De Facto Leaders

When people talk about assets, they’re often thinking about personal finance. They’re talking about things like real estate, index funds, crypto and other things aimed at giving you some kind of return on your investment. But I want to talk about how therapists can apply this concept to what they do, because it's the key to making a bigger impact. When we make the “leadership shift” and start thinking about service delivery in the broader sense, we have to start thinking about how to coordinate an entire service plan for a student. This means utilizing other people and thinking creatively about how we can ensure that kids are getting the support they need across the day; rather than just focusing on what’s going on when they’re in a therapy session or in your classroom. One of the biggest challenges therapists face is that they don’t have enough time with their clients to address all the skills they need to cover. This is exactly why we need to stop functioning in silos and instead see ourselves as part of the bigger picture, like puzzle pieces that fit together seamlessly. It’s remiss to imply that people working in education and healthcare have endless resources at their disposal.

But many times, they have more power than they realize. And when they use their time the right way, they can actually create more time, resources, relationships, and impact. In this episode, I mentioned that I’m about to open the doors to my Clinical Leadership program. This program is designed to help pediatric therapists be better leaders, so they can make a bigger impact with their services. If you’re a therapist or an educator working with kids, and you want to think bigger about how you serve your caseload, community, and your field, then this program is for you. You can join the waiting list here to be notified when program enrollment is open. The De Facto Leaders podcast was formerly the “Are they 18 yet?®” podcast. As of November 2022, the name of the show has changed, and we’ve shifted from a focus on parenting to a focus on supporting clinicians and educators to design effective services for kids (but parents are still welcome to listen). Episodes published before November 24, 2022 will still contain some of our old branding. 

Learn more about today's sponsors, Playworks and IXL:

We’re proud to be sponsored by Playworks, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with evidence-based practices that help schools improve the health and well-being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play.

If you’re a school or district leader struggling with the challenge of chronic absenteeism, as so many are across the U.S., you may not realize that structured recess is a research-backed approach to keep kids in school. In fact, a UC Berkeley study of Title I schools found that those partnering with Playworks had significantly lower chronic absenteeism rates. Further, Mathematica research demonstrated that Playworks schools spent 27% less time transitioning from recess back to learning, saving teachers valuable instructional time. 

These results are possible for your students, too. Learn how Playworks can help you improve student-educator relationships, belonging, and attendance by signing up for a quick no-obligation conversation. 

We’re also thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

One of the most common questions I get is “What am I supposed to do in therapy with students/clients?” Many of my readers want to know what strategies and techniques they need to do in therapy in order to help move their students forward. They’re very focused on “planning for therapy” or “lesson planning”; especially if they’re in the school systems. I think it makes sense to focus on these things some of the time. The way we’re trained often focuses on that “medical model” of service delivery. A lot can be accomplished with this model, and it’s a part of what some kids need to be successful; depending on what their needs are. It’s easy to start with the question, “What is MY role and what should I be doing in my sessions to support this student?” But I think we need to look at things in reverse. Instead of saying “What do I do in therapy?” we need to be asking “What does this student need, and how do I make sure they get it?”

In this episode, I mentioned that I’m about to open the doors to my Clinical Leadership program.

This program is designed to help pediatric therapists be better leaders, so they can make a bigger impact with their services. If you’re a therapist or an educator working with kids, and you want to think bigger about how you serve your caseload, community, and your field, then this program is for you. You can join the waiting list here to be notified when program enrollment is open. The De Facto Leaders podcast was formerly the “Are they 18 yet?®” podcast. As of November 2022, the name of the show has changed, and we’ve shifted from a focus on parenting to a focus on supporting clinicians and educators to design effective services for kids (but parents are still welcome to listen). Episodes published before November 24, 2022 will still contain some of our old branding. 

Learn more about today's sponsors, Playworks and IXL:

We’re proud to be sponsored by Playworks, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with evidence-based practices that help schools improve the health and well-being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play.

If you’re a school or district leader struggling with the challenge of chronic absenteeism, as so many are across the U.S., you may not realize that structured recess is a research-backed approach to keep kids in school. In fact, a UC Berkeley study of Title I schools found that those partnering with Playworks had significantly lower chronic absenteeism rates. Further, Mathematica research demonstrated that Playworks schools spent 27% less time transitioning from recess back to learning, saving teachers valuable instructional time. 

These results are possible for your students, too. Learn how Playworks can help you improve student-educator relationships, belonging, and attendance by signing up for a quick no-obligation conversation. 

We’re also thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Therapists and teachers (and anyone else in a “helping people” profession) always have to take care of OTHER people…which is hard to do if you’re burnt out all the time. But most of the advice they’re given about “self-care” and achieving a “work-life” balance is unhelpful. There are a lot of “tips and tools” out there for stress relief and productivity. In the self-care realm, it ranges from reasonable suggestions like gratitude journaling or meditation to more questionable things like “crying in your car” or “hide in the bathtub with a bottle of wine and drown your sorrows”. Perhaps the biggest issue of all is the myth of a “work-life” balance. When people say they want a “work-life” balance, what they’re really saying is: “I don’t have enough energy and time to devote to things that matter to me.” We don’t accomplish this by striving for “work-life” balance, nor do we get there with a disjointed list of superficial tips. In episode 73, I share an alternative way of looking at “balance”, fulfillment, and career satisfaction.

This is what I used to maintain some sense of peace while I was working on my dissertation and working full time in the school systems. It’s the opposite of what most people do, and I believe it’s why 60% of the people in my doctoral program end up ABD (“all but dissertation”). It’s always why so many talented therapists and teachers leave “passion projects” on the backburner and get stuck in the day-to-day hustle. In this episode, I mentioned that I’m about to open the doors to my Clinical Leadership program. This program is designed to help pediatric therapists be better leaders, so they can make a bigger impact with their services. If you’re a therapist or an educator working with kids, and you want to think bigger about how you serve your caseload, community, and your field, then this program is for you. You can join the waiting list here to be notified when program enrollment is open. The De Facto Leaders podcast was formerly the “Are they 18 yet?®” podcast. As of November 2022, the name of the show has changed, and we’ve shifted from a focus on parenting to a focus on supporting clinicians and educators to design effective services for kids (but parents are still welcome to listen). Episodes published before November 24, 2022 will still contain some of our old branding. 

Learn more about today's sponsors, Playworks and IXL:

We’re proud to be sponsored by Playworks, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with evidence-based practices that help schools improve the health and well-being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play.

If you’re a school or district leader struggling with the challenge of chronic absenteeism, as so many are across the U.S., you may not realize that structured recess is a research-backed approach to keep kids in school. In fact, a UC Berkeley study of Title I schools found that those partnering with Playworks had significantly lower chronic absenteeism rates. Further, Mathematica research demonstrated that Playworks schools spent 27% less time transitioning from recess back to learning, saving teachers valuable instructional time. 

These results are possible for your students, too. Learn how Playworks can help you improve student-educator relationships, belonging, and attendance by signing up for a quick no-obligation conversation. 

We’re also thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

If you’re a therapist or a teacher, you know there are a lot of obstacles getting in the way of providing quality services. 

Staffing issues. Lack of time. Lack of funding. Big caseloads. Legal mandates that impact service delivery.

It’s an incredibly bureaucratic system that can leave the people in it feeling helpless to do anything about it. 

Some people working in education and healthcare worry that they’ve picked the wrong career, and they’re looking for an exit path.

Others are sticking it out simply because they care deeply about what they do…yet they live with a sense that they could be doing something more for their caseloads. 

There’s kind of a “should I stay or should I go” dilemma. 

Or should I stay and try to make it better? 

Is the system too broken to be fixed, or can I do something about it?

There are many legitimate reasons for therapists to feel disempowered in the current system. 

But the reality is that there is no one “perfect” way for schools to run. There’s no perfect policy or legal mandate. There’s no perfect career that’s going to be free of problems. 

When we solve the issues on our plate; there will always be more to follow. 

Believing otherwise only sets us up for disappointment. 

That’s why in episode 72, I’m talking about why the path to feeling optimistic and empowered comes from asking better questions. 

Many people look at their current situation and think, “How do I solve all of my problems?”

I think this is the wrong question to be asking. In this episode, I talk about what to ask yourself instead. 

In this episode, I mention Elizabeth Gilbert. You can learn more about her work here. 

I also mention Mark Manson, the person who coined the term “sh*t sandwich”. You can learn more about his work here. 

In this episode, I mentioned that I’m about to open the doors to my Clinical Leadership program. This program is designed to help pediatric therapists be better leaders, so they can make a bigger impact with their services. If you’re a therapist or an educator working with kids, and you want to think bigger about how you serve your caseload, community, and your field, then this program is for you. You can join the waiting list here to be notified when program enrollment is open. 

Therapists and educators supporting K-12 literacy have a lot of diagnoses and labels to navigate, and some of them are controversial. 

In some debates, the diagnosis itself is in question; Central Auditory Processing Disorder being one example. With hyperlexia, some people suggest that there is a certain way hyperlexic people need to learn to read; but the verdict is still out as to whether there is one specific method that is more effective for them.

Diagnoses and labels can give us a roadmap. But this roadmap is often incomplete, with unclear directions for getting to our end destination. That means that clinicians need to have a good clinical problem-solving process to navigate all these debates. I believe that labels are useful; but only when we know what to do with them. That’s why in this episode, I talk about 4 specific labels/diagnoses (DLD, CAPD, hyperlexia, dyslexia) and what they mean for literacy instruction/intervention.

Specifically, I discuss:

✅The DLD vs CAPD debate: The case for DLD and why some people are skeptical about the CAPD diagnosis
 

 ✅Why I don't teach "working memory drills" and how I go about addressing working memory issues in a functional way

 ✅How professionals can engage in healthy discussions about debates in the field without getting defensive
 

 ✅A discussion on dyslexia vs hyperlexia and intervention planning for each. 

 ✅Current research on hyperlexia and red flags for misinformation.

In this episode, I mentioned an article called Why is it so hard to reach agreement on terminology? The case of developmental language disorder (DLD) by Dr. Dorothy Bishop. Please note I made an error in the original recording and said she was an SLP. I was incorrect; she is a psychologist.

I’m talking about this topic because it inspired me to create the system I teach in my online course that teaches pediatric SLPs a system for boosting comprehension and processing,  Language Therapy Advance Foundations.

I’m doing some extra live Q & A sessions in the members group and also opening up some 1:1 consult availability for members in July 2022, so if you’ve been on the fence about joining, now’s the perfect time to take the leap.

If you’re an SLP who wants to learn a framework that will allow you to streamline your therapy so you can show up to sessions confident you’re giving your students the skills they need to thrive,  check out our enrollment page and learn more about how to become a member here.

The De Facto Leaders podcast was formerly the “Are they 18 yet?®” podcast. As of November 2022, the name of the show has changed, and we’ve shifted from a focus on parenting to a focus on supporting clinicians and educators to design effective services for kids (but parents are still welcome to listen). Episodes published before November 24, 2022 will still contain some of our old branding. 

Learn more about today's sponsors, Playworks and IXL:

We’re proud to be sponsored by Playworks, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with evidence-based practices that help schools improve the health and well-being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play.

If you’re a school or district leader struggling with the challenge of chronic absenteeism, as so many are across the U.S., you may not realize that structured recess is a research-backed approach to keep kids in school. In fact, a UC Berkeley study of Title I schools found that those partnering with Playworks had significantly lower chronic absenteeism rates. Further, Mathematica research demonstrated that Playworks schools spent 27% less time transitioning from recess back to learning, saving teachers valuable instructional time. 

These results are possible for your students, too. Learn how Playworks can help you improve student-educator relationships, belonging, and attendance by signing up for a quick no-obligation conversation. 

We’re also thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Schools often get criticized for not teaching enough “real world” skills to kids, and there’s a lot of truth to that statement. Most of the therapists I work with are worried that what they do in therapy isn’t functional enough to transfer to day-to-day skills; and this is a legitimate concern.

A lot of the clinicians I mentor have somewhere between 30-40 minutes with students; which means they have to make every second count. Some of them wonder if the traditional “pull out” therapy model is even useful at all. The truth is that there are certain skills that can be effectively addressed in more of an “academic”, small group or 1:1 situation. When we think about the language skills needed to support reading and literacy, it’s actually ideal to address some of the foundational skills in this “school” format. Otherwise kids don’t get the intensity they need to develop automaticity.

So when we ask the question of whether language skills should be taught in an “academic” format vs. a “functional, real-world” format…it’s not a black or white, either/or kind of a thing. School-age kids need a blend of BOTH. With that in mind, schools and the people working in them are doing a lot of things right. This is why I feel disheartened when I see negativity directed towards schools suggesting that they’re not teaching kids anything useful.  We don’t need to burn it all to the ground; we need to find out which things schools are doing right and do more of it. That’s why I aim to help clinicians focus on high-impact skills, and ways to address skills from multiple angles: From very structured situations that isolate skills, to highly functional situations that require kids to integrate many skills at once. (which is what they’ll have to do in the “real world”).

I recently got some great questions from readers about how to do this with syntax skills. Syntax is definitely one of those “high-impact” skills; but the key to making it functional is teaching it in a way that allows kids to learn new language patterns AND develop the internal dialogue needed to learn new words and sentence structures independently.

In this episode, I share how to do that. I’m talking about this topic because it inspired me to create the system I teach in my online course that teaches pediatric SLPs a system for boosting comprehension and processing,  Language Therapy Advance Foundations.

I’m doing some extra live Q & A sessions in the members group and also opening up some 1:1 consult availability for members in July 2022, so if you’ve been on the fence about joining, now’s the perfect time to take the leap.

If you’re an SLP who wants to learn a framework that will allow you to streamline your therapy so you can show up to sessions confident you’re giving your students the skills they need to thrive,  check out our enrollment page and learn more about how to become a member here.

The De Facto Leaders podcast was formerly the “Are they 18 yet?®” podcast. As of November 2022, the name of the show has changed, and we’ve shifted from a focus on parenting to a focus on supporting clinicians and educators to design effective services for kids (but parents are still welcome to listen). Episodes published before November 24, 2022 will still contain some of our old branding. 

Learn more about today's sponsors, Playworks and IXL:

We’re proud to be sponsored by Playworks, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with evidence-based practices that help schools improve the health and well-being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play.

If you’re a school or district leader struggling with the challenge of chronic absenteeism, as so many are across the U.S., you may not realize that structured recess is a research-backed approach to keep kids in school. In fact, a UC Berkeley study of Title I schools found that those partnering with Playworks had significantly lower chronic absenteeism rates. Further, Mathematica research demonstrated that Playworks schools spent 27% less time transitioning from recess back to learning, saving teachers valuable instructional time. 

These results are possible for your students, too. Learn how Playworks can help you improve student-educator relationships, belonging, and attendance by signing up for a quick no-obligation conversation. 

We’re also thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

Topic maintenance is a skill I’ve seen on many language therapy IEPs in the category of “pragmatic language”, but often it’s a surface-level symptom of something else. When we’re talking about “topic maintenance” we’re often referring to someone’s ability to stay on a topic during a conversational exchange. Yet when we focus only on what we’re seeing externally, intervention can end up being unproductive. In some cases, it can even reinforce a negative self-image.

That’s why in episode 69, I wanted to talk about the root causes behind topic maintenance issues and how we can support students in a way that builds connection and self-esteem. I’m talking about this topic because it inspired me to create the system I teach in my online course that teaches pediatric SLPs a system for boosting comprehension and processing,  Language Therapy Advance Foundations. I’m doing some extra live Q & A sessions in the members group and also opening up some 1:1 consult availability for members in July 2022, so if you’ve been on the fence about joining, now’s the perfect time to take the leap.

If you’re an SLP who wants to learn a framework that will allow you to streamline your therapy so you can show up to sessions confident you’re giving your students the skills they need to thrive,  check out our enrollment page and learn more about how to become a member here. The De Facto Leaders podcast was formerly the “Are they 18 yet?®” podcast. As of November 2022, the name of the show has changed, and we’ve shifted from a focus on parenting to a focus on supporting clinicians and educators to design effective services for kids (but parents are still welcome to listen). Episodes published before November 24, 2022 will still contain some of our old branding. 

Learn more about today's sponsors, Playworks and IXL:

We’re proud to be sponsored by Playworks, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with evidence-based practices that help schools improve the health and well-being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play.

If you’re a school or district leader struggling with the challenge of chronic absenteeism, as so many are across the U.S., you may not realize that structured recess is a research-backed approach to keep kids in school. In fact, a UC Berkeley study of Title I schools found that those partnering with Playworks had significantly lower chronic absenteeism rates. Further, Mathematica research demonstrated that Playworks schools spent 27% less time transitioning from recess back to learning, saving teachers valuable instructional time. 

These results are possible for your students, too. Learn how Playworks can help you improve student-educator relationships, belonging, and attendance by signing up for a quick no-obligation conversation. 

We’re also thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

I get a lot of questions about how to write language therapy goals… I ALSO get a lot of questions about whether I offer goal banks in any of my courses. I do offer a version of a “goal bank” in Language Therapy Advance Foundations, my course that teaches SLPs a framework for building metalinguistic awareness and independent word learning...but it’s not a goal bank in the traditional sense.

In my opinion, goal banks do both students and clinicians a huge disservice. While I understand that clinicians need tools to help them be efficient with their paperwork, I think there’s a better solution.

That’s why in this episode I share what that is.

Specifically, I talk about:
 
✅Why my course curriculum for clinicians focuses on vocabulary FIRST before I address high-level comprehension and executive functioning. 

✅ Do we need to work on the “observable/measurable” behavior? Or the strategy? 

✅My alternative to the “goal-bank” and why it helps drive more effective intervention.

In this episode, I mentioned the Effective Language Therapy for SLPs Facebook group, where I share regular tips and strategies for building language and literacy skills in K-12 kids. You can join the group here.

I’m talking about this topic because it inspired me to create the system I teach in my online course that teaches pediatric SLPs a system for boosting comprehension and processing,  Language Therapy Advance Foundations.

I’m doing some extra live Q & A sessions in the members group and also opening up some 1:1 consult availability for members in July 2022, so if you’ve been on the fence about joining, now’s the perfect time to take the leap.

If you’re an SLP who wants to learn a framework that will allow you to streamline your therapy so you can show up to sessions confident you’re giving your students the skills they need to thrive,  check out our enrollment page and learn more about how to become a member here.

The De Facto Leaders podcast was formerly the “Are they 18 yet?®” podcast. As of November 2022, the name of the show has changed, and we’ve shifted from a focus on parenting to a focus on supporting clinicians and educators to design effective services for kids (but parents are still welcome to listen). Episodes published before November 24, 2022 will still contain some of our old branding. 

Learn more about today's sponsors, Playworks and IXL:

We’re proud to be sponsored by Playworks, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with evidence-based practices that help schools improve the health and well-being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play.

If you’re a school or district leader struggling with the challenge of chronic absenteeism, as so many are across the U.S., you may not realize that structured recess is a research-backed approach to keep kids in school. In fact, a UC Berkeley study of Title I schools found that those partnering with Playworks had significantly lower chronic absenteeism rates. Further, Mathematica research demonstrated that Playworks schools spent 27% less time transitioning from recess back to learning, saving teachers valuable instructional time. 

These results are possible for your students, too. Learn how Playworks can help you improve student-educator relationships, belonging, and attendance by signing up for a quick no-obligation conversation. 

We’re also thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.

When people ask me where they should start in language therapy, I usually say they should start by building vocabulary. That usually results in a couple raised eyebrows and questions...mostly because they aren’t really sure how I’m defining “vocabulary”. That’s why in episode 67, I wanted to talk about what I actually mean when I say we should “work on vocabulary”, and why it’s so important to giving kids the skills they need to thrive.
 
Specifically, I share:
 ✅Why vocabulary is much more than naming and identifying words.

✅The 5 linguistic skills that impact word knowledge and why they support vocabulary growth.

✅How to “work on vocabulary” in a way that supports literacy, executive functioning, and independent word-learning.

In this episode, I mentioned the Effective Language Therapy for SLPs Facebook group, where I share regular tips and strategies for building language and literacy skills in K-12 kids. You can join the group here. I’m talking about this topic because it inspired me to create the system I teach in my online course that teaches pediatric SLPs a system for boosting comprehension and processing,  Language Therapy Advance Foundations. I’m doing some extra live Q & A sessions in the members group and also opening up some 1:1 consult availability for members in July 2022, so if you’ve been on the fence about joining, now’s the perfect time to take the leap. If you’re an SLP who wants to learn a framework that will allow you to streamline your therapy so you can show up to sessions confident you’re giving your students the skills they need to thrive,  check out our enrollment page and learn more about how to become a member here. The De Facto Leaders podcast was formerly the “Are they 18 yet?®” podcast. As of November 2022, the name of the show has changed, and we’ve shifted from a focus on parenting to a focus on supporting clinicians and educators to design effective services for kids (but parents are still welcome to listen). Episodes published before November 24, 2022 will still contain some of our old branding. 

Learn more about today's sponsors, Playworks and IXL:

We’re proud to be sponsored by Playworks, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with evidence-based practices that help schools improve the health and well-being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play.

If you’re a school or district leader struggling with the challenge of chronic absenteeism, as so many are across the U.S., you may not realize that structured recess is a research-backed approach to keep kids in school. In fact, a UC Berkeley study of Title I schools found that those partnering with Playworks had significantly lower chronic absenteeism rates. Further, Mathematica research demonstrated that Playworks schools spent 27% less time transitioning from recess back to learning, saving teachers valuable instructional time. 

These results are possible for your students, too. Learn how Playworks can help you improve student-educator relationships, belonging, and attendance by signing up for a quick no-obligation conversation. 

We’re also thrilled to be sponsored by IXL. 

IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:

• Simplify and streamline technology
• Save teachers’ time
• Reliably meet Tier 1 standards
• Improve student performance on state assessments

🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.