First Bite: Fed, Fun, Functional SLP Insights

Michelle and her favorite co-host Erin Forward, MSP CCC-SLP, CLC, relive the best parts of the 2021 ASHA Convention: Rising United related to all things pediatric feeding disorder. To celebrate the inaugural pediatric feeding and swallowing disorder track, Michelle and Erin attended several courses and are bringing their favorite new facts directly to you! So, whether your current clinical setting is working in the NICU, Early Intervention, or even a local public school, the ladies of First Bite have you covered. To start, they’ll share the highlights of ethically implementing the newish PFD ICD-10 codes, then discuss how the differences between our settings can be overcome through open dialogue, and round out with ethical considerations for implementing a treatment plan PFD in the LEA. Let Michelle and Erin share the inspiration they received from the great minds and hearts at ASHA 2021 with you.

Guest: Erin Forward, MSP, CCC-SLP, CLC - Today on the First Bite Podcast we are running through some very important information for our community and listeners! We will be tackling the subject of ethics for Pediatric Feeding Disorders and going over some of the new PFD codes that have been introduced. We also offer some helpful examples and implications, as well as the best resources for you to get on top of this important stuff! Even with the best intentions, you can find yourself in some tricky situations if the regulations are not adhered to, and putting in the time and energy to stay abreast of the field's standards is very necessary. We talk about the best practices to using the codes, including coding backward from what you are officially and specifically treating, to concerns around communication and confidentiality, and much more! So to hear all about where to start with staying HIPAA compliant and offering the best service to those special small clients, join us on the show today!

Guest: Bianca Roe, OTD, OTR/L, RDN, LDN, CLC - Bianca Roe is a Doctor of Occupational Therapy and Clinical Pediatric Registered Dietitian, and has almost a whole alphabet worth of letters behind her name! She is a certified OTD, OTR/L, RDN/LDN, and CLC working in the PFD space and we have her on the show today to unpack exactly what that means, how she made her way into this unique role, and why it is important to look beyond your immediate field and work to improve your practice and care. In our conversation with Bianca, we talk about the basics of what she does, looking at what the job of a registered dietician entails, and contrasting that with the role of a nutritionist. We also talk about her desire to become a qualified occupational therapist along with her work in feeding. She also talks about switching hats and how she knows when to step into which role. We get to tackle the subject of interprofessional learning, and how beneficial this can be to your expertise and the care that you provide, so to hear all this from a young powerhouse, who we cannot wait to have back on the podcast again, listen in!

Guest: Memorie Gosa, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, BCS-S - Seven weeks after we obtained access to the new PFD ICD-10 codes, the annual ASHA Convention will host its very first PFDs Feeding and Swallowing track. To honor this monumental event, today we are joined by Memorie Gosa who served as the chair of the inaugural 2021 Pediatric Normal and Disordered Feeding and Swallowing Topic Committee. Memorie Gosa is a world-renowned Pediatric Speech-Language Pathologist, Board Certified Specialist in Swallowing and Swallowing Disorders, and Associate Professor and Chair of the Communicative Disorders Department at the University of Alabama. In this episode, she joins us to walk us through the history of PFDs and dysphagia. She explains how the PFD world came to be, the progress of clinical training programs on dysphagia at a university level in recent years, and the evolving trends in evidence-based treatment. Tuning in you’ll hear why treating pediatric dysphagia has to be multidisciplinary, expert advice for anyone wanting to engage in IPP, and insight into where you can find helpful resources for evidence-based treatments. With the ASHA 2021 Convention upon us, find out what you can expect and what master classes you should not miss. Tune in for all this and more!

*** This episode is not available for ASHA CEUs.****

Guests: Cup of Councel - Today we have a special roundtable conversation dealing with helpful case studies, and are joined by the three wonderful hosts of the Cup of Council Podcast! Amy Gundlach, MA, CCC-SLP, Katie Joyner Robinson, MA, CCC-SLP, and Brittany Schultz, MA, CCC-SLP sit down with us and share some enlightening experiences that you are not going to want to miss. These three speech-language pathologists have a combined total of over 30 years of experience in a number of settings and we get to speak about the importance of thinking outside the box and developing new types of therapy while shining a light on their most important moments of professional growth. The conversation covers examples of new types of innovative approaches, and we also get a taster for their amazing podcast, which we recommend you check out as soon as you finish listening to this! So if you want to hear this open-hearted and enlightening chat, dealing with our strengths, weaknesses, and everything in between, join us and catch it all!

*** This episode is not available for ASHA CEUs.****

Guest: Breanne Dalton - Complications that arise from issues in the gut are plentiful and complex, something that we in the world of feeding disorders are all too familiar with. Here on the show today to share about her work and own journey with digestive problems is Breanne Dalton from the University of Southern Mississippi! The life-altering first-hand experiences that Breanne has had have enabled her to connect with little ones on a very deep level, and serve them with a real understanding and empathy. We celebrate Breanne and her heroic work, how she has turned her own needs around feeding tubes into a way to help others! In our conversation, we get to hear from Breanne about J-Tubes and G-Tubes, the important steps on her path to where she is today, her attitude towards normalizing feeding issues, and why food and eating are so central to the human experience and building relationships. So, to hear it all from our great guest, be sure to listen in with us today!

Guest: Sucheta Kamath - As SLP’s, we tend to focus on our specific area of expertise; language or speech production or cognition, for example. However, our guest on the show today, the wonderful Sucheta Kamath, believes that this lack of a big picture perspective is problematic and that there is a better way to do things. Sucheta has focused her career on the functioning of the brain as a whole, and the intersection between brain functioning, psychology, sociology, and education. After listening to this episode, you’ll have a better understanding of executive functioning, metacognition, and the variety of factors that impact these. Sucheta shares the strategies that she utilizes to help children master executive functioning, how to determine whether a child has executive dysfunctions, as well as a few stories which highlight what can go wrong when our executive function isn’t operating at its full capacity.

Guest: Erin Forward, MSP, CCC-SLP, CLC - This is our 164th episode and until now we have not had an episode dedicated to our backstory, and some of the silly things that also make up who we are, so we decided to spend today answering some of your questions and helping our audience getting to know us a little better! We still find some time for some serious thoughts on the life of an SLP but you can expect some talk about movies, our favorite character from Friends, which podcasts get us the most excited, and much more! Other questions we answer include how we first met, dealing with the demands of work and finding time for family, alternative career paths, and the best memories from our careers in speech therapy. So, if you have ever felt like you would like to get to know Erin and Michelle just a little bit better, and fill in some of the gaps, this is the show for you!

*** This episode is not available for ASHA CEUs.****

Guest: Kimberly Delude, MA, CCC-SLP - As SLPs, there is only so much that we can do in the short weekly sessions we have with our patients. That is why the activities that kiddos do outside of our therapy rooms are so important to their speech and language development. The research on this is clear, but there is a major time lag between research and implementation. Fortunately, some SLPs are ahead of the curve, and in today’s episode, we are joined by one of them. Kimberly Delude, MA, CCC-SLP, realized early on in her career the importance of involving caregivers in their children’s SLP journeys. This realization inspired Kimberly’s second series of award-winning books, Fairy Tales 2.0 (her first was Freddie the Fly, which she was motivated to write when she noticed the lack of child friendly resources targeting social skills). In our discussion, we cover a variety of examples of how parents can incorporate speech and language activities in their pre-existing routines; a concept called functional carryover. Kimberly also shares some of the strategies she uses in her own sessions, including her take on narrative retelling and her use of self-rating feedback sessions.

Guest: Dr. Kelly Farquharson - Scientists now know more than ever about dyslexia, but there are still a lot of misconceptions about this common learning difference. In this episode of the First Bite Podcast, we are debunking some popular myths surrounding dyslexia and language-based learning disabilities with today’s special guest, Dr. Kelly Farquharson! Kelly is a speech-language pathologist, associate professor, and director of the Children’s Literacy and Speech Sound (CLaSS) Lab at Florida State University. She studies the cognitive, linguistic, orthographic, and environmental factors that influence how children with speech and language disorders acquire literacy skills. Specifically, her research examines the intersection between speech sound production and literacy acquisition and, in this episode, she shares her unique insight with us about the very real intersection between speech sounds and dyslexia. Believe it or not, dyslexia is a phonological impairment disorder, not a visual one, which means that SLPs can and should play a very important role in its assessment and treatment! Listen in to learn more about why phonetics matter to clinicians, the importance of taking a code-based approach, and why strategies like eye tracking exercises aren’t necessarily helpful. We also touch on the value of both real word and non-word assessments, phonological input, and collaboration between SLPs and teachers, and Kelly emphasizes the need for patience, persistence, and advocacy when it comes to addressing dyslexia in your institution. This is a fascinating discussion that you won’t want to miss, so make sure to tune in today!