346: Documenting Strengths-Based Therapy in a Goal-Driven System

Show Notes:

Struggling to know what “good” data collection actually looks like, especially with older students on your caseload? In this episode, Hallie sits down with Kayla Obenour, an SLP with over a decade of experience across schools, outpatient, home health, and private practice, to chat all about what real, useful data collection can look like. Kayla shares why she's always aimed to “practice what she preaches” as a clinician, how she helps new clinicians cut through the overwhelm of tracking everything at once, and why qualitative data deserves just as much credit as a percentage on a page.

Here's what we learned:

  • Ten solid probe data points can be just as valid as tracking data throughout an entire session.
  • Qualitative data, like the type and amount of support a student needed, is still meaningful data.
  • Percent accuracy alone doesn't reveal whether a skill functions for a student outside of therapy.
  • Parents and teachers often notice things in other settings that never show up in session data.
  • Starting with a student's smallest achievable step builds momentum faster than jumping straight to the end goal.

RESOURCES

📘✨ Grab your copy of The Secondary SLP Roadmap here! https://www.speechtimefunpd.com/stf-book 

Learn more about Hallie Sherman  and SLP Elevate: 

Learn more about Kayla Obenour: 

JOKE OF THE WEEK:

Q: What do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back?

A: It's a stick. It's not a boomerang.

Where We Can Connect: 

Subscribe & Review on Apple Podcasts

Are you subscribed to the podcast? If you’re not, I want to encourage you to subscribe today so you don’t miss any future episodes! I already have so many amazing guests and topics lined up, I would hate for you to miss a single one!  Click here to subscribe on Apple Podcasts.

Could I ask a big favor? If you are loving the podcast, I would LOVE it if you would leave me a review on Apple Podcasts. I read each and every review.  Plus, you get to pay it forward because it will allow other teachers like you to find the podcast! Wondering how to leave a review? Click here to review, then select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review”.  So easy and so appreciated! 

Do you have a question you would like me to answer on the podcast?

GREAT! CLICK HERE TO FILL OUT THE FORM! 

TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00 Hallie: Hey there, SLP working with grades 4 through 12. New school year, new you. Let's not go into this school year feeling overwhelmed and behind on paperwork. Let's not worry about students asking why they are coming to speech. Let's not have students shrugging their shoulders and looking at you saying, why am I here? I don't want to be here. Let's instead have your students excited to come to speech, ready to take on the challenges you provide and make massive progress towards their goals.

00:00:30 Hallie: If you are ready to make this school year, the year that you leave work promptly at the end of the day, plan in an hour or less a week and go into every session confident that your students will grasp the session objectives, then SLP Elevate is just what you need to make this school year a successful one. Either go to slpelevate.com or send me a DM on Instagram with the word club, C-U-L-B, and we can discuss if SLP Elevate is right for you and your students. Now is the time to get your time back, and now is the time to get your students excited to come to speech. SLP Elevate is perfect for you.

00:01:14 Hallie: Welcome to SLP Coffee Talk, the podcast designed exclusively for speech language pathologists who work with older students, grades 4 through 12. I am your host, Hallie Sherman, your SLP behind Speech Time Fun, the Speech Retreat Conference, and the SLP Elevate membership, and I'm thrilled to bring you conversations, strategies, and insights that will give you the jolt of inspiration that you need. Whether you're tuning in during your morning commute, on a break in between sessions, or even during a well-deserved relaxation time, I am here for you each and every week. Let's do this, SLPs.

00:01:55 Hallie: Hey, hey, and welcome to another episode of SLP Coffee Talk. Today, I have Kayla Obenour here, and we're going to be talking all about data collection and things that you guys are always asking more about. So I know you're going to love the conversation we're going to be having here today. So Kayla, welcome to the show.

00:02:11 Kayla: Hi, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm excited to be here.

00:02:14 Hallie: Tell everyone listening a little bit about yourself and your SLP journey to what you're doing these days.

00:02:20 Kayla: Yeah, so I have always kept my toes in a little bit of every part of our field. So I've worked in schools, I've worked in outpatient home health, private practice. I mean, I've wanted to kind of practice as I preached, so to speak. So as I got really passionate and excited about teaching and training, I didn't want to feel like a hypocrite. I was like, you know, I want to do what I say, you know, or suggest other people should follow. So I have a lot of different clinical experience. I've been practicing for a little over a decade. But more recently, I've gotten more into private practice, fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, working with oral myofunctional therapy. So just a wide range of, I guess, topics in our field.

00:02:59 Hallie: That's amazing. And I love that you said like you want to practice what you preach. And you want to make sure you're doing what you're saying. What does that mean to you that like practicing what you preach?

00:03:09 Kayla: Yeah. So one of my biggest pet peeves, just to be candid, when I was in grad school was, you know, I would get all this really amazing information, but from people who like weren't practicing. And so for me, as a student, especially an experienced, I was like, Well, right. But like, what is it like in the real world? Right? Like, what is it really like? And as I started getting more confident in my skills and getting more experience out in the field, I realized things weren't always what they seemed, right? We aren't treating textbooks, right?

00:03:38 Kayla: We're treating real human beings. We're living within these controlled systems of education and healthcare. And there are so many nuances right to our field that I wanted to make sure that if I was going to have any authority, whether I was speaking to a parent or a colleague, or even, you know, treating a child that I, you know, walk the walk that I understood the research that I was still actively clinically practicing with relevant information, staying current with the best evidence that I could find engaging with new perspectives. So for me, you know, kind of I always run on the philosophy of like practicing at the top of your license.

00:04:13 Hallie: I love that. And I know you have a lot of experience supervising students and new clinicians. What do you find are their biggest challenges when it comes to collecting data?

00:04:22 Kayla: So a couple things come to mind. So the first one being kind of the cognitive load when you're brand new, right? So I feel like, and I, you know, thinking back to even my first session, but seeing these, you know, brand new clinicians come into grad school, you think about, you know, do I have all my materials? Do I have a pencil? Am I using the right therapy approach? How do I use this therapy approach? You know, did I put deodorant on today? Like there's all these things. [inaudible] find balance.

00:04:47 Kayla: You know, I think we forget these are still students. They're in class. You know, they're living in the same economy we're in. A lot of them hold jobs. A lot of students I have have families, they have children, they're taking care of little babies, they're taking care of husbands are taking care of their parents. And so there's a lot of complexity. And so when it comes to data collection, it's like, you know, that's just one small piece, right? Just one small piece of the session.

00:05:10 Kayla: And so to carry all of that load, and then also think, am I tracking the right thing? What am I tracking? You know, there's so many moving parts that I think it makes data collection really, really challenging. And so one thing I always try to do as students is to try to make sense of the mud that they're dredging through and reducing that cognitive load as much as possible. So we can just take, you know, one step at a time.

00:05:31 Hallie: I know, and I've worked with many grad students and had a lot of grad students work with me. When I was in the schools, I always added the data piece in last. I was like, it's so much more important for you to critically think about the students in front of you than to be focusing on tally marks.

00:05:43 Kayla: Yes, yes. And also thinking about like, what even is data? Because I feel like I was never explicitly taught how to take data. That wasn't something that anyone taught me in grad school. I kind of figure it out as you go, right? And I think we get so stuck on the plus and minus, right? Did they do it? Did they not? That there are so many other pieces of evidence, qualitative data, and other, you know, amazing pieces of information that we can gather that are far beyond 80% accuracy. And we get lost. I think that gets lost in data collection for sure.

00:06:13 Hallie: It's so true. We were never taught how to take data. And so much of the clinical field, like we were not taught how to do anything. We're literally thrown in there. I remember my very first client, they're like, okay, you're working on the R sound. I'm like, how do I teach it? And they're like, just go do it. That's cute. But like, but really, but how? And then asking you to take data. And then what's the data for? And there's so many pieces to it. And I always tell clinicians like, what are the students doing? It doesn't matter if they're doing it right and wrong. Like, how did they get it right? How did they get it wrong? Help them get it right. There's so many other pieces to the puzzle.

00:06:40 Kayla: Yes. Yeah. And that's one thing I think we also forget about is it's not, did they do it? Did they not do it? It's under, you know, with what types and levels of support? Because I always, you know, talk about supported data, prompted data, or skewed data versus what's raw? What are they actually able to do? And if we're not tracking the how's and the why's, then the data is not really relevant, right? Like how do we use that data to accurately, reliably, you know, in a valid way, compare it with anything if we don't know under what conditions that data was collected?

00:07:13 Hallie: Right, like if you gave it to like, someone said like, it's a different language. If you just hand someone your pluses and minuses, what does it mean? What level of prompting did you do? When they got it wrong, were they kind of closed? Were they not? There's so much-

00:07:26 Kayla: Yes. Was it before or after you already practiced? So that makes a difference if they had exposure before. Yeah. All these working pieces, for sure.

00:07:32 Hallie: So, so, so true. So when it comes to data, like how do you teach it to capture that real world stuff? How do you make sure that they're really incorporating that qualitative data piece to capture it?

00:07:41 Kayla: The first thing I do with my students is I try to help them differentiate between continuous data, taking data on every single tiny thing possible, and discontinuous data or that probe data piece. And one, we want to think what's realistic? Are we able to track every tiny occurrence or opportunity in a session? Probably not, right? Especially in schools when you have groups and you're managing behaviors and all these things. And I think that's a misconception is that we have to go in and track everything. Every time they say that sound or every time they have an occurrence of, you know, a language component, we have to track it.

00:08:12 Kayla: So the first thing I do is I help them understand that you don't have to take data on everything, right? And not all data is good data. I'd rather have 5, 10, 15 really nice solid data points than a whole session of plus and minuses that don't mean anything. So I find that the second I really bring that to my students' attention, like, Hey, I don't expect data collection your entire session. I kind of see this weight lift because they're like, Oh, okay, that makes me feel better.

00:08:38 Kayla: And then we talk about, you know, what probe data actually is. And when we look at the research behind it, and I'm a very data-driven person. And so I found it interesting that when we talk about data collection, there's really not a lot. There are some, but not a lot of great articles in the speech therapy world. But there's a lot of great peer-reviewed articles on specifically on data collection in the ABA world. And so regardless of what we feel about ABA or whatever powers that are out 

, when we're looking just at data collection, there's a really great article I always like to refer to from [inaudible] that delineates what makes good data, what makes reliable data, what makes valid data.

00:09:14 Kayla: And so one piece that a lot of good research points to is that probe data piece, you know, focusing on small chunks, making sure that when we do it though, that we're looking at measured opportunities. So you can practice an R sound 8,000 times in a session, but maybe you're only intentionally tracking the first 10 and the last 10. And it's so much easier to track that qualitative piece under what condition when you're focusing on 10 data points.

00:09:41 Kayla: And what the research found is that it is just as accurate as taking continuous data, as long as it's done the right way. And so it doesn't take away from the validity of what you're doing to just focus on small chunks. And so that's another piece. We, you know, don't take data on everything. And then let's pick two times in your session where we really focus on… And 10 is kind of my rule of thumb. I don't like to go less than 10, but let's find 10 data points right in the beginning, right? That's our raw data before we introduce any prompting, any cues coming in off the street. What can you do? That's going to be the most spontaneous.

00:10:13 Kayla: And then let's do all of our intervention and then let's reduce that cognitive load. Let's put the data collection away for a minute. Really focus on quality intervention, like really getting to know that child, helping them, supporting them, giving the scaffolding that they need. And then at the very end, get another good chunk of what, you know, the post data, the data that is influenced by all of our really good therapy, hopefully. And then you can compare… You have two really good points of data that you can compare across sessions.

00:10:38 Hallie: I love that. And I love it that you separated data and intervention. Because if you're just collecting data the entire time, when are you doing the intervention?

00:10:47 Kayla: Yes. Yeah. It takes away from our interaction for sure. In all populations, for sure.

00:10:51 Hallie: Yes. And, you know, it's easy to think about that when you're thinking… Like when I think of data, I think of like [inaudible]. Okay, let's drill. Give me some words. Here's some 10 words lists. Here's another 10. But it could not be as clear cut when you're working on some of those comprehension skills, or maybe social skills. Like how many conversations are we having? Or how many inferential questions are we answering? So what would you say to someone that's like, okay, it's not as clear cut of 10 pieces of data point. What would you do in those situations?

00:11:17 Kayla: So sometimes depending on… It obviously depends on the case. Sometimes I really rely on qualitative data. Because how much support did they need? That is still data, right? Even if they didn't need a lot of support, and you were able to document that, you know, we were able to complete XYZ task with only a couple of visual cues or a couple… That's still really good data, right? Less support is still progress. Another thing that I do is I always encourage my students to look beyond plus and minus. And can we make a rubric? Are there other ways that we can measure this that aren't a percent accuracy? I have a love-hate relationship with 80% accuracy. That's…

00:11:51 Hallie: I do too. Because first of all, everyone's not first at 80% or trying to get 80%. And I don't want to do math after taking all that data. So that's how I feel about that also.

00:12:00 Kayla: Well, and you know, again, another topic for another day. But you know, who picks 80%? If a child is at 0%, does it make sense to get to 80% right away? It doesn't. So I try to get them away from focusing on just the percent accuracy. You know, can we look at this in a functional way? Is there a breakdown? How is this skill impacting them functionally in the classroom? If it's causing a breakdown with a particular skill in the classroom or a particular social situation, you could say mastery could be when there's absence of that breakdown when they're able to complete that task. So you know, it can be more, did they do it? Did they not? More of like competency-based, right? Did they do it? Did they not? So just thinking out of the box.

00:12:34 Kayla: And I think sometimes that can be challenging. But that's where I also find that collaboration comes in handy. I've bounced ideas off of teachers like, Hey, what would be most helpful for you? Like, how is this most impacting them in the classroom? Because that can help me decide, how am I going to track this? Because sometimes you're not the one tracking the data too, right? You might have a parent, you might have a teacher helping, work samples, whatever. So yeah, thinking beyond that percent.

00:12:57 Hallie: I love that. Using their work samples in class. That is data, guys. Like you might not have a chance to answer 10 different inferential questions, but they might be doing it over the course of a week in the classroom. Ask the teacher for some data. That is data for us.

00:13:10 Kayla: Yeah, I think one thing too we forget, parents provide data too. And that's one thing I didn't appreciate as much, admittedly so, until I was a parent of a child with special needs. Because I have a kiddo who performs very well in structured situations, performs very exceptionally well in a one-on-one. It seems like she's doing just fine in isolated instances, has a lot of average scores, but has significant limitations, significant disabilities. She cannot generalize across settings. And so, I think just remembering that what we are looking at is such an isolated snapshot, right?

00:13:46 Kayla: Even if we are doing our best to scaffold and remove supports and make it as naturalistic as possible, we're still one-on-one or we're still like one-on-three or it's still a very small group. Can this child apply this skill outside where it matters, outside of our therapy room, outside in the classroom, at home, in outpatient therapy, at hockey practice, right? Are they able to utilize these skills other places?

00:14:07 Kayla: I've seen, not just in my practice, but with my own daughter, so many kids discharged from services prematurely because, oh, well, they did it right here. Look, they have an average score on the Goldman-Fristoe. That's great. But also, they're really excited talking about their day after school and dad doesn't know what the heck she's saying. So, it's like we got to look at all data. And parents, I think, get discounted sometimes, not intentionally, but we forget they're a very important part of the team. So, making sure that we're doing our due diligence to see how this child's performing in all contexts, I think, is another important piece.

00:14:36 Hallie: Often, they're the ones working with them for homework. [inaudible] themselves also and have a say. I love that you bring in your own personal experiences. And it's so, so, so, so true. And being able to have that open communication, especially during progress monitoring time, especially during IEP time when you're writing those IEPs, getting the data from as many people as possible. So, it's not that one snapshot. It's so important.

00:14:57 Hallie: And going back to also that 80% thing, I wanted to touch upon this, that it's also like we have to remember that these are annual goals. So, even if, okay, I'm not going to say 80%, but let's just say the 8 out of 10 is the goal. We're not expecting them to get that from day one. What would you say to someone who's like, okay, but where do I start now versus then? What am I looking for? Am I taking data on that end goal? What am I taking data on throughout the year?

00:15:22 Kayla: So, this is where I might actually make more work for myself in this regard. But I like to look at everything as baby steps. I think, you know, we obviously need to have an annual goal. We need to have something we're working towards. One mistake I've made a lot in my career is I've made my objectives… I've bit off way more than I can chew. And thinking about clinically, when we have our end goal, if I sit down and I make a list of what are all of the foundational skills that a child needs to complete that task, whether it's R [inaudible], whether it's language, you know, it might be a language goal, but maybe they're missing executive functioning foundational skills that are allowing them to make progress in language.

00:15:57 Kayla: So, I try to think how far back? What's the very smallest step I can take? And I do that for two reasons. One, I can demonstrate progress that way, right? I think what is the very base foundational skill? I want to make sure they have that first. I want them to make progress quickly because then I get confidence out of my clients. I get buy-in out of my teachers and my parents. And you know, it makes my job easier because if I have an inferencing goal, but they are missing a key foundational skill 20 steps back, and I assume they have it, that assumption is going to hurt me because my therapy is not going to work, right?

00:16:31 Kayla: So, going back, making, I always do this with all my goals. I say, okay, what literally every single step that child has to take to make that. With R [inaudible], you know, it's not just the motor components of speech. I need to think as a therapist, where is the tongue supposed to be when they say, tsk. I can't tell you how many students cannot tell me that the tongue tip is on the – it's just, you really have to conceptualize every single piece because what if they can't approximate their tongue tip to their alveolar ridge? What if they've compensated so long and what sounds correct, they're bringing their… the light of their tongue up to the roof of their mouth, right? That seems like such a miniscule thing we wouldn't notice.

00:17:06 Kayla: But I think all the way back to the beginning, okay, I need to make sure, can they even do the motoric skill or can they differentiate? Can they tell me if I'm saying the sound wrong? I jump into treating the sound and I don't remember to think about, oh, my gosh. Like they might not even be able to tell me it's an arid production. So really taking baby steps, I guess if that answers the question. You know, having your end goal, but making objectives as easily achievable as possible because this is a working document.

00:17:33 Kayla: And I think we're so afraid to have additional IEP meetings. I know we're overworked. My caseload was insane. I didn't want to think about another meeting. But then we also have to think, are we doing what's best for our students? And that doesn't mean we have to have a meeting every six weeks or anything like that. But even for your own treatment, have your own mini objectives in your daily sessions that help you get to the, you know, so breaking things down into smaller chunks. The same way we would treat clients, we would want them to break things down into smaller chunks. We need to do that in our practice. So I guess that would be my advice for that, a long-winded advice.

00:18:03 Hallie: And can you touch on what does it mean and why is it important to do a strength-based approach when it comes to data collection?

00:18:09 Kayla: Oh, man. This is a loaded question. So, I could go on about this for a long time. So I have a lot of thoughts about this. But speaking of it from just a neurodevelopmental perspective, I'll start there first. When we dive in to utilizing our client's strengths, we're starting with a foundation that will allow them to gain progress quickly. So it's going to be, I feel like in their best interest, we're going to start with something they're good at. It's going to help with confidence. It's going to help with getting them engaged with therapy. If we throw something at them, that is not a strength and they're going to get defeated very quickly.

00:18:43 Kayla: We also help, I don't want to say eliminate, but we help reduce the chance of other diagnoses, mental health diagnoses that come along with communication disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders if we can speak their language, so to speak. Whether it's incorporating an interest, whether it's starting with a different topic that they're really good at. It's such an easy thing for us to do. It's silly not to start there.

00:19:04 Kayla: But it really helps them build some autonomy and some sense of pride as clients that can prevent some of those other comorbidities that we see as these children grow up into adults with depression and anxiety. And I find that especially at younger ages, kids are more candid. It's a cruel world out there. And I know bullying is such a thing. And so if there's anything at all that we can do to help facilitate that piece of it, I think that just makes sense from a do no harm perspective as well.

00:19:34 Hallie: I love that. And I refer to that as like getting a quick win out of them just to get their buy-in. If they can see like, wait a minute, this is something I couldn't do before, but now I can. I'm going to go see this person again. Like they're going to make me feel good. They're going to get that dopamine hit that they need, so you want to come back.

00:19:50 Kayla: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if we think about it with our own thing, I don't want to go somewhere where I just feel like I'm getting beat down all the time or I can't do something. We get discouraged really quickly as adults and kids don't have… Kids are resilient, but they don't have the problem-solving or the coping mechanisms that we do as adults. So yeah, I think it's even more important for our younger clients, for sure.

00:20:07 Hallie: This is so amazing, Kayla. Any last bit of advice that we didn't touch upon yet that you would love new and veteran clinicians to remember when it comes to data collection as this episode is airing in the beginning of the school year and people are already wanting to go cry in their car about everything they have to do. What would you say to them?

00:20:25 Kayla: I think we need to give ourselves grace. I think we need to remember that the only way we're failing is if we're not trying, right? If we aren't willing to adapt and to change and to try new things, that's the only time that we're really not doing our jobs. So it's okay to have a bad day. It's okay to take a whole slew of data and be like, what the heck is this? And also remembering that qualitative data is still data.

00:20:47 Kayla: When I was in the schools, I cannot tell you how many times I devoted so many minutes of my sessions just managing behaviors and getting them regulated enough to participate that I left a session. I'm like, what did I even track? But then when I sat down, there was a lot of qualitative data. I found some effective strategies that brought that child back quickly. I found maybe these two kids don't work together very well. So we're always learning something. There's always something to learn. Just giving ourselves some grace and just realizing that as long as we're still trying and we're still learning, we're doing the best that we can.

00:21:18 Hallie: And it happens to the best SLPs out there. It's common. It might not be something people talk about. It's common that we have bad days. And failures are still lessons for us. We can still learn what works, what doesn't work from failed lessons. So I love that piece of advice. Where can everyone learn about you, your practice and everything you have going on?

00:21:36 Kayla: Great question. So my private practice is based out of Findlay, Ohio. I do have a website. It's rooted in connection therapy and love connecting with people. This has been a really interesting turn in my career doing more of like the advocacy and the trainings. I'm getting to work with other SLPs. It's been so fun. So yeah, lots of people reach out on my website, sometimes on social media.

00:21:56 Hallie: Thank you so, so much, Kayla. I always end my episodes with a joke since jokes do build rapport. What do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back?

00:22:04 Kayla: Oh, man, I don't know.

00:22:07 Hallie: It's a stick. It's not a boomerang.

00:22:12 Kayla: I was trying to think. I'm like, maybe there's like a pun, like a play on words here.

00:22:16 Hallie: I mean, guys, these are corny jokes. You can steal them, take credit for them or blame me. It's really okay. I'm going to blame ChatGPT because they wrote that one. So thank you so, so much, Kayla. Until next week, everyone stay out of trouble.

00:22:35 Hallie: Thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of SLP Coffee Talk. It means the world to me that you're tuning in each and every week and getting the jolt of inspiration you need. You can find all of the links and information mentioned in this episode at my website, speechtimefun.com. Don't forget to follow the show so you don't miss any future episodes. And while you're there, it would mean the world to me if you would take a few seconds and leave me an honest review. See you next week with another episode full of fun and inspiration from one SLP to another. Have fun, guys.

00:23:16 Hallie: Hey there, SLP friends. It is Hallie here, popping in with the best news ever. My new book, Secondary SLP Roadmap, is officially available. If you've ever wished for a clear, practical guide for working with middle and high school students, this is it. It is packed with real stories, ready-to-use strategies and tools you can use right away. Grab your copy now, check the link in the show notes or search Secondary SLP Roadmap on Amazon. And then, of course, please do me a favor. When you are reading it, snap a picture and tag me on Instagram @speechtimefun. I love seeing where you're diving in, the speech room, the couch, waiting in a doctor's waiting room, all the places. All right. Ready? Go grab your copy, and let's make secondary speech feel doable and fun.

Similar Posts