To be honest, I rarely have met a CEU course I haven’t liked. It’s so exciting to go back to work after a great CEU course with some new tools or new perspective on some of your clients. Or sometimes you just get validation-like when the presenter explains something or suggests an activity and you think, “Hey, I’ve been doing this already.” I wasn’t lucky enough to take 5 CEU courses this year so I am going to write down 5 courses that I would highly recommend if you have the funds or if they come to your area.
1. PROMPT: Introductory and Bridging. Great if your caseload consists of lots of nonverbal, preverbal or kids with Childhood Apraxia of Speech. Although most people equate this approach with the tactile facial cues, I really found that I use it more as a another framework to think about articulation and how we produce our sounds. I like the option of having some tactile cues to help out kids who need extra cues but fade them pretty quickly. I also really like the fact that they encourage you to work on these word lists/choices during functional activities. I think this is a little harder to implement in the group setting though.
2. Kaufman Apraxia Approach. Nancy Kaufman is an engaging speaker. This is another great course if you work with younger children. I use this approach with a lot of my preverbal kids and have good success. One thing that I really like is how you build up the language skills and then go back to fine tune individual sounds.
3. Floortime/Scerts Model. I went to both of these courses and find the information is vital to anyone working with children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Some of the information overlaps, so if you’ve been to one I’d wait a few years before taking another one.
4. Incredible Flexible You: Preschool Social Thinking course I took this course this year and found it to be SO helpful. If you struggle with what’s appropriate or expected for this age in terms of social language, this is the course for you. The speakers were engaging and had great practical ideas for teaching. This is a great companion to the Social thinking courses.
5. Sarah James: Vocabulary course through Bureau of Education Research. A good speaker for vocabulary and literacy. She has fun and practical ideas to build literacy, narrative and vocabulary skills. Plus some really fun ideas for using poetry in sessions.
Tomorrow I’m talking about my favorite books/resources. What CEU courses did you find most valuable? I’d love to hear it below.
