One aspect of a speech language pathologist's job that is imperative to successful communication is facilitating generalization as many of our students/clients struggle with showing their classroom teachers or parents all the skills they have mastered for us in the therapy room. This series of posts will focus on tips, that have worked for me, which can help you facilitate generalization of learned skills to new environments.
Step #5: Be Realistic:
My final tip to facilitating generalization is to be realistic when you are asking staff or parents to use various techniques or cues to target speech and language goals. Keep it simple. Write down exactly what you want behavior you want them to encourage and be sure to have them focus on one task at a time. It can be overwhelming for parents and nearly impossible for teachers to try to facilitate generalization for numerous skills but tackling one skill at a time is much easier and you have a great chance of parents or teachers having some time during their day to do so.
Provide visuals as needed. For busy teachers or forgetful parents, try writing down the strategy or use a picture to visually remind them of the strategy they are using or the skill they are trying to facilitate.
Remember, if you are willing to help teachers with their goals, they will be willing to help you with yours. So be a team player an ask them how you can help too!
Also remember to thank parents and staff members for their work in helping facilitate these skills to new environments. A little acknowledgement can go a long way.
And that's it! My five simple Steps to facilitating generalization. If you've missed them you can begin here with Step #1.
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