Sessions at Autism: Communication and Connection

Pre-recorded sessions will be on-demand and last about an hour, so you can watch them whenever time permits! 

Diagnosis of Autism in Early Childhood
Michael Mintz, PsyD

The session aims to provide clinicians who already have some knowledge about the diagnosis and treatment of autism with a clearer sense of the diagnostic process specific to early childhood. The session will detail how characteristics associated with autism can present in early childhood compared to older ages. The session will highlight supportive language that clinicians can use to talk with families and caregivers of autistic and other neurodivergent children.

After completing this session, you will be able to:

• Explain the diagnostic criteria for autism
• Use supportive language to describe the diagnosis to families and caregivers of young children

Building Accessible Language and Literacy Learning Opportunities for Autistic Learners
Tim DeLuca, PhD, CCC-SLP

While we all want to improve language and literacy outcomes for those we serve, it is sometimes hard to know where to start. This session will discuss models of language and literacy as well as using those models to inform assessment, learning opportunities, and explicit instruction for students with autism.

After completing this session, you will be able to:

• Assess autistic learners’ language and literacy skills
• Identify opportunities for language and literacy learning and tools to support explicit instruction
• Develop meaningful learning opportunities for students with autism

Friendship Is Not a Social Skill: Reframing Connection
Erinn H. Finke, PhD, CCC-SLP

Traditional definitions of friendship—rooted in neurotypical norms such as emotional disclosure, verbal reciprocity, and eye contact—often fail to capture the authentic relational experiences of autistic individuals and users of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). This session reframes friendship through neurodiversity-affirming perspectives, first-person autistic accounts, and the double empathy framework, emphasizing shared interests, comfort, predictability, and parallel engagement as valid forms of connection. The session examines how environmental, social, and systemic barriers—not individual deficits—limit friendship participation, and it explores friendship-focused assessment, goal writing, environmental design, and AAC/technology supports that foster belonging without demanding sameness.

After completing this session, you will be able to:

• Describe autistic friendship and the similarities and differences to neurotypical friendship norms
• Explain how older intervention approaches have failed to address friendship
• Apply the participation model to friendship contexts, and design friendship-focused clinical goals

Prioritizing Special Interests: Strategies for Neurodiversity-Affirming Practice
Alexa Kelly, MS, CCC-SLP

This session shares techniques for supporting children with autism by focusing on their special interests and writing goals that are both neurodiversity-affirming and measurable. The presenter will discuss the importance of self-regulation and special interests as well as how they apply to functional language gains.

After completing this session, you will be able to:

• Explain the importance of self-regulation as it relates to communication
• Describe how polyvagal theory applies to self-regulation
• Draft goals that are neurodiversity-affirming without compromising measurability
• Identify verbiage that is compliance-focused and rewrite goals to honor the child’s special interests
• Explain how special interests can improve carryover of learned skills into the child’s natural environment

Hiding in Plain Sight: Ensuring Proper Diagnosis of Autistic Girls
Donna Henderson, PsyD

Autism can present quite differently in boys and girls, and research demonstrates that many girls and women are being misdiagnosed or missed entirely. In this recorded session from ASHA’s 2021 Schools Connect online conference, the presenter explores the subtle presentation of autism in general and the specific ways that girls and women can present. The speaker discusses the importance of a comprehensive social cognition assessment to increase the likelihood of proper autism diagnosis.

Note: This session was previously offered as part of the 2021 ASHA Schools Connect online conference—and is currently offered as an on-demand course in the ASHA Learning Pass (course number PD102217).

After completing this session, you will be able to:

• Describe characteristics of individuals who do not present with obvious signs of autism but are nevertheless autistic
• Identify important ways that autistic females differ from autistic males
• List at least three specific methods (rating scales, social cognition tests, and/or clinical activities) to include in a comprehensive social cognition assessment

Autism and Transitions in Early Childhood: Navigating the Merging Lane
Belinda L. Daughrity, PhD, CCC-SLP

This session will discuss service provision and transitions for families of young children with autism. The speaker will discuss the transition from early intervention to school services, including cultural, linguistic, and identity considerations. The presenter will share resources and strategies that SLPs and teams can incorporate to assist families with young children who are transitioning between service systems and providers.

After completing this session, you will be able to:

• Create a support guide for families to use during the early childhood transition period
• Discuss the role of the SLP in supporting transitions between service systems

SLP and BCBA Collaboration in Autism Care
Shannon Welch, MS, CCC-SLP, and Erin M. Edwards, MS, BCBA, LBS

This session will explore the critical role of interprofessional practice (IPP) in improving communication and behavior outcomes for individuals with autism and developmental disabilities who present with complex communication needs, with specific examples related to high-tech augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). The session will address effective collaboration between SLPs and Board-Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs), including shared goals, ethics, standards, person-centered strategies, and overcoming barriers to collaboration. The presenters will focus on fostering partnerships between SLPs and BCBAs to address gaps in practice that can lead to AAC device abandonment. The session will also review relevant results from a national research survey related to high-tech AAC.

After completing this session, you will be able to:

• Name common barriers to collaboration between SLPs and BCBAs and describe two ways to overcome them proactively
• Name three outcomes of the research presented and how to apply in practice when working with high-tech AAC users

Safeguarding Communication Rights: The Vital Role of SLPs in Ensuring Evidence-Based and Effective AAC Practice
Bronwyn Hemsley, BAppSc, PhD; Katharine Beals, PhD; and Howard C. Shane, PhD, CCC-SLP

This session will discuss SLPs’ ethical and clinical responsibilities when working with and supporting autistic individuals who are minimally speaking or nonspeaking. The presenters will discuss a non-evidence-based and pseudoscientific approach that SLPs, clients, and parents are increasingly exposed to: Facilitated Communication (FC) (also appearing as Rapid Prompting Method [RPM], Spelling to Communicate [S2C], or "Spellers."). The session will show how to identify when FC/S2C is being used, how to discern signs of facilitation, and how to discuss these and authorship testing with parents and other stakeholders. The speakers will also outline the high cost of FC/S2C to the person (communication rights, human rights, education rights, autonomy, health, and well-being) and the urgent need to safeguard these rights through authorship testing.

After completing this session, you will be able to:

• Summarize the ethical and clinical responsibilities for safeguarding communication rights in minimally- and non-speaking autistic individuals
• Recognize FC/RPM/S2C approaches
• Identify pseudoscientific claims and describe to parents and other stakeholders the risks of FC/RPM/S2C
• Approach authorship testing to determine who is authoring messages delivered using FC/RPM/S2C

Evidence-Based Alternatives to Facilitated Communication: An AAC User’s Perspective
Lance McLemore, BA

This session aims to shed a critical light on Facilitated Communication (FC) as an intervention for nonverbal autistic individuals. The presenter—who uses augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) himself—will explain how FC and other facilitator-influenced techniques (Rapid Prompting Method [RPM], Spelling to Communicate [S2C]) do not lead to independent communication. The session will discuss a variety of evidence-based strategies clinicians can rely on instead, such as incidental teaching, milieu teaching, pivotal response training, functional communication training, and discrete trial teaching.

After completing this session, you will be able to:

• Recognize FC in video examples
• Describe the three different types of facilitator influence in FC/S2C/RPM: physical, visual, and verbal
• Explain negative consequences of being deprived of independent communication

Gestalt Language Processing and Natural Language Acquisition: Analyzing the Claims, Evidence, and Alternatives
Kathleen Oppenheimer, MS, CCC-SLP

This session will unpack the debate regarding the evidence base for Gestalt Language Processing (GLP) and Natural Language Acquisition (NLA). The speaker will identify three specific claims that are unique to NLA and examine relevant research from language processing (psycholinguistics) and speech-language pathology to evaluate those claims. The session will then identify areas of overlap between NLA/GLP and research-aligned best practices and review relevant research on understanding and supporting echolalia, language modeling, and the role of “chunks” in language development.

After completing this session, you will be able to:

• Describe language skills in children who use echolalia, grounded in evidence 
• Discuss the evidence around three specific claims about GLP and NLA
• Plan meaningful language models to provide in an engaging activity for a client who uses echolalia
• Discuss claims, evidence, and alternatives to inform families and teams who are interested in learning more about GLP

"I loved how there were different perspectives on the same subject. I liked the tips and practical strategies that were provided."