TPP 168: Speech Pathologist Sherri Cawn Talks About Communication Disorders in Children
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
41 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 4 hours ago
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What are the foundational non‑verbal skills that support early communication?
From a developmental point of view, the developmental lens that we now look at is we're much more interested in the nonverbal piece, the social gaze, the referencing, the use of gestures, the use of emotional tone. Those are the foundations for communication that need to be in place for social pragmatics to be able to unfold. in a warm, interactive environment.
Welcome to Tilt Parenting, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing, and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. My name is Debbie Reaver, and I'm the host of this show. And my guest today is Sherry Kahn, a speech language pathologist who has specialized in the assessment and treatment of infants, toddlers, and school-aged children with developmental challenges for over 30 years. Yeah. Sherry has incredible experience and also a bird's eye view of the field and how it has evolved in the past several decades. She's also a leading practitioner of the DIR floor time model in speech and language development, having trained extensively with Dr. Stanley Greenspan and Dr.
Serena Whiter, and trains other professionals throughout the US, Europe, and Asia on the theoretical and clinical concepts of DIR. In our conversation today, Sherry shares a wealth of knowledge about communication disorders, and we cover everything from the different ways the communication disorders show up and what speech language pathology is to what types of issues speech language pathologists support children with and what signs might be indicators to parents that their child could benefit from working with one. And now here is my conversation with Sherry. Hey
Sherry, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Debbie. I've been looking forward to a meeting with you.
I'm looking forward to this conversation. You're the first speech language pathologist that we've had on the show. I think there's a lot that we can cover today, and I'm just looking forward to sharing your expertise. So to get started, I always love to just ask guests to introduce themselves. So if you could tell us a little bit about you and what you do in the world, that would be great.
Of course. Well, you just heard Debbie introduce me as uh Sherry Khan. I'm a practicing speech language pathologist. I am going to say this quietly, but this month I start my fiftieth year as a speech pathologist. And uh people always ask me, is there a reason you haven't retired? And I think the reason would be is that I still love the work. And there's new innovations and strategies and clinical thinking that still makes my socks go up and down. And um I'm on a mission to train as many clinicians and families to think in a more developmentally minded way as more children become evaluated and we learn more about different learning styles as experts in communication, we need to be up to date and flexible in our thinking of how to help support young children, young young children as well as school age children, adolescents.
And on to adulthood. So Uh I have two clinics. I live in the Chicagoland area. I have one in the suburbs of Northbrook, Illinois, and I have a a multidisciplinary clinic where we work with children looking through different developmental lenses. And I also have an office in the city of Chicago in the Lincoln Park area. Uh I've been lucky enough to uh work in public schools, work in the private sector, uh work in a clinical setting. and have um studied and been mentored by some of the best in the business, whether it be psychologists, occupational therapist, educators, parents of course, always are my are my best tools for learning. And so I'm lucky enough to have been doing this all this time and that's why I hope I can be of help.
Wow, I fifty years, first of all, just congratulations. That's incre I'm sorry, you whispered it, but I that's a huge accomplishment and it is. It's incredible. Um, so I actually would love to hear You know, just a bird's eye view of how things must have changed over the course of those fifty years. But before we do that, could you even just define speech language pathology as a discipline or tell us what a speech language pathologist does?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What are the foundational non‑verbal skills that support early communication?
0:00–5:54
2
How does Sherri Cawn define the role of a speech‑language pathologist?
5:54–10:20
3
What are the main categories of communication disorders that clinicians assess?
10:20–15:31
4
Which early signs should parents watch for to spot a possible communication disorder?
15:31–21:01
5
How do kindergarten expectations reveal hidden language and pragmatic challenges?
21:01–25:52
6
What is Response‑to‑Intervention (RTI) and how is it used for communication disorders?
25:52–31:27
7
How can parents become effective advocates within the school‑based IEP process?
31:27–36:13
8
What resources does Sherri recommend for families wanting to learn more about communication disorders?
36:13–41:26
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
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TPP 522: A Whole Child Approach to ADHD with Phil Boucher, M.D.
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TPP 521: A Conversation with Dr. Peter Gray About Restoring Childhood
TPP 253a: Advocate and Author Jonathan Mooney on Why Normal Sucks
TPP 520: Dr. Özgür Bolat on Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids