I am a Communicative Disorders Assistant (CDA), more commonly known as a Speech Language Assistant (SLA), (recent grads may be using Communication Health Assistant), who supports a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) (and/or Audiologist) by:

• Providing treatment that is customized for the client, their family, and their learning styles.
• Targeting speech and language therapy goals from the SLP (or Audiologist) in a treatment plan.
• Collecting data or language samples for measurement of progress of goals, types of prompts and cues.
• Creating and programming Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) visuals.
• Writing progress notes documenting types of prompts and cues to support.
• Providing feedback to the client and their caregiver about weekly progress and homework.
• Monthly meetings with SLP for documentation review and joint sessions as per allotted supervision.

How Do I Do All of This?

• Play – songs, books, toys, sensory, pretend & imaginary play, constructional.
• Activities – art, music, drills – anything that is interesting to the client.
• Games – people games, rule-based, structured, made-up, reinforcers.
• Conversations – with the client and their families, with the SLP and colleagues, with the community.
• Handouts – visual representation of strategies and homework for carry-over.
• In-person (strict guidelines during pandemic).
• Virtual care (mostly during pandemic).

What Are the Tricks?

• Encouragement
• Engagement
• Balance
• Flexibility
• Interpretation
• Adaptability
• Understanding
• Compassion

Educating on Communication

• Language is the understanding and knowledge of the world around us.
• Speech is a way to verbally express our understanding and knowledge.
• Communication is how we connect with others to share these messages: verbal and non-verbal.
• Connection is the key to a good interaction.
• A good interaction has a balanced back and forth which leads to opportunities for learning and sharing.

Lessons Learned

• Foundational skills of a good interaction should not be skipped!
• A lot of layers of strategies within strategies come into play.
• Naturalistic approach integrated with structured approach always seems to be successful.
• Speech, language, and communication are my passion.
• I can go on forever about these linguistic subjects!

This is me…my ‘why’. Unraveling more potential after my Technical Writing journey, resurfacing for more.