Ep. 70: Avoid these Goals for Autistic Kids
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Why do many speech‑therapy goals for autistic kids actually hurt them?
What's up, everyone? And welcome to Making the Shift for Autistic Kids. We're an SLP couple from California with four boys. And we're here every week to bring you neuro-affirming tips, tricks, and tools. Are you ready to make the shift? Let's do this!
Hello, and welcome to Making the Shift. Today, we are talking about something fun. We are talking about goals that suck. Yes, I am going to be sharing with you real goals that have been written for kids in my clinic by other therapists or clinics that suck, truly. And before you say, well, instead of telling us what not to do, can you tell us what to do? Yes, we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about these goals that suck, what they are, why they suck and what we can do better. But I will also say we have an entire episode dedicated to how to write ND affirming therapy goals. Episode 29, one of our most watched episodes ever. If you need that, go ahead, pop over there after this, and you will get more information.
Also, head to my Instagram at any time, Sensory SLP. I have loads and loads of videos where I walk you through different ideas for goals. Okay, so just let us talk for a few about goals that suck. This is a very important conversation to have. The fact that goals like this are still being written is scary, in my opinion. And it's certainly harmful for our kids. And we have got to make a change. So in order to make that change, we need to talk about why this is a problem. Okay, so as much as I love talking about like the cheery, shiny gold at the end of the rainbow in college, what it looks like once we write our ND affirming goals, we have a long ways to go of educating others about why some of these goals do in fact suck and how we can write them better.
Okay. So I'm going to be giving you some examples. These are real goals that have been written for kids we've seen in our clinic. And these are all just so you know, examples of kids who are in like preschool to kinder age. So probably three to six years old. So pretty young kids, these goals were written for. Okay.
What’s wrong with setting a goal to “decrease protesting to two times per day”?
So I'm just going to be sharing a few and let's talk about them. And if you're here with me live, let's vote in the chat on a scale of one to 10, one being the school really sucks. And 10 being the school is amazing. Let's like get some poll voting going on here. Okay. So comment in the chat if you want to vote on how much this goal does suck. Okay, so let's start with one. I got for one of my kids and I was just shook when I read this goal. I mean, I think you could see the steam coming out of my ears. I was so upset. And the goal is that this child will decrease protesting to two times per day. Okay, I think I've already protested twice in the last two minutes, right? Protesting not only isn't normal, it's necessary.
It's such an important life skill. And for our kids with communication challenges, this is a safety concern. We are teaching them we can do and say whatever we want. You're not allowed to say no. That is wild, right? Okay, so not only is it a safety concern, but we have to realize that language has a lot of different functions and it's so easy oftentimes to focus on teaching kids to make requests, just trying to get their basic wants and needs met. But there's so much more that we use language for. We use language to comment and to connect with people and to interact and to protest, to say no, to say don't, to say stop. And decreasing a child's protesting is never the answer. The answer would be giving this child a means to be able to communicate whatever that may be.
And this could likely be addressed as having a support person there as this child needs to co-regulate, to be the calm to their storm, to help them through the hard times, to validate them. That is how we work on emotional regulation in kids is by validating them and by co-regulating, by telling them, I know this is so hard. I know you don't want to do this right now. I know. I wish we could go do that other thing right now. That sounds like it'd be so fun. And showing them that we understand and we're coming from a place of compassion, not by teaching them that they cannot say no to something.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why do many speech‑therapy goals for autistic kids actually hurt them?
0:08–2:33
2
What’s wrong with setting a goal to “decrease protesting to two times per day”?
2:33–5:31
3
How can we replace “protest‑reduction” goals with communication‑focused goals?
5:31–8:03
4
Why is a “tolerate songs for five seconds” goal harmful for sensory‑sensitive children?
8:03–10:45
5
What’s a better alternative to “tolerate songs” that respects a child’s sensory needs?
10:45–14:12
6
Why should we avoid goals that require children to “tolerate denied access” or routine changes?
14:12–17:02
7
What are the problems with eye‑contact‑only goals and how can we make them more functional?
17:02–19:50
8
How do we shift from restrictive “suck” goals to total‑communication and self‑advocacy goals?
19:50–22:43
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The NeuroAffirm Podcast
Ep. 125 How to Run Successful Social Groups
Ep. 124 Building Rapport Isn’t Enough...How Therapists Become Part of the Intervention
Ep. 123 Not Seeing Progress in Speech Therapy? Start Here.
Ep. 122 Screen Time Considerations for Autistic Kids
Ep. 121 The Biggest Sensory Mistakes SLPs Make
Ep. 120 Why Anxiety is So Common in Autism (And What Actually Helps)