it feels like it's going to take an hour. So you don't have that ability to sense time. And then, of course, we see an impact on social skills as well, because we have to be able to.

[00:24:36] With with those working memory skills, read the room and kind of look around and see what's happening. Be able to adjust and respond and then also to be able to understand how we're coming across to other people and notice. How the conversation is going notice their reaction and be able to have that back and forth.

[00:24:58] So, executive functioning really impacts all of those skills. So, to kind of circle back to what I was saying earlier. Now that we see what, like, all of these things that executive functioning encompasses, this is why it's really difficult to address it in just a therapy situation. That tends to be really structured.

[00:25:20] All of these things that I described are situations that are out in life in the world. And so, yes, there's a, there are some things that we can do in therapy to prepare our students, but we have to make sure that we have that we give them the experience to practice these skills in real environments. 

[00:25:41] Carolyn Dolby: I am fascinated by what you are sharing with us.

[00:25:46] And I like how you kind of broke it down on what, what a student might present. And I like the way you said, maybe decreased attention to task. But also a student that might be hyper focused and has to do one task and can't move on to the next, that dysregulation that would have intense emotional responses.

[00:26:08] And when you said feel the passage of time, I love time and it kind of, I really feel it and I'm, I'm, so that one is like, I'm very in tuned with time. I have a real good relationship with it. But I could see how like, you know, how we hear. Oh, I lost track of time. 

[00:26:26] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah. 

[00:26:27] Carolyn Dolby: Yeah. Straight as that.

[00:26:29] Right. I love it. And what I, what I also hear, which is going to tie us into what, I know I think we're going to go to is how much of executive functioning is tied into language and cognition are saying so many pieces of what I think of as social language, pragmatics. So there's got to be a tie there.

[00:26:52] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah, right. I used to in my language therapy framework, I used to explain pragmatics under language. And now I have a separate framework for language and executive functioning and there's like, it's not a clean break. Like, I'm, I'm explaining it that way to make it more tangible. So people can understand, but it's in reality.

[00:27:17] It's not as. Neat as the frameworks, there's, you know, all kinds of this, you know, overlap going on, but the way that I explain it, 

[00:27:26] Carolyn Dolby: we're putting our hands together. 

[00:27:27] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yes. Okay. 

[00:27:28] Yeah. And I don't know if, you know, people will be listening to audio later, but, but, yes, so, and when going back to what I said before about how so number 1, we want to make our protocol scalable because we can't adequately address.

[00:27:43] All of these things, if we're just thinking about what we're doing, and you may also be listening to these things thinking, like, is this in my scope? Or maybe it's in my scope, but how am I going to address it? So, you know, again, you're hearing this probably thinking like, oh, there's. There's, there's bigger things going on here that that I might not necessarily be able to address with just my direct therapy, but then also there's the the aspect of just understanding how the language therapy can actually support some of these skills.

[00:28:19] And then, when we think about executive functioning, some of that can be in our direct intervention, but some of this could be. Maybe we're focusing more on some of those other service delivery models. And actually, that's more of what I did when I was in the schools, not because I wasn't qualified to also be doing more direct executive functioning work in therapy, but because that's just how it worked on my team.

[00:28:42] I knew that I had a special ed teacher that was doing a really good job with some strategies in her study hall. And so we had to kind of divide and conquer there and figure out who's working on what we have some overlap and what we can both do. So what makes sense for me to do? And what I ended up doing a lot was really working on semantics and syntax and pulling some executive functioning in.

[00:29:04] But my intervention was more me coaching, like, the teaching assistance and the making sure the special ed teacher was addressing some things. So. That's what I mean by kind of shifting to thinking about services and like. You know, kind of thinking, all right, here's my expertise and I need to make sure that all of this is happening for for my students, but I don't always need to be the 1 directly doing it, but I can be the expert in helping with making that happen.

[00:29:36] Carolyn Dolby: Which kind of begs the question like, barriers that we might face. I mean, we want to be effective collaborators. But what are some barriers that An SLP might be facing it. So they're like, okay, I'm gung ho. I hear this. I want to do this. What do we need to, let's get real. What do we need to know?

[00:29:54] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah, well, so as soon as I start talking about the other service delivery models, people are like, when am I going to have time to do that? 

[00:30:00] Carolyn Dolby: Right? 

[00:30:02] Karen Dudek-Brannan: I know that people are like, what? You're telling me I have to do more stuff. So I, I hear you. And I think that so part of it, part of it is having a framework for what you want to happen.

[00:30:14] And then part of it is having your own strategic plan for making it happen, which I would argue is you could argue that that is a form of service delivery or what I like to refer to as an asset. What I like to have people do is a technique that I refer to as asset stacking. So a lot of times when we're talking about assets, people think of.

[00:30:37] Finance, you know, like you think about it and more financial terms, but the way that I'm saying it is that you can make, you can create things that can either increase your results or can buy you time, but they produce some kind of outcome. So, for example, I said earlier that if you want to figure out how you can support.

[00:31:01] Both language and executive functioning. Sometimes it makes sense to come up with a really good language therapy protocol. And I know that we're talking about executive functioning and all these other service delivery models. So why do you start there? Well, because if you're spending hours planning for language therapy, and it's taken up so much of your time, if you can figure out how to make that really efficient and document it and have something that's kind of, you know, Like, up front, you might devote some time creating it, but then it, it doesn't create you as, it doesn't take you as much time to implement in the long run.

[00:31:38] You've created an asset. That protocol is an asset. So, you've created something, now you've bought back some time, so the time you would have been spending doing language therapy, maybe you're thinking about, okay if I'm going to really make a difference in my building, I need to team up with somebody else in on my school team and figure out how we might work together to maybe coach people or plan some trainings.

[00:32:06] So maybe that additional time could be spent meeting with the social worker or the psychologist or the special ed teacher. And then you, you have a relationship, so I could say, like, assets could be materials. It could be protocols. It could be relationships. I mean, it could be, you know, your own knowledge.

[00:32:25] So it's just things that you create. So and then you kind of like, as you do that, you work on building 1 thing at a time. Usually, when you're creating something new, it's going to take you a longer time at the beginning. But then over time, you're kind of in a system, you know, so, like. And then maybe if you're teaming up with somebody, you can work together to create some things.

[00:32:45] So you don't always have to do everything by yourself. You can create some additional assets and training and resources that are reusable and scalable that you can use over and over again. So it doesn't always have to be like, you're explaining things over and over again to people. You have things that you can, you can use to share with them.

[00:33:02] So it doesn't take as much face to face meeting. 

[00:33:06] Carolyn Dolby: Right. I think all of us don't want to have to keep reinventing the wheel. 

[00:33:11] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah. 

[00:33:12] Carolyn Dolby: You know, there's got to be resources out there. 

[00:33:14] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Mm hmm. 

[00:33:15] Carolyn Dolby: Help us with that. 

[00:33:17] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah. Yes, absolutely. And So, 

[00:33:21] Carolyn Dolby: yeah, go ahead. 

[00:33:22] Karen Dudek-Brannan: No, I was going to say, yes, and I mean, I have things and you can get things that are made from other people, but you can also create your own.

[00:33:28] Carolyn Dolby: Mm hmm. I love it. So you're talking about collaboration building trust, I take it is a 

[00:33:36] big part of that. 

[00:33:37] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah. 

[00:33:38] Carolyn Dolby: What are some strategies that you can share with us on how we can start as you, you, I think you've said form alliances. 

[00:33:46] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yes. Form alliances are 

[00:33:48] Carolyn Dolby: assets. 

[00:33:49] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yes. So, and I think that one thing that, .

[00:33:52] SLP say a lot is like, oh, I'm the only 1 in the building, or there's only a couple of us. And, you know, I don't want to say we're outnumbered, but, like, a lot of times they feel like they're not considered in the plan of the school because they're, they're not as large in numbers. And I think we can think of ourselves as instead of thinking of ourselves as the only SLP think of ourselves as.

[00:34:16] Part of the related service provider team, so kind of just thinking about how we might belong in a different way. So, you know, if you maybe the, like I said, maybe the social workers also feeling siloed, for example, but I think that. If you're going to start with, with forming an alliance with somebody, you, you go to the low hanging fruit.

[00:34:40] You might have a teacher who you're like, oh, my gosh, this person really needs my help. They really need my strategies, but maybe they're not really on board with it. It's the, you know, the person that's always like, you know, like, when you walk into the room and they don't want to. 

[00:34:52] Carolyn Dolby: Oh, yeah, we knew them. 

[00:34:54] Karen Dudek-Brannan: You know, so don't start there, you know, don't make things hard for yourself, figure out the, the people that are already coming to you.

[00:35:02] So, and I think that there's the, the people you have a relationship with, or that you think would be open to it. So that's, that would be the low hanging fruit. And then I think also the people who ask you for help, even if you don't think they're aware that it's an executive functioning or a language issue.

[00:35:22] They might be having, they need, they might need help with something and if you can give them a quick win and give them something that's going to help them, then that can help you to get your foot in the door. And I think that when we're talking about executive functioning specifically. People get really focused on the external behaviors, like the student is blurting out all the time, or they're like, they're not finishing their work, or they always are defiant in class, or they're, you know, getting so upset, or they're having issues with their peers, like, whatever the external thing is that's coming up for that student.

[00:35:56] There's a good chance, especially if it's like a, and I'm using big air quotes here, like behavior problems. There's a good chance that executive functioning is involved, especially if there's avoidance with work. So, like, you go after what the teacher cares about. You know, like, maybe you think, oh, this would help them with their writing.

[00:36:17] And they're, you know, like, something, something else that's also really important to them. You go after what that person thinks is important. And you try to tie what you're doing back to what they think is important. Do that 1st. And then. And then maybe you can get to what your thing is later when they realize, oh, this is somebody that really knows what they're doing.

[00:36:37] And they, they helped me. So, another thing that I say is take something off their plate. Don't put something on it because that's what we accidentally do. Sometimes I know I've I'm guilty of that myself. 

[00:36:50] Carolyn Dolby: Right? Yeah. I mean, we also feel like we seem to always be getting something more on our plate, but I love the way everybody wants a help.

[00:36:59] Everybody wants a help. I like your a quick win. And as you were saying working on those, yeah, Eric Cordegan behaviors, but when you, the, especially the one that you said blurting out, yeah, right, that that's aggravating for everybody. And I could see how you would tie that into their ability to read the room internal dialogue.

[00:37:24] Right? And that's right. And so, yeah. Rather than just trying to put a band aid on the behavior, let's get to the root cause. We want to cure, we want to cure, not the, not mask the symptom. Did I say that right? 

[00:37:45] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah, and I think, again, I like, like the root cause, you know, the root cause is a good way to put it.

[00:37:51] Carolyn Dolby: Mm hmm. Yeah, because yeah, we could always just keep putting a band aid, a band aid on something. But if we can actually get to what is the, what is the need? What is the students need? And help shape that through literate through our language supports and and executive functioning supports. Really, I love that.

[00:38:12] When you're showing the, the staff and everyone how it is connected and how if they are putting these supports in there for the student, we're not telling you to do one more thing. But if you do this, it's going to do this, right? Increase more positive results. 

[00:38:32] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah, and I think that the big, the big part is like, the reason that teachers often aren't willing to do things or they seem like they're not willing to do things is because, again, it feels like you're putting something more on their plate.

[00:38:46] So I think that sometimes when you, you take an opportunity like that to give them another tool in their toolbox, it's not just, here's how you can help this student, but it's also, here's a strategy that you can have as a universal support in your classroom. So that it's at the tier 1 level, because then that teacher has more resources that they can use for other students that you might have on your caseload, or maybe just other students in, like, that aren't necessarily on your caseload that maybe they could benefit from just some supplemental support and they're not in special ed.

[00:39:22] So this is another way that we can be in that leadership role where we can impact tier 1, because if there are more supports at tier 1 and tier 2. Then teachers are going to be more comfortable implementing some of those accommodations at tier 3 for those students who where it's a requirement versus a, like, a need to have versus a nice to have.

[00:39:43] And so you're that's again, assets scalable things that you can teach somebody where maybe you give them something, or it's like a. An easy to implement thing that you can do over and over again and what and I keep using that word, but when I say scalable, like, if you Google it, it means repeatable. And so that's going back to the micro versus macro.

[00:40:05] Like, there are certain things that we have to do in our therapy sessions that. Like, only we can do, and this should be a direct therapy thing, but then there's other things that we could, that, like, kind of package and, and share with other people that could be repeated outside of our therapy room. So, that's what I mean by that.

[00:40:25] Carolyn Dolby: Thank you for clarifying that and I mean, semantics does matter. So 

[00:40:29] Karen Dudek-Brannan: it does. And I know that we were very big. Sorry, I'm hitting my microphone here. We were very big picture before. And I think now that we've really defined executive functioning, you know, hopefully that helps to tie it back together for people.

[00:40:43] Because like I said, it was, we were kind of kind of talking broader macro at the very beginning. 

[00:40:49] Carolyn Dolby: Mm hmm. And I just want to. Make sure that everybody hears what you are saying and what my takeaway was, when you are providing the staff with the supports that they can become, that are universal supports, this is keeping, hopefully, a child from coming onto your caseload.

[00:41:12] So we're sort of front ending, front loading, and hope, hopefully, to keep students that could come Potentially, maybe not come to your, on your case, but be referred and then you have to evaluate and all of that. But yeah, let's get these strategies in place. I love that universal supports that are good for everybody and they're just, it's just good practice. Yeah, and when some, when it benefits everybody. That's not, that's not really something we should be focusing on. We should be doing just those specialized skills. That's what I heard you say too, and I, I'm doubling down on that. 

[00:42:01] Yeah. You know, those things that can be done in the classroom, let's get those, let's get them done. Get her done. Get them in there. 

[00:42:08] Yeah. And we needed to see the big picture that yes, we're doing some, we're frontloading some work, but the end game is to not have them on our caseload. 

[00:42:20] Karen Dudek-Brannan: And, and I think too, like what What can be more helpful to is that if it's a universal support, and it's a, a thing that the teacher's comfortable with, it's going to be easier for them to implement it for the students who absolutely have to have it.

[00:42:37] Right? So, and then that makes it an easier ask for them. If you're like, Hey, the student really needs this accommodation and they're in the classroom if it's already in there. Their toolkit well, then it's going to be easier for them to buy into that process. So, I mean, it kind of removes that barrier. And again, it's like, this is something that's going to make your life easier and take things off your plate versus here's an extra accommodation that you have to do.

[00:43:04] And it's an additional thing on your on your very full plate as a teacher. 

[00:43:09] Carolyn Dolby: Right? Yeah. I love that. Because when in order to get that fidelity of. Those accommodations, they need to know the why and see the benefit of it as well. Cause I know we've got teachers that say there's this accommodation. We don't ever use it.

[00:43:27] Okay. That's a story for another time. That's a, 

[00:43:29] Karen Dudek-Brannan: that's definitely 

[00:43:32] Carolyn Dolby: shifting. I I'm reading the room and realizing it was about to go into the weeds. I want to come bring, bring me back and be present into our language and executive functioning. So, should we start get into the action plan?

[00:43:47] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah. So I mean, and this is, I have a general, a general framework that I recommend that I kind of take people, take SLPs through. That is like a, I mean, I guess you could call it a success path, which is like, how do you, how do you go about rolling this out and think about both language and executive functioning?

[00:44:09] Now it's, it's a recommendation because it, everybody is a different, in a different place when their, with their skillsets. Well, I, I will tell. Everybody who's listening that even if you've been in the field for a while, if you still feel like you don't have a solid protocol for language therapy, I have who are like, I'm a veteran and I've never really felt like I had a good handle on language therapy.

[00:44:34] And then I have other who are coming into the field who are like, I just graduated and I. I'm freaking out because what am I going to do now that I'm in the field? So I just want to reiterate that like, no matter how many times or how long you've been in the field, that this is a pretty, like a very common thing that I see all the time to, to not feel super comfortable with either one of these things.

[00:44:55] So off, off of my soapbox on that, but what I generally recommend that people do is again, start with again, like your first asset can be that, that I like to create a master plan and that is like, that's a, a separate podcast episode, but basically you just come up with a, a plan for yourself for what you're going to do for the next 90 days.

[00:45:19] So be very high level, like, month by month, but then you want to get really specific. In the next 2 weeks on what am I going to do? And then you figure out what is my 1st priority that I want to work on right now. And, you know, figure out how much can I get done in that 90 days? But where I recommend that people start is if you're feeling overwhelmed with both language and executive functioning.

[00:45:43] Do your language therapy protocol 1st. And the reason why is because if you have a good language therapy protocol, you are addressing some of those higher level. Comprehension issues a lot of times are like, I'm working on my questions and my inferencing and students are still not struggling or they're still struggling.

[00:46:00] And like, they're not making progress. And a lot of times it's because they don't have those underlying syntactic skills and the vocabulary skills. So it's not that we should stop doing the other things. Or making sure that somebody's doing the high level, we might need to focus in our language therapy on getting really solid in that language therapy protocol.

[00:46:19] Because if we do that, right, we're going to be embedding a lot of executive functioning and self talk. So we're not going to be ignoring executive functioning, but we're going to be getting our language therapy protocol really solid. So that's stage 1. And then stage 2 is okay now that we've got our language therapy protocol pretty solid.

[00:46:38] Let's think about how we can start building our skill sets and executive functioning, which is more of those higher level strategic planning skills. Now that I've got something in place, I know that I can support my students. In some of those syntactic skills, and the vocabulary skills and semantic skills, how would I work with a student directly in executive functioning and come up with some protocols for how to help students?

[00:47:04] I have a specific protocol that I share, it's called the time tracking journal where. It's basically helping, giving students a tool to figure out how to complete steps in a in a multi step task. It could be something like writing. It could be like making a meal. It's something that I used in order to, to teach students how to plan.

[00:47:28] And then you want to figure out how would you work on executive functioning in a direct therapy session. So get solid again in working on it yourself. Not because you want to stay there with this is, you know, I'm only going to work on executive functioning and direct intervention, but because you want to get solid in your protocol so that you can document it so that you can eventually share it with other people so that you can create something that's scalable.

[00:47:55] So that's stage 2, again, direct intervention, executive functioning, and then now you've got some assets that you've created. And now we can start thinking about, all right, how can I start pulling in some of those other service delivery models? And here's where you can start to be more macro and get to that planning for service delivery.

[00:48:15] Like, okay, I've got my direct intervention really solid. How would I think about. Maybe I want to coach 1, a teacher on on this and do a little pilot in the classroom. Like, how do I start pulling some of those things in? And you can kind of do it in layers. So, again, there's probably some things that happen concurrently, but I recommend people have, like, 1, big initiative that they do each 90 days 

[00:48:38] Carolyn Dolby: and you, you, so I like that.

[00:48:41] Because, again, you're giving some, the 90 days it's giving us, like, let's, let's scale it. 

[00:48:49] Yeah. You know. Because it can get overwhelming, like, you know, okay, let's break it down. Like, we would for a student. Let's break it down. 

[00:49:02] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah, and I actually like to. When I do my full master plan, I like to do 18 months, but it's actually a really solid 90 days is a pretty, a pretty good timeframe to start.

[00:49:12] Like it's, it's not too far out that it feels overwhelming, but it's long enough that you're still being strategic and you're not just thinking, you know, it's not like the panicked, like grabbing your, your flashcards off the shelves and, you know, not feeling very strategic, which is how I often felt at the very beginning before I had a plan.

[00:49:29] So not that. It's, you know, again, we all have those days when we're just pulling things off our shelves, but if you've got a good strategic plan, and you've got the, the protocol in your head, that might be okay, because you've already done the planning, you know, then you can plan on the fly because you've done the work up front.

[00:49:47] So, 

[00:49:48] Carolyn Dolby: yeah, I like I like the idea and the concept that you, you shared with us about asset stacking. 

[00:49:54] Mm hmm. 

[00:49:56] Do you have some more examples of assets? 

[00:50:00] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yes, 

[00:50:00] Carolyn Dolby: thinking about 

[00:50:01] Karen Dudek-Brannan: let's so let me think about this. Okay. So I have, I have a presentation that I've done before and I have, I have examples. So I have, like, so 1 asset could be.

[00:50:13] You do you create your own master plan, or how am I going to manage my time? So the master plan is the like, your own personal strategic plan, and that is an asset, like, figuring out how to do that for yourself can save you a lot of time. So what is my master plan for the next? 90 days. So that's asset number one.

[00:50:36] And then maybe once you've kind of mapped out your time and you figured out like, what are all the different, the different things that I need to do in my life? How can I carve out like 30 minutes a day or like three hours on the weekend or whatever it is? The whole point of the master plan is to figure out when do I create a block of time to build an asset?

[00:50:58] But the plan itself is an asset. So again, you're blocking out the time. And then maybe you're like, okay, first, I'm going to create the language therapy protocol. And that's what I do in my block of time. Okay, now that's done. And then next you're like, okay I want to use that time to like, like, once the protocol is, is built and I honestly, it probably would take you a little more than 90 days to do the language therapy protocol.

[00:51:23] But let's just pretend like you're done. Okay. Now I want to work with my students on. Creating a like more of an executive functioning front loading tool for my students. So that would be asset number 2. So now you've got. Like, let's say that you're, you've got your, you've got your plan, you've got your two therapy protocols, so there's three assets right there.

[00:51:49] And when I say protocols, like, it's, it's in your head, but you can also write it down somewhere. So, like, that is something that's kind of a, like a, a set of processes that you can have that you can do over and over again. And then, like, let's say that you have these things and you think, All right, now I want to start figuring out how could I take this and train somebody else in this.

[00:52:15] So maybe the next thing you want to work on is a training for your district, but you realize, you know what, I'm going to need some help. And so I am going to. Like, create a committee, like, maybe you want to create a committee with the special ed teacher and one of the general education teachers. So you create a committee, the committee could be an asset, like, a group of people could be an asset.

[00:52:39] And then in that committee, you're going to create stuff and then you create more more things. So, like, maybe you come up with some things that you could share with parents in that committee. And you have physical handouts and materials that you can distribute to families that are training materials or educational materials that they can use at home.

[00:52:57] So you have more stuff. So you're kind of building and I could keep going with examples, but hopefully people get the idea that, like, you don't roll this all out at once. You just create enough space that you can create one thing, and then that's done. And hopefully that thing that you created is useful.

[00:53:16] Buys you back a little time. Like, I mean, I think one of the other things that we do is like the, at the beginning of the school year, do you have some things that you share with teachers for when they should make referrals and help facilitate the conversations instead of having the same conversation over and over again, even though it doesn't completely replace.

[00:53:35] Face to face time, but you have things that you're leaving with people that help to supplement those conversations that you're having. So that maybe you can cut down on the number of meetings. You need to have. 

[00:53:48] Carolyn Dolby: Absolutely, because, yeah, of course, we, we all have to every year because we have turnover. From year to year and yeah, we have a protocol for our referral process and that's super important. And so what I'm hearing is we need to then also have that for executive functioning. 

[00:54:09] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:54:12] Carolyn Dolby: But what I'm, but I'm hearing 2 is we're not jumping right into that. We're going to build on that and make sure that we've got our language protocol. Solidified 1st, that right? 

[00:54:25] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah, and that's what I recommend just because language can really support some of those executive functioning skills and we, as like, I mean, nobody else in the schools is going to be working on that to the extent that we are.

[00:54:38] So and other people can. Can and need to be working on executive functioning. So that's something that we can, I could say delegate, but that's something where are we can really lean on some of those other service delivery models to make sure that students are getting what they need in addition to some things that we might do in our direct intervention.

[00:55:02] Carolyn Dolby: Right. And some of those just to reiterate would be the co coaching and consultation part. 

[00:55:09] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Mm-Hmm. . Yep. It's a big one. 

[00:55:10] Carolyn Dolby: Is huge. Mm-Hmm. . 

[00:55:12] And especially for those of us that might be on the three one model. 

[00:55:16] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yep. 

[00:55:16] Carolyn Dolby: Using that time. 

[00:55:17] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:55:19] Carolyn Dolby: to coach and and consult with teachers. On exactly this, I'm using that time to create our assets.

[00:55:28] And I like that the resources are assets that are universal. That would hopefully we can then use from year to year. We might have to update them as, you know, as things change and our population might change, or our, our setting might change, but getting started. And I like that when. We start thinking about executive functioning.

[00:55:52] We're doing it. We're also training ourselves. 

[00:55:55] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Mm hmm, 

[00:55:56] Carolyn Dolby: right? It's by saying writing it down. 

[00:55:59] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Mm hmm 

[00:56:00] Carolyn Dolby: Visualizing your plan The things that we are wanting our children to do instead of like, okay, do this Give me the steps on making a peanut butter jello sandwich, whatever it might be. Let's break that down backwards.

[00:56:13] Visualize what's our end result now. How do we get there? So I guess we what you're saying is we start, we, we do some therapy on ourselves. 

[00:56:21] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think, I think part of it too, is that, so there's, there's our own executive functioning, of course, that we I end up with a lot of the strategies with the master planning is definitely an executive functioning strategy for, for the therapist, but also our skill sets in that, like, We're not operations experts when we come into the field, documenting processes is like an, it's an operation skill.

[00:56:55] So we, we have to learn that if we're going to write down, what are my steps in this process? Or how do I coach someone else? Or how do I do a training? How do I supervise someone who is doing something that I've trained them to do? So there's other skill sets, the supervision, the leadership, the coaching.

[00:57:16] The documentation the yeah, like, or I would say, even the evaluation, like, the program evaluation, even though it might be on a small scale, where I just trained some teachers to do something. How do I evaluate if the program is working? Are they implementing it to fidelity? So those are other things that are outside just clinical skill sets that are really important.

[00:57:41] So those are assets to when you build those skills. 

[00:57:46] Carolyn Dolby: Build capacity and again, we don't, we want to make sure everyone we're not alone. We are a team. Education is a system and we're all on a team. And I, I like that setting the expectations that of what the special ed and the general ed teachers do. Need to be doing.

[00:58:09] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:58:11] Carolyn Dolby: And sometimes, and sometimes they, you know, it's easy to say, oh, you need to do X, Y, Z, but if you don't teach it, it's not gonna happen. 

[00:58:21] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah. 

[00:58:22] Carolyn Dolby: Because it'd be like, I have no idea where to even start. 

[00:58:25] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah. That's a barrier as well. When people don't implement is because they, the lack of clarity, I mean, if they don't understand it, they won't do it.

[00:58:33] Carolyn Dolby: No, how could they, right? And so definitely I, what I'm hearing a lot of is let's break down into the steps, teach those steps, not only to our kids to our, well, first to ourselves. And then to the kids and the staff kind of maybe, you know, again, chicken and the egg. 

[00:58:56] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah, absolutely. And, and, I mean, there's like, with executive functioning, I know we, we just barely, we gave a definition and we talked very.

[00:59:06] Like I said, macro level today, and there's so much more that you can learn specifically about executive functioning intervention, which, of course, is really important, but we, we also want to figure out the. Like the broader context of how we want to think about intervention. 

[00:59:23] Carolyn Dolby: Right. And I know, we're kind of getting towards the end while we're close to the end of of our talk tonight.

[00:59:30] And I know myself, I don't want to recreate everything. I, I, I don't, and I'm, I'm hoping that you'll share with us some of those resources for those listening, and also I can try to get, if there's some things that you can share, I can get into the chat of where, where we can go, because I don't think all of us wants to, not all of us wants to recreate things that maybe are, are universal.

[00:59:55] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Right. So, and I know that people listening probably want to know specifics about what those strategies are. And I know that we didn't get into that today. So I can share some tools to talk about how would you go about planning a language therapy protocol? What does that mean? Specific intervention look like for direct executive functioning therapy.

[01:00:17] So, let's see the, the place where we could start off for, for language therapy. I do have a sentence structure guide, which is a good place to start for the language therapy aspect. So, that is Dr. Karen speech. com backslash sentence structure. 

[01:00:34] Carolyn Dolby: Oh, whoops. I'm trying to get. Okay. Hold on. Let me see if I can.

[01:00:38] Why is my chat not opening? Something with me. Okay. You said Dr. Karen. 

[01:00:45] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Yeah, and I could type it in there. Oh, yeah. 

[01:00:47] Carolyn Dolby: Do you mind? I would love that. I would just want to make sure I don't get it wrong. 

[01:00:53] Karen Dudek-Brannan: So there's Dr. Karen speech dot com backslash sentence structure. And that is that is goes into syntactic intervention, which is 1 really important aspect of language therapy.

[01:01:03] There's others, but that's a really good place to start the other 1. I have a tool called the time journal. This is a paid resource, but this goes through how you would. Teach executive functioning in a direct intervention context, but also in a way that you have a tool that you could use to train other people in.

[01:01:22] So, that is Dr. Karen do deck brand dot com backslash time journal. And again, that's. Like, in the, in the actual product itself, there's, there's a whole tutorial that really goes deep into defining executive functioning, which we did a little bit today, but we go deeper. And then we also, I also get into, how do you, how do you actually teach students to.

[01:01:49] Visualize and engage in some of that internal dialogue and what kinds of self talk you need to model and what do you do if students are getting stuck and all of the things and then, you know, how do you go about taking this and using it across across different, different contexts. So those are 2 resources and then, of course, my, my main website is.

[01:02:11] Somebody said that the resources aren't showing in the chat. 

[01:02:15] And then I just shared 1 more thing in there. There's I have an executive functioning training. 

[01:02:20] Okay. And this 1 is that, like, I really go into the definition of executive functioning and some, some mistakes that people make with, with service delivery models and how to shift it and just really deep dive into the, the definition of executive functioning.

[01:02:37] So you can get a really solid understanding of what it is and how you'd want to address it. 

[01:02:42] Carolyn Dolby: Oh, my gosh, thank you so much. And I can't believe we're going to have to end our talk today. I know. I mean, Karen. Thanks for all those resources. Be sure to check out her websites. There's a lot of free resources along with paid resources.

[01:02:59] There's a lot of stuff out there. And I am going to hit you up on doing another podcast. You said maybe doing a master plan. I heard it. I'm going to put that out into the universe. Cause I love it. 

[01:03:14] Karen Dudek-Brannan: I love to talk about that. So. 

[01:03:16] Carolyn Dolby: Yeah. So I'm going to get you on the books for that. 

[01:03:19] Before we go I just, we all want to say thank you, Karen.

[01:03:23] I am so thankful for everyone that's listening today and in the future, and I can't wait. Dr. Karen to get you back on our podcast. 

[01:03:33] Karen Dudek-Brannan: All right. Thank you again. 

[01:03:35] Carolyn Dolby: Thank you everybody. 

[01:03:36] Karen Dudek-Brannan: Thanks everybody. 

[01:03:37] Carolyn Dolby: Bye. Bye.

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[01:04:39] The code is SCHOOL20. That is S C H O O L 20. Hope to see you on our next episode. Also, please don't hesitate to tell us which topics you would like us to cover in future episodes. To get in touch, drop us a line in the comment section or send us a message on social media. Music.