Hey, fixers. I'm Dr Jeanette Benigas, the owner of fix SLP, a grassroots advocacy firm here to challenge the status quo in speech language pathology by driving real change from insurance regulations to removing barriers that prevent full autonomy like the CCC, this podcast is your space to learn, engage and take action in the field of speech language pathology. We don't wait for change. We make it so let's fix SLP!
Hey everybody, it's Jeanette. Welcome back. We are recording in the middle of the day at a super off time. So I have Elizabeth Nielsen with me. She is the content coordinator for our team,and she's going to help me today, because we're talking about just all language processing, and I'm a medical SLP, I stick cameras in people's noses. I have no idea what's going on, because GLP was not a thing when I went through school. That's important to mention, because just because it wasn't a thing when I went through school does not mean it's not a thing now, now have I kept up in that area? No, I have not. Why? Because it's not my area of practice. So by holding the CCC that tells the world that I am competent across the scope, but I am telling you right now that I am not competent across the scope, because I have no idea about this topic. So just another little point to dig in there, that the CCC does not guarantee full competency across the scope, and it's telling a lie to consumers,
okay, I am not competent to scope you, so
You want to learn. Wait. I brought my scope to our last little retreat.
We still need to post those.
We could do tech skills next time. Yeah, okay, so I want to just read a review. Just a thank you to AMCC415, this person said, so informative. This is a must listen for SLPs, I've learned so much fix. SLP, has totally changed my perception of Asha. I appreciate their hard work. I'll keep listening and joining the good fight. Well, thank you, AMCC415. Listen, we've learned a lot too over the last 15 and a half months, and for some of us, our perception of ASHA has also changed. So I think the key here is modernization, right? We want to see modernization from Asha. We've been getting a lot of questions lately from an older crowd, really, it seems is, of it seems that you want to do away with Asha. What's your plan for replacement? And our consistent response is, there is a place in this world for Asha. It is to stop selling us a proprietary product, so they can take their time and their money, and instead of putting value into the CCC, putting value into the SLP, advocating for us a little better, helping elevate us in our workplaces, coming out with better evidence based practices, more scholarships for students doing away with the abuse that students in CFs are taking in their their clinical rotations, figuring that out, figuring out how to make us more confident. Because there is such a wide scope in the big nine, we can't do it all. So figuring out these issues and caring less about the CCC or just doing away with it is our purpose here. We're not personally trying to do away with the CCC, because people do have it and they're proud of it and they want to keep it, and that's fine. It should be a choice, not a forced thing, and so that's what we're doing here. But we want to see them modernize so they can focus on these things more and be able to and be able to we'll do a podcast on why they can't do some things for us for another day. So we've got this GLP topic that really has modernized how we interact with autistic individuals, right? Elizabeth?
Yeah, it's something like you said, like you didn't learn in school. I didn't learn in school. I learned a completely different way of working with autistic individuals. It didn't feel right for me for a long time, and once I knew this new framework to learn, even that there's another way that kids can learn. Language was just kind of like life changing. It just it was a light bulb that went off. Like, oh, this is it! This is what works with my clients. Like, I'm just happier. My clients are happier. Like, it builds a environment where they feel safe. And it's really not just working with just the language, but the regulation piece for kids, and looking at the kid as a whole picture, and not something that we need to fix that. Oh, they do it this way. We need to put them in this box, to fit them in this way. And so it's helping to adjust what we're doing in our practices to really embrace differences. Everyone learns different, so let's embrace it. Let's not fit everyone into a box. I love that. So you and I are recording alone right now. We had a lot of tech issues while we were recording with Jessica, and she had a very limited amount of time to give us. So I am going to be piecing some of this together. So before I bring that recording in, why don't you just give us a brief overview of the issue right now from our perspective as speech pathologists, give us a brief overview and how we met her, what happened and why we decided to bring her on today. This kind of sparked with the ASHA convention and a certain presentation that kind of sparked some controversy within the Gestalt language processing world. Marge Blanc, who created the natural language acquisition framework. She has her Facebook group, which we mentioned in the interview. She brought up the issues, as well as other clinicians who brought up the issues with the presentation. Alexandria Zachos who is the creator of meaningful speech, also reached out in the group and just said, Hey, let's have parents reach out. Let's have clinicians reach out to ASHA. The things that are being presented in this presentation, it's harmful language that they were using. They aren't validating any of the research that Marge Blanc and Alexandria Zachos and many other clinicians have done. And so Jessica made an amazing letter, which we'll post sometime this week and encourage other families, other parents. So I reached out to her. I was like, I love your ambition, like, I love your advocacy. And I told her about fixed SLP, I told her what we're doing. I told her, like, you're not the only one that are is having issues with ASHA, like, let's and I really want to know what Ash's response is going to be, what the parents concern. You know, we get copy and paste answers all the time from them. How are they going to respond to parents? And so they did get a lot of parents to reach out to them, so they just also got the copy and paste responses, which is unfortunate, because here these parents are with reaching out with probably their own background and how this framework has helped themselves and helped their families and to get a response to basically dismiss it again is kind of hurtful.
Yeah, and so clinicians can still reach out on this topic by using the in touch form to the board of directors. I expect the same old, same old from them. Form Letter completely ignored, not going to take responsibility, ignore us till this goes away in the 24 hour news cycle. But if this is something you want to speak out about, please send a letter to the Board of Directors. Use their in touch form. I've been seeing it all over socials right now. There's a couple key groups that are posting. Reach out to Asha. They want to hear from you. They're asking your opinions, please, please. We have a lot of new followers. Okay? We did that in September, October of 2023 it was our very first call to action. Over 200 people sent letters to the board. It was one line on the minutes, and it was the same thing. Everybody got a form letter response. It was one line on their minutes from that board meeting discussed in touch forms, and that was it. And nothing happened again. So it's kind of a facade from our perspective. It's like, Oh, let us hear from you. We want to hear from you. No, it's a PR move to make you feel like you're being heard. Because, from what we can tell, no action is ever taken from these letters. However, it does tie them up. They have to read them so, you know, pound them, send them 500 letters. Yeah, those are just us giving our opinions, or consumers giving their opinions. The things that really matter are the things like changing the bylaws in the way that they say. This is how you change the bylaws. You know when, when you're using the legally binding bylaws. To do the things and they still ignore it, that speaks volumes. So if they're going to ignore a petition that followed the bylaws, that just shows you what they're doing with our in touch forms to the BOD, right?
Yeah, or even changing any sort of policy, like, I reached out to them to just, Hey, have certified non member on your invoice. Have all of your options on there, instead of us having a Call to Action Center, because then if I want to switch back to a certified member, I still have to call to get it switched. Have all of those options on the invoice. And they're like, Well, this is how you become a non member. I'm like, I understand. That. That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking for all of these to be an option, silence, couple follow up emails, still nothing. When it comes to policy and financials, they're not going to change.
No
They're not going to listen.
And I can't wait to talk to all of you about the letters that are being exchanged with ASHA and our lawyer at the moment, but it does appear that they are digging in and have no intention of doing a damn thing, because we can see changes in verbiage in the Letters they're sending to people, in the emails they're sending to people that are direct changes based on the topics we've been bringing up and the letters they have received from the law firm that we hired. So that is coming down the road. It's the we're going at the lawyer's discretion of when it's time to bring him on the pod so it's coming, an email will go out when it's time, with a copies of those letters. But yeah, they're not they're still not planning on doing anything. I think they're still thinking that we aren't serious. My assumption is now that they don't think we'll be able to raise enough money to take them on. We have spent, I don't know, three weeks talking about their finances. You see what their reserves are. You see what their investments are. You see how much money they have in the bank. They have endless resources to fight us, and they know that, and they think they'll never, well, we'll just tie them up in court forever, financially, until they give up. But you guys, I say in this recording, you guys are badass, so I you know, I don't think they know who they're dealing with, because SLPs aren't happy.
No, we're not messing around. We're not
They're gonna F around and find out I feel. Yeah, they're gonna F around and find out. So yeah, anyway, let's
Sustainging partnership, that's what we need. We need more sustaining partners, because this, this is not a fight that's going to end right now, like we are continuing to fight. So we're going to need as many help as we can from all of you. So become a sustaining partner. Share our content, because that helps get the word out. There's still so many that don't know about fixed. SLP, and so continue to share, continue to tag everyone that you know, share on your personal page, share in groups. Sharing in groups is that's where you get the reach, too. Listening to the podcast, sharing the podcast episodes. That's how we need the reach to be bigger.
Yeah, there was there's been a lot of sharing on Facebook over the last month, and we were able to see a very big jump in new followers who had not heard of us before, which is amazing when we share, it tends to get lost. But when you guys share with your own story, with your own thoughts, with your own prompts. That's what we see as the most effective. And really, that's grassroots. It's not us pushing us in your face. It's you guys taking our content and saying, Hey, this is what I think. Or hey, I'm I'm a sustaining partner. Here's how you do it. Or, hey, that it's when you guys do it that we see the results, and that's super meaningful to us. It's an honor to be a part of that conversation. And yeah, so we will have a almost like a capital campaign once we know what we're facing like. Are we hiring the litigation team in Maryland? Are they? Are we, you know, we don't quite know yet where we're headed or how much money we're looking at needing, but just know the money that's coming in, it's it is being squirreled away. On top of that, we also use it for our back end expenses, like web hosting and, you know, the podcast hosting stuff. So, yeah, yeah. I mean, we, I'd say our expenses for all of that is around $1,000 a month, give or take, sometimes, like right now, I paid a little extra for our website. I paid for a higher plan, just $60 extra because we have a volunteer helping us to catalog all. All of our content onto our website. And so it was easier if I made her her own account. And to do that, I had to pay $60 more for more access. But at the end of the month, when she's done with that project, I'll cancel it. So we try to be pretty good stewards of the money and use it when we really need it, and otherwise it just gets squirreled away. So when we were ready to go. We're ready to go. So anyway, let's bring in Jessica. I don't I haven't edited yet, so I'm not sure how this is going to be pieced together. We had to redo like the same part multiple times. So here she is, and stick around after, because we'll wrap up. We're just gonna jump in with Jessica, and we'll let her just say all the things before we jump in. Tell us a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your family and who you are.
My name is Jessica. I am the parent of a wonderful four year old. GLP, I've been living a little bit in the world of speech therapy for the last two years, supporting him. Before that, I had my PhD and worked in a non profit for a few years before downshifting to become more full time parent, part time professional.
I introduced myself to you and told you a little bit about fixed SLP, before we started recording. So I want you to answer this before you knew anything about our previous discussion, before you came to us today, did you know what the certificate of clinical competence was?
No, I absolutely no knowledge. Okay, aside from, I assume speech pathologists get degrees in their field.
Degrees in their field, and that they're licensed by their state. They're license to practice, right?
Yeah.
So you had no idea what the CCC was, or that it potentially guaranteed some higher level of competency or not?
No. No speech therapist has ever uttered those words to me.
Okay, cool. And I happen to know, I know where you live. We're keeping that anonymous, but I happen to know where you live. It's actually harder to be licensed or maintain your state license than it is to get that certificate of clinical competency. So while it doesn't mean anything to you, that means a lot to our listeners. So thanks for answering that you're on though because of a particular post that you made on Facebook that we stumbled upon, and we thought it would be interesting to talk to you. So why don't you give us the story, tell us what happened, how you ended up posting on Facebook?
Yeah. So you know, in the course of, like, learning my son's needs and supporting him, I don't know, probably about two years ago, I joined March blanc natural language acquisition study group, Facebook group, to support Gestalt language processors. And of course, that has been like life changing and incredible, and so I still follow them pretty closely. I saw the chatter. There was a session at the ASHA convention that really just tried to convince people that marge's work and marge's approach is not good, is not founded in research, is not supported by best practices, and in the course of their slides, people shared their slides online. There were really awful statements about echolalia not being true. Language is like a sub optimal AAC, I think, was the phrase they use, which doesn't even make sense. And like I said, I have a PhD. I have attended many conferences. And my concern knowing that Asha was giving a platform to this perspective was that this little part of the speech therapy field, which has been profoundly life changing for my family, for a lot of other families, but is kind of its quiet, own little thing and doesn't like, you know, it's not kind of the mainstream that it would get pushed out, and that people would have less access to this incredible, incredible information. And so one of the people who responded to one of the posts said something about, I encourage all of you who are concerned to write letters to Asha. And I was like, Well, I can do that. So I wrote a letter to Asha, and I wrote a post on marge's group saying, I encourage, you know, I just wanted to amplify this suggestion because I wouldn't have known it existed as an option unless I had happened to catch that comment and I, you know, I posted the link and I shared the letter that I wrote, just because I think it makes it easier to write something when you see how someone else has done it, and it kind of just makes the process faster for people and and there's a really positive response on there, and I think a good number of people did end up sending letters, and I heard after the fact, we all got kind of the same form letter from Asha, that was pretty, pretty disappointing. I mean, I wasn't, like, disappointed, because I wasn't really expecting much. I was underwhelmed by their response, so So that's the story that brought me to your doorstep.
So you've given us permission to share these letters, which will be out in our content this week, if you're listening live when this episode drops. So I don't know if our listeners know, but I blog these episodes so you can always find these episodes on our website. And what I'm going to try we're moving towards building out a new website. So we're trying to do some new blog style things. And so what I may even do is either build those letters into the blog with this episode, or blog them separately and have a link. So for anyone who's listening. We have a podcast section on our website that you can go to and you can look for this podcast. The latest one always shows up first. It's always the top three, at least on the current platform we're on, but you can always click to see the rest if you're listening a month from now. So we have these letters. Why don't you give me your thoughts as a mother, as an advocate, as someone who's an outsider to the speech pathology world. You just know your side of I'm a mom. I've got a kid who has needs. Were you aware of the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association prior to all of this happening?
I might have encountered their website once or twice when I was trying to find information. But, you know, when I was digging around for my son, it was pretty clear thatthat I, you know, I really had, I really had to dig to find good information.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so what? What is your perception as a consumer and a mother and an advocate? What's your perception of what Asha should be doing and what their convention should be looking like for speech pathologists? So as a consumer, who's hiring? I don't know. I don't treat kids, but Elizabeth does. If you're gonna hire Elizabeth, you're gonna assume that the national membership association that she is a member of, well, not anymore, but that she's buying products from and being supported. What would you expect that they would be doing? If that makes sense.
Absolutely. That's a really good question. I I would expect that they would be a kind of big tent for the best and brightest, like the best you know, best practices, best research, like bringing all of that information to clinicians, offering continue education opportunities so that people can incorporate the cutting edge into their field or into their you know, daily practice. I have some sense of how challenging it is to be a speech therapist, I'm sure not a full sense, but I would imagine a smart organization would provide all kinds of other sorts of professional support, you know, whatever is kind of needed for speech therapists to run businesses and do all the other things they have to do. I think those are kind of the big things, maybe, I know you've touched on advocacy, and I'm sure, because you know, these are professionals who are licensed by the state, but there's like advocacy at the governmental level that would need to happen. And just like all with a real positive sense of doing the best for people, because speech therapists serve people who are really vulnerable, like they're literally like, the thing that helps people communicate. And I think that's such a beautiful and noble thing. And so that's why I was so horrified to learn about what is going on with this organization. Yeah,
Because speech pathologists have made a difference in your life.
Yes,
On this platform and in this podcast, a lot of times, we can be very critical, but at the end of the day, this is a great job, and we do great things for families, and we have all of this junk going on behind the scenes. But speech therapists entered this field for a reason, and you and your child are the product of some really great therapists who went into this field to make a difference and who did and so I can't imagine being a parent who has this GLP, which I'm gonna have Elizabeth talk a little bit about briefly for all my med SLP, friends who have no idea what we're talking about, but this is, this is something that has made a difference. And so you would have expected that the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association would be putting out accurate and positive information about this. So meaning that at a convention where 1000s and 1000s of clinicians are attending. I think there were approximately 13,000 people there this year. You would expect that the information is evidence based and supported and well vetted. And I am going to tell you right now. And I wish we were going to share video, but we're not, because I bet you've never heard this before. They don't vet the content. Yeah.
Oh, my God. What?
So, in order to speak at our national convention or to offer any ASHA approved CEU, you fill out a course outline, and I don't know even if it's required yet. If it's not, it's coming, but you don't even have to, or in the past, you haven't even had to cite the research that you're going to include in that talk or continuing education, if it hasn't happened yet, they are moving towards needing to include at least five citations. But you you give your goals and objectives, you give a course description, you give the intermediate or introductory you give the learning level and an outline of what the learner is going to learn. And that's what you submit to the American Speech Language and Hearing Association for approval to offer a continuing education. And so they do vet the proposals, but it's very it's two pages. You know, they're not looking. So you can write whatever you want on those things and say whatever you want. They're not looking at the actual content and what's going to be said. They're not looking like if you're pre recording something, or if you're preparing a talk, they're not looking at any of that, it is up to the presenter, to be honest, in what they're presenting. And so
I will admit that is the same that is the same standard in my field. However, it's not a medical field. It's not like lives and like things are at stake, like it's like, it's just academics talking to academics about their ideas. Like, this is a totally different ball game. When the people who are presenting are like, they're more like on the research side, I assume, and the people who are consuming the information are the speech therapists who are not doing the research. They're just trying to be better clinicians, right?
Not even necessarily so anyone can present on our conference, which is fine, because sometimes you'll have a doctor or even a parent, but a lot of times the big researchers are in now what they call short courses, and after a clinician has paid hundreds of dollars to travel and lodging and registration to get there, if they want to be in those short courses, they then have to pay $50 more per course to be there. So it's even a little gatekeepy in that sense that if you really want to hear the researchers talk about a really specific topic these days, it even costs more money. And so
That - that is actually really upsetting to me that's, yeah, yeah.
So Elizabeth, why don't you tell us just super briefly about GLP? What is it? Because I know as a med SLP, I do seek out quality CEUs, and I can't say I've was GLP wasn't a thing all those years ago when I went through school. And it's not something I've - I know enough because I follow but not necessarily something I know a ton about. So could you give our listeners who don't know just a brief overview?
Yeah. So there's two ways that we can learn language. There's an analytic way, which we all know as speech pathologists that we've learned in grad school, is you learn single words and then you add to those words. A lot of times we did not learn Gestalt language processing. So that's just another way that kids can learn language. And a lot of the times they learn language by hearing things that they hear on TV or a song or what someone says, And they actually will repeat the whole phrase. And so what we try to do is give them meaning to that phrase. Sometimes there's a hidden meaning behind that phrase. Sometimes it is at face value. And so a lot of the times, we're trying to help them form language and actually get to single words. So it's kind of the opposite of analytical language learning. And so March Blanc's natural language acquisition framework was created, I believe, like, 12 years ago, and the last, like, two to three years, there's just been an explosion. Because even in my practice, I think half of my kids now are good shot language processors, and I see the difference. And it's like, it is life changing, just like what you said, Jessica, just all this time of what I was doing therapy and switching to the NLA framework. It's, it is life changing.
That's so cool. I wasn't sure if you work directly with dlps. And like the, I mean, echolalia is so stigmatized, right? Like, um
Yes, and what we learned in school was to ignore it. And so giving these kids the value of what they're saying and it is language, and they have, there is meaning behind it, and being that child led approach, and so it's just a life changing approach for some of the, a lot of these kids and parents too.
Because, yeah, communicating with your child. I mean, like, that's just foundational, yeah.
Finding creative ways to communicate of, hey, they're playing a video right now. They're trying to communicate something to us. There's a reason why they're playing this video. Or, hey, they're singing this song, and because they feel joy with it, and they're regulated when they say it. So let's give them that joy. Let's not diminish it.
Yeah, joy is joy, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's, I think, why this presentation was so upsetting, because these people are coming from more of a behaviorist approach, sort of the ABA sort of side of things. And they are like threatened by the growth of the in LA approach, which is kind of the opposite of their approach. And so I think they're, you know, their interests were not very transparent in you know, so just this whole, like, storm of bad practice.
Yeah, and it didn't fit their criteria. Was kind of going through some of the feed on Marge Blanc's Facebook group, and she was even mentioning how she offered to train them in the NLA framework. And that was denied. And I don't want to speak for her, but just through reading everything, she mentioned that Gestalt language processing, natural language acquisition framework was on ASHA's Practice Portal up until this research came out, and then days later, they took it off of the Practice Portal. So what do you think about that? How does that make you feel?
It's horrifying. It's horrifying because this is, this is bad. It's like, on its face, as an I've obviously trained in research, but not in this field. It's obviously bad faith, like it's just so obviously bad, and for them to just pull that information with no, no consultation, no, you know, like they should be best friends with Marge. They should be like banging down her door every day. She's obviously incredible and so generous, but they're not. They're not,
And that's where I think there's so much problems, too, of when people say there's not enough evidence, they equate that to it's not evidence based practice, and so they don't look at the lived experiences. You know, that's part of the evidence based triangle. Those lived experiences matter. Just look through the Facebook group. You see the data right there. You see families posting videos and language samples. That's the data.
It's missed, yeah, and this is like, like, you could say this is the cutting edge and, like, it's it's new, it's not unproven. It's just, like, not yet done. Let's do it. Let's get in there and fund it, and have more people doing research. And, you know, instead of just shutting it down because it's different.
Yeah, and even equating it to saying it's not evidence based practice, then it's saying, like, oh, it's harmful. This is harmful practices. And it's not if you look at ABA and listening to autistic individuals, that they're saying is it's harmful, but yet, this approach, where so many parents are seeing so much growth, yeah, it's disheartening.
Yeah, yeah, the evidence is saying, let's, let's do more research. Evidence is saying this is profoundly awesome, and these
Autistic individuals are saying it. Let's listen to autistic voices.
Yes. Yeah, yeah. And the clinic, clinical part of that triad too, like clinicians who know what to be looking for can verify like, yes, they are making wonderful progress. That's two thirds of the triangle.
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The stuff I was doing prior to the NLA stuff, it just felt icky. What I was doing with my clients, like, it just didn't feel right. But then as soon as all this came about, it's like, this light bulb switch, it was like, oh, it just feels right as a person, communication, you're it's based off of safety and connection, not compliance based, and so just switching these, this framework is just, it's done wonders. So...
That's so beautiful.
My jaw hit the ground, because I don't live in this world. So I had no idea that this came off the Practice Portal. And so, you know, the Practice Portal is supposed to give you evidence based tools, guidelines, resources for clinical practice to help us deliver this high quality care across a wide range of practice areas. And it doesn't have to be inclusive of just one thing. So truly, like you've said, Okay, maybe they feel the evidence isn't there, but like you said, with the parents and autistic individuals and the clinicians and that being two thirds of the triangle, they really can outline all of that and say, while this may not be supported in the evidence that we have available to us right now. Here's all of the support for that, and here are future areas for research, for people to do and and if they really want to say, which I don't think they should, but then they could put on there like a proceed with caution warning. Let families and autistic individuals decide if this is. Is the approach they want to take. Because I'm an adult neuro person we talked to, I don't think we've dropped this episode, but there's an episode that I recorded that we discuss how every brain is different, and even in some people, the hemispheres are different. If you're left handed your language, dominant hemisphere could be your right hemisphere, not your left hemisphere. And so not every approach, and not everything is gonna fit every person. And so it really feels outdated to me.
There's one other thing I think Marge would like us to say, which is that there is really nice research. It's only been done by a few people, and it isn't the like comparative control group, not control group, which is what this presentation was saying. There was not that type of research, but there is really lovely qualitative, longitudinal research, and it connects out to other kind of research that supports it. So I just want to throw that out there, that there is, there is research. It's just not the kind that these people were Austin Sandy saying, is the right kind? Yeah.
Okay. Do we want to plug her group or her community? Is it, an anybody join it and to go see more?
You can join it, you would do have to add answer some questions about Gestalt language processing. So you have to know, like, all the stages of Gestalt language processing, but it's the natural language acquisition study group on Facebook.
On Facebook, okay.
And that ,that much of that information is available through meaningful speech. On Instagram. Alexandria Zachos offers like a course in it, and kind of just put, puts a lot of posts out there. So if you don't want to join a group but want to see posts about Gestalt, language development, she's a wonderful resource.
Before we leave, I was going to have you summarize what your letter was and what ASHA has said. And I know you said it made you feel icky. We don't have time for that. But can you just give us your thoughts or statement overall, what was their response to you? And what do you think should happen next?
Their response basically said, well, they performed a review and they found an empty review, and that's basically all they said. It was condescending and not didn't respond to the specific concerns that I raised about dehumanizing autistic people, not listening to evidence based practice like all of the things we've been talking about, I kind of expected as much, given what had been happening, but I think what I liked about their online portal is that when you submit a letter, it says all of the letters will be read at the next board meeting. And my hope was that by submitting a bunch of strong parent voices, or probably also clinical voices, that these letters would at least be read, and a volume of them might exert some at least make them want to guard the bottom line, if that's the thing that motivates them, you know, whatever, whatever motivates them. In an ideal world, what would happen is they would say, Oh, we didn't totally realize the content of this. We only vetted the proposal, not the full slide. You're right. This raises some important questions that we should have a conversation about, let us reach out to clinicians in this space. Let us reach out to autistic voices, Gestalt language processors. Let us host a real conversation. Because that is what professional organizations, that is literally their whole job. So that's what I would like, and in that way, using this kind of negative conference thing as a springboard to make something good come out of it, and maybe more people would hear about life changing information for their families. So
Love that. So reasonable. And I know this isn't going to make you feel better, but that's how they speak to their clinicians as well. Condescending, taking no responsibility. That's it the most, that's their MO, so Jessica, thank you for just we've had a ton of tech issues. This was just a thing, but I'm so glad we were able to get you on and just hear from you. And we're able to now make those letters a little bit more widespread and seen. And you know, maybe they're now more clinicians will reach out that board meeting has not happened yet. The Board meeting everyone is scheduled for February of 2025.
I just want to say that you guys are awesome, and now that I know what SLPs are, how well they're performing in the face of this kind of professional nonsense, I have even more respect for you. So I it's been really cool to meet you guys.
Usually I have to click explicit because of Preston, but I'm gonna say it. SLPs are badass. We've got it. We just need to, like, take our autonomy and control back, and then the sky is the limit for us. So yeah, thanks for sharing your story. We really appreciate it and um
Nice to meet you guys.
Yeah
You too. Thank you.
Bye!
Bye!
I'm so glad Elizabeth that she came on.
Me too. She's fabulous, like she's such a fighter. Fighter for her kid and fighting for us. We love parents that help fight with us. It's empowering.
I don't think it's shocking, either to us, maybe it was to her. But I don't think it's shocking that they sent her a form letter or that they were condescending, but it's very unfortunate, really.
Yeah, and it kind of makes you wonder if they even read through her whole letter and everyone's letter, I think there was probably a surge of people sending the letter. So they were like, Okay, we're just gonna copy and paste this to everyone that's reaching out about it, without taking into consideration how to respond.
I think everyone's opinion is valuable and needs to be heard. But in her case, whether there were 100 or one, this is an educated mother with a PhD who understands research, who understands conventions, who understands professional development, she knows more than the average consumer, and for her to say, like, Hey, guys, hey, this is a problem, both from the way that you've done this and what was presented as a mother with a child who benefits from this, you think they would have given her a little more respect,
Yep.
As a scientific colleague,
Yeah. Continuing that conversation too, of can you tell us a little bit more? It was just a complete cut off.
I don't have any ism sorry. I don't got it in me. I'm too tired.
Same girls, same. All right, guys, we're gonna wrap this up hit the in touch form. If you have something to say to the board, don't be surprised if they're condescending. Give us that five star rating and review and we will see you next week. Thanks for fixing it, guys!