Day 3 SLP Summit Recap

Like Monday and Tuesday - Day 3 was jam-packed at SLP Summit! Here's what you missed, and why you'll want to catch the replays. **Paid subscribers, there is an exclusive resource included in this post for you. Read to the bottom.

Organization for School SLPs, presented by Nikki Hunjan (creator of Teach Speech 365 and our June Office Hour guest), was a practical, in-the-trenches session for anyone drowning in caseloads, schedules, and paperwork. Nikki - a full-time school SLP herself - shared her real-world systems for staying organized without taking work home, including her go-to paper planner setup, a "data binder" system for tracking progress, milk-crate and hanging-folder methods for organizing weekly therapy materials, tips for building and adjusting a master schedule by grade level and teacher, and strategies for finding pockets of time to prep during the school day. The session wrapped with loads of free resources!

Executive Functioning: Beyond Checklists and Social Groups, presented by Dr. Karen Dudek-Brannan (founder of Dr. Karen LLC and host of The De Facto Leaders podcast), challenged SLPs to rethink how executive functioning is typically addressed in schools. Dr. Karen broke down the difference between the external behaviors we observe and the internal cognitive processes driving them, walked through five core executive functioning skill areas (including working memory, initiation, inhibition, and strategic planning/organization) that teams can target to structure real intervention. I was pumped to hear her affirm that go-to strategies like checklists and planners often don't actually build executive functioning skills - they are tools to help but don't teach skills.

Both sessions are packed with practical, immediately usable strategies. If you couldn't join live, the replays are the next best thing. Register for SLP Summit for free to unlock full access to these sessions (plus the rest of the lineup), and don't forget: registration closes August 15, and you can purchase the add-on ASHA for ASHA CEUs when you do. Watch the replays before they're gone!