$150.00 (Effective until: 05/26/2023)
June 22, 2023 8:00 - 3:30pm Central Standard Time
Sarah Ward, M.S., CCC-SLP – Join us for this live interactive webinar as Sarah discusses practical cutting edge interventions for improving executive function skills in students (including Autism, Anxiety, Attention Deficits, Social & Behavioral Issues). In this full-day training you will learn many strategies and techniques that you can bring to your classroom or practice that you can utilize immediately with your student/child with executive functioning deficits.
What is executive functioning? Executive functioning is an individual’s ability to organize thoughts and activities, prioritize tasks, manage time efficiently, and make decisions. In this full-day training you will learn many strategies and techniques that you can bring to your classroom or practice that you can utilize immediately with your student/child with executive functioning deficits.
To successfully execute, children need to be aware of task demands and set goals. Then they must access forethought and hindsight to think in an organized way and to sustain their focus on the relevant features of the task at hand. As students mature they learn how to organize their time, space, materials and develop the reasoning skills to consider multiple possible solutions to problems, recognize the “gray” in situations, and manage both expected and unexpected changes in plans, routines, rules and novel situations. Students must fluidly shift between changing task demands and carry out multiple complex steps to achieve expected goals.
This is a practical strategies seminar! First you will learn how to clearly define what the executive function skills are for the purpose of determining the most effective treatment interventions and to understand the development of the executive function skills and what is meant by the term “executive dysfunction”. You will learn dozens of functional, ready-to-use strategies for teaching students how to develop the executive function skills. Teach students to develop a “memory for the future”, to devise plans to achieve their goal, to use self-talk, to self-initiate, to transition to the next task of higher priority and to control their impulses and emotions to successfully complete a task. Improve a student’s awareness skills so that he/she can “read a room” then “stop, think and create” an appropriate-ate action plan and infer possible outcomes. Teach students to see and sense the passage of time, accurately estimate how long tasks will take, change or maintain their pace, and carry out routines and tasks within allotted time frames. Learn methods to improve a student’s ability to cognitively shift and to be flexible in processing and accessing information. Learn how to use the Get Ready * Do* Done Model to turn the core curriculum and lesson/treatment plans into powerful tools to teach students executive control skills. Fresh approaches to help students develop automatically for class routines and transitions.
General education teachers (as well as special education teachers) will find the information presented invaluable. Strategies presented will allow general education teachers to utilize approaches within their own classroom.
Who should attend?
Special Education teachers, SLPs, OTs, counselors, general education teachers, administrators, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, TAG teachers, PTs, principals, nurses, parents, and anyone who works with someone on the autism spectrum, ADHD, bi-polar, or other learning disabilities or has executive functioning deficits.
This conference is open to anyone who wishes to attend. Foundations Course is for open for anyone. Master Class is for anyone familiar with Sarah Ward and has seen her present on executive functioning in the past or those that attend Foundations Course. Master Class and is an advanced training on executive functioning. Please contact AEP Connections with questions.
This Webinar will replay as a recording on Saturday, June 24th beginning at 8 am Central Time. This is not a recording that can be downloaded and replayed at your own pace. All registered attendees will receive a link to the live webinar and a link to the recording replay on Saturday. Full attendance will be taken during the replay and will still qualify you for a certificate of attendance and other professional development opportunities listed. "Live" Q&A feature with the speaker will not be available, however you will have the ability to use the "chat" feature to interact with other participants. Same registration process for both live webinar and the recording replay.
Speaker
Sarah Ward, M.S., CCC-SLP
Sarah Ward has over 25 years of experience in diagnostic evaluations, treatment and case management of children, adolescents and adults with language learning disabilities, nonverbal learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, executive dysfunction, Asperger’s disorders and social pragmatics. Her particular specialty is in the assessment and treatment of executive function deficits. Ms. Ward holds a faculty appointment at the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions where she provides instruction to graduate level students in the assessment and treatment of individuals with traumatic brain injury and other cognitive communication disorders. A popular speaker, Sarah regularly presents nationally and internationally on the topic of executive functions to a variety of professional and parent organizations, school and lay groups. She has presented to and consulted with over 450 public and private schools in Massachusetts and across the United States. Awards received include the MGH Expertise in Clinical Practice Award, the Distinguished Alumni Award and the Faculty in Excellence Award from the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions (2002, 2011).
Disclosure: Sarah Ward’s company Cognitive Connections produces and sells products on her website, which are tools, that support students in developing an internal sense of time. Some of these materials will be referenced in the presentation. Many of these materials can also be purchased at local stores. The website also sells treatment programs and games to develop independent executive function skills. In addition, the website offers many free resources and references. Sarah Ward receives a speaker’s fee for presentations. There are no non-financial relationship to disclose.
Objectives
- State the functional working definition of what is meant by the term “executive function skills” as it pertains to therapeutic interventions.
- Define how situational awareness, self-talk, forethought and episodic memory are the foundational skills for successful task execution.
- Integrate the theory and techniques of the 360 Thinking model to develop lesson plans to remediate executive function skills in the classroom and/or individual and group therapy.
- Generate a framework of interventions for and choose at least 5 ways to foster a student’s ability to sense and manage the passage of time.
- Describe 4 strategies to develop a student’s capacity to read a room then shift and be a ‘mental time traveler’ to pre-experience the physical actions to complete a task in prospective time and space.
- Breakdown the clinical interventions and techniques for teaching students how to plan for, initiate and complete complex assignments and long-term projects within allotted time frames using the Get Ready * Do * Done (Get Done) Model.
- Create a therapeutic alliance with parents to improve the effectiveness of clinical treatment with kids with executive function based challenges and articulate the relationship between how individuals self-regulate and executive function symptomatology to educate clients, family members and school professionals.
Schedule
7:50 am – 8:00 am – Zoom Webinar Opens
8:00 am – 9:30 am – Executive function (EF) skills defined, EF dysfunction and the development of EF skills
9:30 am – 9:45 am – Break
9:45 am – 11:30 am – Treatment interventions to improved forethought and self-talk, task initiation, self-regulations, making timely transitions and following routines
11:30 am – 12:30 pm – Lunch Break
12:30 pm – 2:00 pm – Strategies to increase time management of daily and hourly time and long term projects. Teaching and planning skills: *Get Ready *Do * Done model for classroom
2:00 pm – 2:15 pm – Break
2:15 pm – 3:30 pm – Teaching and planning skills: homework assignments and interventions
Professional Development Offerings
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT NON-DEGREE GRADUATE CREDIT OPTION
1-2 Non-degree credits through Concordia University. Cost is $250 per credit.
ASHA CEUs
Each program (day) is offered for .6 ASHA CEUs (Intermediate level; professional area). Full attendance and a completed evaluation required for satisfactory completion of ASHA CEUs.
CERTIFICATE OF ATTENDANCE
6 hours for the day. Attendance will be checked via ZOOM log in/log out.
NBCC
AEP Connections, LLC has been approved as an NBCC-Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7173. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. AEP Connections, LLC is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. This workshop offers 6 NBCC clock hours.
NASP
AEP Connections is approved by the National Association of School Psychologists to offer continuing education for school psychologists. AEP Connections maintains responsibility for the program. NASP Approved Provider #1165. A code to access the course evaluation will be provided in segments throughout the webinar, to ensure full participation.
ASWB
AEP Connection, LLC, #1332, is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved as ACE providers. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. AEP Connections, LLC maintains responsibility for this course. ACE provider approval period: 1/27/2022- 1/27/2025. Social workers completing this course receive 6 continuing education credits per day. A course evaluation with additional post test questions is required for satisfactory completion.
AOTA
AEP Connections, LLC is an AOTA Approved Provider of professional development. Course approval ID 02206. This distance learning – interactive is offered for up to .6 CEUs (6 contact hours). Intermediate, OT Service Delivery. AOTA does not endorse specific course content, products, or clinical procedures. A course evaluation with additional post test questions is required for satisfactory completion.