Self Management

Speech therapy may different when working with older children and teenagers. We may focus more on giving the students resources and skills needed to be successful. This activity is designed to give SLPs the information necessary to help a student develop self-management strategies to target their social pragmatics goals. Some of the higher level social skills that those with ASD or other social pragmatic disorders find difficult are reciprocal conversation, staying on topic, and initiating and maintaining conversation (Koegel, 2013). By using self-management techniques the clinician can help the student learn to self-manage their behaviors in order to maintain relationships and meet their goals (Sam, 2016).

In order to create a plan for self-management we need to identify a reinforcer (Sam, 2016). This might be a point system leading up to a reward such as a break or time with a preferred object. When we are working with teenagers allowing them to choose their reinforcer can be helpful as it gives them autonomy (Koegel, 2013). As the clinician, we need to teach the student the desired task (Koegel, 2013). If we are working on reciprocal conversation we might provide them with a chart such as the one below and talk about each step. Then we provide the student with their own data tracking sheet that they can use to monitor how they are doing to achieve their goal (Sam, 2016).

(Koegel, 2013)

Sample goal:

Within one year the student will stay on topic for 5 conversational turns with a peer in 3 trials across 3 sessions as measured by SLP observation.

ED595396.pdf

References

Koegel, L. K., Park, M. N., & Koegel, R. L. (2013). Using self-management to improve the reciprocal social conversation of children with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 44(5), 1055–1063. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-013-1956-y

This study implemented self-management techniques for students with ASD and saw an improvement in their reciprocal conversational skills.

Sam, A., & AFIRM Team. (2016). Self-management. Chapel Hill, NC: National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorder, FPG Child Development Center, University of North Carolina. Retrieved from http://afirm.fpg.unc.edu/Self-management

This is a great resource explaining the practice and giving step by step instructions for implementation.

Here are 3 data recording sheets from the resource by AFIRM (Sam, 2016).

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