Nancy's fee for the full course is $4,000 USD, to be paid in advance of the course. If participants are charged for the course, Nancy requires 25% of registration fees per participant for groups of 100.

Preparation: Setting up the virtual meeting, inviting all participants, and sending Nancy the link where she can join the meeting and share her screen. There is to be absolutely no recording of the presentation without Nancy Kaufman’s prior and explicit permission.

Tech support: Facilitating any additional meeting-related tech support that may arise before and during the presentation. A meeting to test technology is required prior to the course.

Continuing education: Arraigning for and managing any CEUs credits for participants.

The Kaufman Speech to Language Protocol (K-SLP) evaluation and treatment approach will be demonstrated. Elements of shaping word approximations to simplify the difficult motor plan of words, the use of natural phonological processes in therapy, and cueing and scripting systems will be highlighted via video. The K-SLP is rooted in the teaching strategies of applied behavior analysis (ABA) and motor learning principles regarding practice schedules, feedback, and retention of skills. This effective method for children with apraxia of speech will be shared in a functional manner, with many tips and suggestions clinicians and parents can use immediately.

Children who may have an adequate repertoire of consonants and vowels in isolation may not be able to coordinate the oral motor movements necessary to produce and combine these phonemes to form syllables, words, phrases, and sentences on volitional control. These children may be unable to speak or may be unintelligible speakers. They may even have difficulty executing the oral motor movements necessary to produce isolated phonemes. These are the children who can benefit from the techniques taught in this course.

This clinical presentation will focus on evaluation and treatment strategies for CAS with the K-SLP methods. It will include defining CAS, establishing motivation, using reinforcement, implementing and fading cues, and scripting functional expressive language. It will also include implementing the principles of motor learning for practice schedules, and how to move from the acquisition stage to the retention stage of learning to be an effective vocal communicator.

The methods, strategies, and techniques presented in this program follow the most current research in CAS and will provide clinicians with the information they need to help children with CAS progress from a simple core vocabulary to phrases and eventually to sentences and conversational speech. In addition, treatment videos will be used to enhance the learning experience. The main focus will be children ages 2-6 years.

By the end of the course, participants should be able to:

• Understand and analyze a norm-referenced, standardized test which relates directly to the K-SLP approach, to identify this unique population of children.
• Use evaluation information to establish goals for single words and phrases.
• Implement a specific treatment approach using phonological processes to simplify the motor plans for CAS.
• Provide five lists of single words to target in therapy.
• List principles of motor learning for the acquisition vs the retention stages of learning.
• Explain the importance of mixing and varying tasks/blocked vs random practice.

Please email Cyndi Davis with any questions or to schedule a course.