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The Blooming Tree Foundation
For Children with Special Abilities

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(+44) 20 3096 7541

Taking your Child with ASD
from Non-Vocal to Verbal

28-29 August 2025

           talktools UK, Talk Tools UK, Talk tools London          

Join us for “Taking Your Child with ASD from Non-Vocal to Verbal,” an intensive two-day training course designed for Parents, Speech-Language Therapists and Occupational Therapists. This engaging, hands-on course is led by Renee Roy Hill, MS, CCC-SLP, and Risca Solomon, MS, BCBA. This training is designed to support children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in developing functional verbal communication using TalkTools. These techniques are integrated with strategies from Applied Behaviour Analysis using reinforcement-based procedures to enhance learning and communication

What You’ll Learn

  • How to integrate Applied Behaviour Analysis and OPT to teach speech
  • Foundational skills required before speech emerges
  • Techniques to promote and shape vocalizations
  • Tools and strategies to develop oral motor skills into speech

Course Description

The course demonstrates the importance of using specific techniques within hierarchies to develop the oral placement skills for speech and feeding. For Speech and Language Pathologists and Occupational Therapists, this course demonstrates techniques developed within the Applied Behaviour Analysis field to maximize learning for functional speech using reinforcement based procedures. The course guides all participants through a complete program beginning with developing cooperation and ending with functional vocabulary. 

Learning Outcomes

Participants will be able to: 

    1. Describe how the science of Applied Behaviour Analysis in conjunction with oral placement and tactile therapies can be used to teach non-verbal or non-imitative clients with autism to speak.

 

    1. Identify the prerequisite skills necessary to teach vocal speech and apply 3-4 techniques in the applied behaviour analysis research that have been used to develop vocalizations.

 

    1. Describe the sequential steps of developing functional communication beginning with motivation, reinforcement, motor imitation and specific shaping strategies that can be used to maximize learning of functional speech.

 

    1. Explain how many non-verbal clients with autism have underlying oral motor and motor planning deficits that should be addressed.

 

    1. Apply specific task analysed techniques to assist the therapist in applying TalkTools hierarchies to individuals with autism.

 

    1. Identify the connection between oral placement skills and the motor aspects of speech

 

    1. Apply specific sequential techniques to transition oral placement skills to functional speech for those clients not responding to traditional verbal modelling and shaping techniques.

 

AGENDA: DAY 1 

9:00am-12:00pm (15 min. break at 10:45am)

    • Why a Combined Applied Behaviour Analysis & Speech Pathology Approach?
    • Identify Current Definitions of Autism, Applied Behaviour Analysis and Oral Placement Therapy (OPT)
    • Definitions of Skinner’s Verbal Operants
    • Systematic Program Overview

12:00pm-12:30pm LUNCH

12:30pm – 5:00pm (15 min. break at 2:15pm)

    • Key Principles of Applied Behaviour Analysis: Motivation, Reinforcement and the Discrete Trial
    • Developing Cooperation 
    • Manding: Importance and How to Teach
    • Using Transitive Motivating Operations to Maximize Manding
    • Motor Imitation: Importance and How to Teach
    • Question & Answer time

 

AGENDA: DAY 2

9:00am-12:00pm (15 min. break at 10:45am)

    • Oral Placement Therapy (OPT): Learn task analysed techniques and specific behavioural techniques for implementing activities with clients who have had difficulty developing the motor plans to begin.  

12:00pm-12:30pm LUNCH

12:30pm – 5:00pm (15 min. break at 2:15pm)

    • Using a Visual Schedule: When and How
    • Teaching to Vocalize on Demand: Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing, Direct Reinforcement, Using Extinction, Rapid Motor Imitation.
    • Bridging the Gap between Oral Placement Therapy (OPT) and Speech: Putting it All Together
    • Bridging Strategies from Tool to Tactile Cue to Visual Cues Through Echoic (imitation) and Manding (function) 
    • Transitioning from Isolated Speech Sounds to Functional Words: Practicing Multisyllabic Motor Plans
    • Question & answer
.

Registration

Note: for group bookings discounts and queries email: info@bloomingtreefoundation.co.uk

Duration: 2 full days of interactive training From 9am to 5pm

Location: 13 Acton Hill Mews, London, W3 9QN

Cost: £280

CEUs: 1.2 ASHA CEUs / 1.2 AOTA CEUs (available)

Who Should Attend:

Parents / guardians, Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Behaviour Analysts, Special Educators, and other professionals supporting children with autism.

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Cost: £280.00

About the hosts

Renee Roy Hill has provided therapeutic assessments and program planning for adults and children with oral placement, feeding and motor speech deficits for over 17 years. She is the owner of Crossroads Therapy Clinic in New Braunfels, TX and a member of the TalkTools® speakers bureau. Renee has been an invited speaker for ASHA state conventions and has received specialized training in speech/oral-motor/feeding therapy, Apraxia, sensory processing disorders, Hanen Courses, NDT training, TAMO therapy and PROMPT. She is the creator of the TalkTools® Schedule Board Kit, co-author of Ice Sticks, and author of the TalkTools® Apraxia Program.

Risca Solomon has over 17 years of experience in the field of Applied Behaviour Analysis working with children with autism and related disabilities. Risca is a Board Certified Behaviour Analyst with a Master’s degree in Positive Approaches to Challenging Behaviour from the Welsh School of Learning Disabilities, Cardiff University. In 2009, Risca received the Exceptional Professional award from Cerebra, a charity for children with brain related conditions. She runs Skybound Autism Therapies, a multidisciplinary company based in the United Kingdom.