My Autism Speech Therapy Training

Hello! I'm a first year speech-language pathologist for the New York City Department of Education. I work in the special education district, serving elementary school students with autism in the South Bronx.  Since World Autism Awareness Day is on April 2nd, I thought now would be a good opportunity to ask for your help in providing effective speech therapy to my students.

The NYC Department of Education only paid for $77 of my materials throughout the 2014-2015 school year and they don't cover the cost of professional trainings. With my first year teacher salary, it's difficult for me to pay for the PROMPT Institute's PROMPT (PROMPTs for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets) training on my own. PROMPT is an articulation therapy technique that uses a tactile-kinesthetic or hands on approach. This training will help me with my students who have apraxia of speech. The children I serve on the autism spectrum also have a range of comprehension delays that make it difficult to process verbal instructions, which is where tactile cues come in as added support. Please see the website for the research behind this therapy approach: http://promptinstitute.com In addition, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) includes PROMPT under treatment approaches for childhood apraxia or speech: http://www.asha.org/PRPSpecificTopic.aspx?folderid=8589935338&section=Treatment

I plan on registering for a training in the NYC-Metro area early next school year. Typical costs range from $700-$750.  I'm asking for $800 to help cover transportation/lodging since the training is over a few days. Any extra funds will go towards new therapy materials.

Many thanks for your help! It's a gift to be able to work with this population.