• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Speechies in Business

Speechies in Business

Helping Speech Pathologists in private practice focus on what matters most: their clients

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Store
    • Practice Templates
    • NDIS Resources
    • Therapy Products
  • Cart
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Client Communication

Speech pathologists in private practice: do you know about these free resources?

9 June 2019 By David Kinnane Leave a Comment

As a profession, speech pathologists are generous to a fault. I’ve discovered that most speech pathologists (including very senior academics and over-worked clinicians) are delighted to share their knowledge with those of us in private practice. The key challenge is connecting the dots: carving out the time to find and filter the research, and to then apply it to our practices to improve client care.  

Some organisations and professionals are doing terrific work to make it easier for busy speech pathologists to find and translate research into practice. For example, The Informed SLP and many universities are now using social media and new technologies to help practitioners find out about their work. But we could all do more to help bridge the gap between research and day-to-day practice. 

To do our bit for knowledge sharing – and to help manage our fear of missing out on the joint Speech Pathology Australia-New Zealand Speech-Language Therapists’ Association (NZSPA) Conference in Brisbane last week – we spent each night of the conference going through the #NZSPAConf tweets to find resources, tools and tips that could help our practice and other private practices to improve client care. 

So here is our list, including:

  • 29 useful free resources we discovered (or rediscovered) from the NZSPA Conference tweets last week, with links to the actual tools and resources; and
  • 11 other ideas, including mental models, pending research, and other useful information to help clinicians in private practice. 

In most cases, the authors of the resources are clear from the links, although we’ve tried to add in twitter handles (or at least lead author names) where we could find them. Any errors of interpretation are ours alone.

Note that our selection bias was extreme: we chose things that were of immediate, practical, clinical interest to us in a busy private practice; and our interests are wide and eclectic! There were (literally) hundreds of other resources and tips on other topics that we could have shared from what was by any measure an amazing conference.

If you know of (or created!) other free evidence-based resources that would help private practitioners, please feel free to let us know, and we will add them to the list!

Tool/resourceLinksCredit/contact
The Squirrel Story (narrative Ax with Australian norms)https://www.languageandliteracyinyoungpeople.com/apps-resources

https://www.blacksheeppress.co.uk/product/squirrel-story-narrative-comprehension-assessment-nca/

https://www.blacksheeppress.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/SquirrelNCA_IntActForm19feb.pdf
Suze Leitao @Suze_Freogirl, Emily Dawes @emilydawesSLP and team at
Black Sheep Press (UK)
Oral inferential comprehension intervention for children with #devlangdis (full free Rx resource)https://www.dropbox.com/sh/sh93neh6ql658xq/AADrIdNSms49Pr9el9D_51eda?dl=0
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0265659018815736?journalCode=clta
Emily Dawes @emilydawesSLP, Suze Leitao @Suze_Freogirl and team
Health literacy and SLP Report Writing presentation (the slides themselves are a master class in Plain English, and clear expression)https://www.harmonyturnbull.org/2019/06/03/conference-presentation/Harmony Turnbull @SP_Harmony
PEERS for Young Adults program for social skills (free social communication videos)https://www.routledgetextbooks.com/textbooks/9781138238718/videos.phpElizabeth Laugeson
Marleen Westerveld’s free resources, including discourse level narrative, retell tasks and a free photo bank you can use for a variety of receptive and expressive oral and written language taskshttps://www.marleenwesterveld.com/resources/Marleen Westerveld 
@MWslp
A treasure trove of Phonological Awareness Resources (University of Canterbury)https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/education/research/phonological-awareness-resources/Gail Gillon @gailtgillon
Accessible information about speech, language and communicationhttps://www.speakupsalford.nhs.uk/Via @speechiemsm
ERLI (comprising 120 typical first words and gestures, developed for young children in remote Northern Territory, but of potential use for many other populations, too)https://www.facebook.com/pg/EarlyRemoteLanguageInventory/photos/?ref=page_internalCaroline Jones and colleagues
PFASE (free e-course on paediatric feeding!)https://central.csds.qld.edu.au/central/courses/219Clinical Skills Development Service (Queensland)
OZI-SF (Australian MacArthur Bates vocabulary Ax) – watch this space!https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0142723716648846?journalCode=flaaMarina Kalashnikova and colleagues
ReST (evidence-based CAS treatment)http://sydney.edu.au/health-sciences/rest/Tricia McCabe @tricmc and colleagues at the University of Sydney
TIDieR – Better Reporting of Interventions descriptions to allow better replication (checklist/guide)http://www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/tidier/Tammy Hoffmann and colleagues
Free – Sampling Utterances and Grammatical Analysis Revised (SUGAR)https://www.sugarlanguage.org/Bob Owens and Stacey Pavelko
Decoding Dragon to chase away the guessing monster (literacy)Lyn Stone @lifelonglit
Michigan 10 key skills for early literacy instructionhttps://memspa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Booklet-FINAL-9.14.17.pdfVia @tricmc
Liberator AAC resources and informationhttps://liberator.net.au/support/educationhttps://liberator.net.au/
MOSAIC Online Ax for observations of people withintellectual disabilitieshttps://www.mosaiccommunication.com.au/@AndySmidt
Intelligibility in Context Scalehttps://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/ics@SharynneMcLeod
SoundLog Noise Dosimeterhttps://itunes.apple.com/au/app/soundlog-noise-dosimeter/id1063941394?mt=8Australian Hearing Services
Ottawa Patient Decision Aid to support familieshttps://decisionaid.ohri.ca/
Drooling Quotienthttps://www.aacpdm.org/UserFiles/file/drooling-quotient-instructions.pdfvan Hulst and colleagues
Drooling Impact Scalehttps://www.aacpdm.org/UserFiles/file/The-Drooling-Impact-Scale.pdfSusan Reid and colleagues
CSDRNetwork Transcription Guidelines (Guidelines Relating to Clinical Management of Child Speech Disorder | North Bristol NHS Trust)
Guidelines Relating to Clinical Management of Child Speech Disorder
Via @speechieellie
Promoting use of home languages:YouTube Resources from NSW Health SESLHDHow Childcare Educators can support bilingual children?:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-7-KN4gFCc

Helping your child learn two languages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIrD7PkeDdg
Youth Voices in Youth Justicehttp://talkingtroublenz.org/presentations-publications/youth-voices-about-youth-justice/Talking Trouble NZ
Multilingual Language AxThe Alberta Language Development Questionnaire ALDeQ (Paradis) – questionnaires, intended to be administered in interview 

Non-word Repetition Task
Johanna Paradis


Dollaghan & Campbell
Multilingual Speech Axhttps://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-assessments@SharynneMcLeod
Office Lens (App) totake photos of whiteboards and presentations (free)https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/microsoft-office-lens-pdf-scan/id975925059?mt=8Via @robertPwells
Boys and literacy acquisitionhttps://digitalmediaprojectforchildren.wordpress.com/2019/04/19/boys-and-literacy-acquisition-introduction/@ProfRvach

Other clinically relevant things I found out about from the NZSPA Conference tweets:

Topic/issue/modelMore about itResearch to watch/follow
New tongue tie research
Holly Salt, Sharon Smart @sharonsmart79, and Mary Claessen @SpeechMary
More about the duty of Care vs Dignity of Risk, including in the context of dysphagiahttps://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6btzquVia @emilywaites
New drooling research on its way
Michelle McInerney
Linda Worrall’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective Aphasia Therapists
Goal Setting model for aphasia (SMARTER): Shared, Monitored, Accessible, Relevant, Transparent, Evolving and Relationship-centred (Hersh et al., 2012)
@aphasiologist1

Watch out for soon to be published systematic study about Childhood Apraxia of Speech + evidence-based tips to help us to differentially diagnose Childhood Apraxia of Speech@LizMurraySpeakand colleagues via @speechiellie
Launch of the Centre of Research Excellence in Aphasia Recovery and Rehabilitationhttps://www.latrobe.edu.au/research/centres/health/aphasia
More on the effects of classroom noise on language comprehension



@SamHarkus
Australian Hearing
Why classroom acoustics are an issue for SLPsRebecca Armstrong @bec_armstrong18
4 dimensions Maori health model (NZ)https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/populations/maori-health/maori-health-models/maori-health-models-te-whare-tapa-wha
Better Scientific Posters design templateshttps://osf.io/ef53g/
Excellent review/discussion  of the Simple View of Readinghttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19404158.2019.1609272Kate Nation @ReadOxford

Image: https://tinyurl.com/y6953792

For struggling school kids, what’s the difference between seeing a speech pathologist and a tutor?

15 October 2018 By David Kinnane Leave a Comment

Over the years, parents have asked me this a few times. I’ve also been asked why speech pathologists are allied health workers; whereas most tutors come from teaching or education backgrounds.

Clients and their families should be fully informed about this stuff. So here’s my attempt to answer these tricky questions, recognising others may have different views:

Basic distinction: biologically primary and secondary knowledge

As health professionals, most speech pathologists are concerned mainly with helping students with disordered or significantly delayed “biologically primary knowledge” – communication-related knowledge and skills humans are wired to acquire and that most kids get at developmentally appropriate times without being explicitly taught.

Tutors, as education professionals, help kids learn biologically secondary skills, including subject-specific skills that kids learn at school, e.g. about maths. Some kids struggle with one or more subjects at school, and school tutors work with teachers to help them out.

Clear as mud?

Let me explain the difference in more detail by reference to some of the science, specifically evolutionary theory and one of its offshoots, cognitive load theory.

Speech pathologists and biologically primary knowledge

Human brains have evolved to pay attention, process, and respond to information that is significant for survival and reproduction. In other words, we are wired to learn and use “biologically primary” or “core” skills we need to cope in our communities.

Although languages and cultures can look and sound very different from each other on the surface, there are many common features beneath the surface that make us all human. To survive in any human society, people need to manage relationships with other people, other living things (including plants and animals), and their physical surroundings. Although details differ community-by-community, several “core” abilities are needed to do this successfully:

  • Self-awareness: awareness of ourselves and awareness of our relationships with other people. These skills help us think about things that have happened to us in the past, and to plan our future actions.
  • Communication and other social interaction skills to guide one-on-one and peer social dynamics, e.g.:
    • distinguishing speech from non-speech;
    • processing facial expressions;
    • turn-taking in interactions with others;
    • joint attention (two people looking at the same event or object and sharing emotions about them);
    • related-early gestures like pointing and showing to share enthusiasm for an event or object;
    • learning to babble;
    • theory of mind;
    • oral language development and early speech; and
    • later peer interaction and cooperation skills, which are often acquired through practice in play.
  • In/out grouping skills to help break our social world into categories of people (e.g. family, friends, enemies, races, religions, tribes, States and Nations).
  • Attention to the biological and physical world around us, including skills needed for hunting, horticulture, navigation, and tool use. These skills include knowing movement patterns of potential predators and prey, the ability to form mental representations of our environment, knowledge about the “essence” of different species of plants and animals, and the ability to categorise them.

Human communication skills are much more advanced than those of other species, including the other “Great Apes”, like chimpanzees and bonobos. Some researchers think early-developing communication skills advantaged human babies with care and attention from adults, with later communication skills helping kids (and adults) succeed socially within groups of adults and peers. In other words, developing these skills from a young age helps us to survive within our families and communities and to reproduce.

For most people, biologically primary knowledge is acquired with very little cognitive effort. We’re wired to pay attention to this information and to respond to it efficiently. We apply several rules of thumb to respond to situations requiring primary knowledge quickly and simply. For example, we respond almost automatically to social signals like smiling, and gravitate to things like sport and dance, and hanging out socially with friends. Amazingly, most of us learn how to speak intelligibly in our native language without being taught how to do it.

But some of us don’t. For example, some people have:

  • developmental language disorders that affect their ability to understand and/or produce oral language or to use it appropriately in social situations;
  • speech sound disorders, e.g. phonological disorders, lisps, or childhood apraxia of speech;
  • voice disorders that affect their ability to express themselves;
  • fluency disorders like stuttering or cluttering;
  • life-long disabilities that interfere with oral communication skills and/or require alternative and augmentative communication; and/or
  • acquired communication disorders, e.g. as a result of events like:
    • traumatic brain injuries;
    • strokes, e.g. causing aphasia, adult apraxia or speech, dysarthria, and/or cognitive communication disorders; or
    • neuro-degenerative disease like Parkinson’s Disease.

Many of my clients have more than one of these issues affecting their communication skills.*

Teacher, tutors and “biologically secondary knowledge”

Biologically secondary knowledge consists of academic and vocational knowledge we need for cultural, vocational, political and knowledge transfer reasons. It includes most of the content in the school curriculum like maths, science, literature, and history.

Unlike the case with biologically primary knowledge, acquiring biologically secondary knowledge tends to be conscious, relatively difficult and effortful for everyone, although some kids struggle more than others. For example, no-one learns algebra, or about the causes of World War I, or the elements of the Periodic Table, or how to program a computer without taking the effort to learn how.

Most of these biologically secondary skills seem to be subject (or domain) specific. That means if you want to get better at algebra, you need to practice solving algebra problems not, say, playing chess or the violin.

The importance of transferring biologically secondary knowledge to our kids and young adults is the key reason schools, teachers and tutors exist. Great teachers and tutors are highly skilled at teaching subject-matter content to kids in such a way that they learn it.

Are there grey areas, or overlaps between biologically primary and secondary knowledge?

Yes. Probably the best example is reading.

Many kids first learn about books in one-to-one social interactions with a parent while discussing picture books. Shared reading practices often include parent and child pointing, object naming, and language learning mechanisms – all biologically primary systems.

As we discuss in detail here, reading itself is biologically secondary – or unnatural. In human evolutionary terms, it’s a recent development and everyone has learn how to do it. (Otherwise, we’d have near universal literacy, which is – unfortunately – far from the truth.)

Many reading skills are based on biologically primary oral language or other knowledge. Oral language comprehension skills, phonological awareness, vocabulary and naming skills, theory of mind, knowledge of human relationships, knowledge of biology (notably animals and plants) and physical environments contribute to helping kids decode and understand what they read.

Brain studies have shown that reading engages many of the same areas of the brain involved in expressing and processing language (including the Broca’s and Wernicke areas, as well as areas of the brain evolved for object naming. Literacy is thus essentially a language skill. And kids with oral language, social use of language and/or speech disorders are at a heightened risk of having reading problems, including dyslexia.

Learning to read is both a health and education priority. Both speech pathologists and tutors who are up to date on the scientific research and trained in how to apply it know that children learn to read most effectively with systematic, organised and adult-led direct instruction focused, initially, on letter-sound links, blending and segmenting of speech sounds, and word decoding skills using a synthetic phonics approach. Both speech pathologists and tutors with literacy training have an important role to play in helping kids with reading difficulties learn to read.

Other ways speech pathologists can help with reading and academic issues

Many (though not all) of the students I see for reading instruction have underlying language and/or speech deficits. That’s why our literacy assessments include tasks probing underlying primary communication skills, including phonological awareness skills like letter-sound links, vocabulary, receptive and expressive oral language skills, and speech clarity. This can help us figure out whether a child’s reading problems are related to decoding written words into speech, oral language comprehension, or both. (You can read more about this here.)

Language and speech disorders can have long-term academic and social effects on children and teenagers. As children move from learning to read to reading to learn, kids with language disorders can struggle with reading comprehension and writing tasks. They can also struggle with other language-dependent tasks, like understanding academic verbs, maths and other subject-specific vocabulary, complex syntax used in exam questions and school texts, organising their thoughts into written and spoken language at the discourse level (e.g. in stories, presentations, and essays), understanding higher level language (e.g. idioms, jokes, metaphors, and analogies), and planning and executing evidence-based study practices.

Speech pathologists frequently collaborate with teachers and tutors to implement strategies to help students with communication disorders cope with the school curriculum.

Clinical bottom line

I’m lucky to have good relationships with many excellent local teachers and experienced tutors. The key issue is making sure that the student is getting the right help from the right people at the right time. By working collaboratively with:

  • students;
  • parents;
  • teachers, principals, and learning support staff;
  • tutors;
  • allied health colleagues like occupational therapists, audiologists, and education psychologists; and
  • other medical professionals like general practitioners and paediatricians,

we can help clients and their families identify and prioritise communication and other issues affecting academic and social participation at school, treat health issues like communication disorders (and mitigate their effects), and educate students in areas of academic challenge so they can pursue their work and life goals.

Principal sources:

Geary, D. (2008). An Evolutionarily Informed Education. Educational Psychologist, 43(4), 179-195.

Tomasello, M. & Gonzalez-Cabera. (2017). The Role of Ontogeny in the Evolution of Human Cooperation. Human Nature, 28:274-278.

Kirschner, P.A., Sweller, J., Kirschner, F., Zambrano, J. (2018). From Cognitive Load Theory to Collaborative Load Theory. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 13:213-233.

This article first appeared on our clinic website, Banter Speech & Language. We’ve received great feedback from speech pathologists about it, and thought it would be helpful to post it on Speechies in Business too.

*For completeness, I should add that some people also have problems swallowing food, drink and/or medicine. Speech pathologists help these people, too.

Image: https://tinyurl.com/ybuysfw6

Speech therapy by telehealth: research-based guidelines for clients and their families

27 September 2016 By David Kinnane Leave a Comment

As we’ve noted elsewhere, travelling even short distances to the clinic can be hard for some families. Speech pathology by telehealth is convenient and the evidence-base supporting its use is growing, especially in areas of practice like stuttering (e.g. Bridgman, 2014).

But telehealth has its disadvantages, too. Compared to face-to-face therapy:

  • families are more likely to cancel appointments at short notice;
  • you don’t have as much control over preparations, resources or whether the parent and client are prepared for your call;
  • parents and clients are more likely to get up and leave the room during therapy; and
  • siblings are more likely to wander in and interrupt (e.g. Bridgman et al., 2015).

Our Telehealth Guidelines are designed to help you explain to clients what you need from them to deliver effective speech therapy via telehealth to their child.

Click here for our Guidelines for Speech Therapy by Telehealth.

Related products:

  • Lidcombe Program Stuttering Activities: Volume 2 (10 low-prep printable activities for face-to-face and Skype therapy) (from our Teachers Pay Teachers store)

Principal source: Bridgman, K., Block, S., & O’Brian, S. (2015). Webcam delivery of the Lidcombe Program: Insights from a clinical trial. Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology, 17(3), 125-129.

Speech pathologists: how to talk about what you do for a living without being “salesy”

27 July 2016 By David Kinnane Leave a Comment

“I need a blood test”*

Lots of people have never met a speech pathologist. Some have a rough idea of what we do, often along the lines of: “Oh, you work with kids with speech impediments, right?”

Others have absolutely no idea. And fair enough. There are loads of professions I know little or nothing about.

One of our key professional duties is to advocate for people with communication and swallowing needs. But it’s hard to advocate for some groups of clients if the public don’t know what we do or why we’re qualified to speak on issues as varied as adolescent literacy, Parkinson’s Disease, dementia care, youth justice, stroke rehabilitation, accent modification and professional communication.

Our peak bodies – like SPA and ASHA – do their best to spread the word through terrific projects like Speech Pathology Week, the 900 swallows initiative or the SPA Book of the Year Awards. But every speech pathologist has a role to play in educating the public about what we do: one of the main reasons I post so often to my clinic website.

Despite our collective efforts, I’d hazard a guess that few members of the general public understand our full scope of practice, or the many different ways we help people in different places. Shockingly, I didn’t know the full scope our practice until the second semester of my degree!

Getting the word out, ethically

One of the main themes that crops up whenever I speak to groups of speech pathologists or speech pathology students about private practice is a deep sense of ambivalence about self-promotion. And for good reason. We work with people with health needs who are vulnerable to misleading and deceptive advertising. It’s one of the main reasons the profession in Australia has such a robust Code of Ethics – Advertising policy.

But I think we can do more to explain what we do to others without trying to “sell” ourselves. And it’s a fairly simple idea, borrowed from Michael Port’s research on networking and marketing strategies for professionals:

How to explain what do you do for a living in 5 steps

The next time someone asks you what you do – at a barbeque, a kid’s birthday, a networking event, cousin’s wedding, etc. – don’t say “speech pathologist” and leave it at that. Instead, use Port’s simple 5-part formula, which I have adapted for speech pathologists as follows:

  1. Summarise your key client groups: Who do you help most often: Infants? Toddlers? Preschoolers? School-age children? Teenagers? Young offenders? Young and middle aged adults? Older folk?
  2. Identify two or three of the most critical problems that your clients face: In what areas of practice do you help clients? Language? Literacy? Speech? Voice? Fluency/stuttering? Feeding? Swallowing? Life-long disability/Multi-modal/AAC? Accents/intelligibility?
  3. List some of the main ways you help people: One-to-one or group therapy? Telehealth? Parent training? Client coaching? Advocacy/education/lobbying?
  4. Explain the number one result you want your clients to achieve.
  5. Talk about the deeper benefits your client’s experience.

One of the great things I find when introducing myself this way is the genuine interest many people have in what I do. Rather than just a customary exchange of titles before moving onto the next topic (usually property prices in Sydney), it starts a conversation.

Examples

This is how I apply the formula to explain what I do:

  1. I help children and adults…
  2. who have difficulties with their speech, language, literacy, stuttering, voice, and/or accent…
  3. with evidence-based, tailored therapy in my clinic, via Skype, or through online courses,
  4. to pursue their goals and to make the most of their abilities and potential,
  5. to get the most out of life.

Here’s an example for a paediatric speech pathologist focusing on traditional speech and language services:

  1. I help infants, toddlers, preschoolers and children;
  2. who have difficulties with their speech, language (including social use of language), and/or literacy;
  3. to improve their language, intelligibility and literacy through home, (pre)school and clinic visits, parent training, and home programs;
  4. to communicate with confidence, be understood and to participate more fully at home, in extra-curricula activities and at (pre)school.

Here’s another example for a speech pathologist working in a rehabilitation setting:

  1. I help young adults and adults;
  2. who have had a traumatic brain injury or stroke causing language, speech and/or swallowing difficulties;
  3. with evidence-based treatments and carer training based on principles of motor learning and neuroplasticity in a multidisciplinary rehabilitation setting;
  4. to recover maximum communication skills and to learn compensatory strategies for areas of on-going difficulty;
  5. to regain independence and to go back to work.

Not just for introductions

The great thing about doing this simple exercise is the clarity it brings to what we do. I use my 5-part introduction not only to explain what I do to non-speech pathologists, but as a key part of my “mission statement”, business plan, strategy and even branding for my clinic. Once a year (or so!) I reapply the formula, taking into account new target clients, training and new competencies, and proposed service delivery changes for the coming year.

Bottom line

To advocate for, and to market, speech pathology services, we need professional credibility. For credibility, we need the public and potential clients to recognise our expertise, experience and authority across our scope of practice. Explaining who we help, how we help, and the outcomes we deliver for clients is critical for both public advocacy and private practice success. Port’s 5-part formula is a simple way to articulate what we do for a living to people outside the profession.

Related articles:

  • 29 tips to Turn Pro and improve your private practice – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
  • 22 lessons I’ve learned from a private practice pioneer in allied health
  • 5 steps I took to comply with Speech Pathology Australia’s advertising rules

Principal source: Port, M. & Wallace, J. (2013). Book Yourself Solid Illustrated. John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey, USA.

Image: http://tinyurl.com/zweegrq

__________________________________________________________

* True story. This happened to our operations manager a couple of weeks ago:

Ring ring.

Gentleman: “I want to book in a blood test.”

Banter Speech: “Sorry? I’ve think you’ve got the wrong -”

Gentleman: “Can I come in later today? I need a blood test urgently. My doctor said I needed to go to…”

Banter Speech, finally twigging: “Oh, sorry. We’re not that kind of pathologist! Let me see if I can find a local pathology lab to help you out.”

Speech pathologists: 5 best practice ways to improve your advice to clients

16 July 2016 By David Kinnane Leave a Comment

In one capacity or another, I’ve been a professional advisor for almost 20 years. Although advice-giving is a core part of what speech pathologists do, few of us are trained formally in how to do it well.

Bad professional advice can lead clients to make flawed decisions. It can also strain relationships and tarnish your reputation.

It’s sometimes assumed that advice-giving skills emerge organically, with experience and through a painful process of trial and error. But giving good advice is a skill. And, as with most skills, you can get better at it with the right knowledge, systems and practice.

So where should we look for the right knowledge?

Recently, Harvard Business School Professors David Garvin and Joshua Margolis reviewed the research about advice-giving in business and developed a framework of best practices. Applying their guidelines to speech pathology practice, here are 5 evidence-based ways to improve the quality of your professional advice:

1. Before you start, check you’re the right person for the job

Ask yourself: do you have the time, expertise and experience to help? Are there alternative and/or additional sources of guidance to advise the client comprehensively given his/her needs? Do you have a conflict? Would a second (or third) opinion help the client make a decision?

2. Develop a shared understanding with your client

(a) Set the scene: allow clients enough time to explain their challenges, ensure privacy and choose a place free from distractions like buzzing phones or the next appointment.

(b) Listen actively and without prejudice – resist the urge to jump in with your preliminary view.

(c) Go wide, then deep: ask open-ended questions to broaden your understanding, then shift to more detailed probes.

(d) Agree on the scope of advice sought. Is it:

(i) one-off advice for a single decision (e.g. “Do I have a clinical issue?”, “Should I be treated now, or later?”);

(ii) counselling on how to approach a complex situation (e.g. “How do I prioritise my child’s many communications needs?“);

(iii) coaching to enhance skills (e.g. identity mapping to generate and pursue meaningful, client-centred goals); or

(iv) mentoring to provide guidance to aid long-term success (e.g. acting as a sounding board for an adult who stutters or an accent modification client facing specific challenges at work, e.g. with an important presentation).

Don’t overstep boundaries or give unsolicited advice – especially advice that is outside your scope of practice.

3. Craft alternatives

Make it clear to the client that you are an adviser – not the decision-maker. If possible, help the client generate several, evidence-based, viable choices. Spell out the rationale, principles, assumptions and evidence behind each of the options and your advice. Be prepared to challenge assumptions if the facts or situation changes (or if the client changes his or her mind).

4. Help the client make the decision

Ensure all options are evaluated, including the risks and benefits of no treatment. Communicate clearly and in Plain English. Make sure the client understands your advice. Don’t jump straight to a conclusion, e.g. that a child is a “speech” or “language” kid or assume that your client will choose the treatment you consider to be the most logical or evidence-based. Pause frequently for client/family reactions. Make sure the client knows you are available for further clarification and elaboration if and when needed (i.e. that they don’t need to make a decision on the spot, and can think about other options, risks and benefits and come back with questions or concerns).

5. Help put your client’s decision into action

Reaffirm and support the client in making an informed decision, even if the decision is ultimately not your preferred first choice. Document it. Again, convey your availability for additional guidance and support to help the client to pursue his/her goals, including during treatment.

Bottom line

Speech pathologists advise clients in several ways, from face-to-face and tele-health consultations, assessment reports, management plans, home programs, email and SMS responses to queries, therapy and training activities, outcome measurement, discharge recommendations and referrals to other health professionals. Giving professional advice competently requires us to look at our competence and impartiality, the scope of advice sought and our role in giving it, the technical content of our advice, and the process through which we evaluate different options and give our advice. Skilled advising requires creativity and collaboration with clients. We need to understand clients’ problems fully to generate evidence-based, client-centred solutions over the whole term of the professional relationship. Garvin and Margolis’ framework for advising is a useful tool to do this methodically.

Principal reference: Garvin, D.A., & Margolis, J.D. (2015). The Art of Giving and Receiving Advice, Harvard Business Review, January-February, 61.

Image: http://tinyurl.com/jjd4e2c

Speechies in Business Speechies in Business
Speechies in Business is owned and operated by David Kinnane, a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist, lawyer, writer and speaker in private practice in Sydney, Australia.  You can read more about David’s professional background, qualifications and experience here.David also co-owns and co-manages Banter Speech & Language, an independent private speech pathology clinic, and Bodkin Wood Legal & Advisory, a law firm specialising in allied health issues.

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Featured Products

  • Auditory Bombardment: Conjunctions – Because $2.99 including GST
  • homework practice summary for adults Homework Practice Summary for Adults $5.99 including GST
  • Subject Verb Object Adverbial Phrase (SVOA) Sentences $4.99 including GST
  • "How" Questions Pack (No Prep) $4.99 including GST
  • Letter of Introduction to Doctors $5.99 including GST
  • Story Builder $0.00 including GST
  • Australian Employment Agreement Template for Speech Pathologists (Part-Time) $95.00 including GST
  • business plan for speech pathologists Business Plan for Speech Pathologists $9.00 including GST

Basket

Recent Posts

  • Speech pathologists in private practice: How to sleep better
  • Child Safe Organisations: Why you need a Child Safety Code of Conduct and Policy
  • To infinity and beyond: how I learned to be optimistic about the NDIS
  • NDIS Worker Screening Policy and Risk Management Plan Template for small NDIS providers
  • New NDIS Risk Management template: another quality (but inexpensive) NDIS template for small organisations
  • Speech pathologists in private practice in Australia: defamation risk alert – don’t ignore comments on your social media posts!

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Phone
  • Pinterest
  • YouTube

Check out our NDIS provider and health provider resources Go to Store

Speechies in Business

Copyright © 2021 · Banter Speech & Language Pty Limited t/as Speechies in Business

  • Our Terms
  • FAQs about Resources
  • Contact us