Carolina Speech and Language now offering a new Social Language Program for Teens and Pre-Teens

My name is Bill Moylan and I am one of the speech-language pathologists at Carolina Speech and Language in Summerville, SC. I joined CSAL full-time in June, 2009 and I have been asked by our clinical director, Sally Asquith, to develop a social language program focusing on the social language needs of our present and future patients who have been diagnosed with ASD or other impairment or disorder that affects his or her pragmatic language abilities.

This new program will run for approximately 10 to 12 weeks, during which we will focus on a number of social language issues that affect individuals with ASD in a group setting. Some of these topics include (1) expressing emotions, (2) general conversational skills (e.g. initiating discussions, maintaining topic, etc.), (3) interpreting and using nonverbal language, (4) social mores (e.g. introductions, manners, complimenting, making appropriate comments, etc.), (5) understanding contextual cues, and (6) abstract thinking skills. It is our goal and hope that after completing this program, our patients will gain the necessary skills to be able to participate in the social world to the fullest extent possible. In the future, we also plan to offer a maintenance plan for any patient for whom it is necessary once he or she completes the program. We will be using many of the principles and issues spoken about by renowned authorities such as Tony Attwood, Carol Gray, and Temple Grandin. As a starting point, we will be using Navigating the Social World by Jeanette McAfee, M.D. as a springboard for this exciting new venture. These concepts and issues will be presented in a group setting with the group size being limited to no more than 6 individuals.

We are offering two opportunities for our patients joining this program - T-COMM and Junior T-COMM. T-COMM (which stands for Teen Communication) will be for patients between 14 to 18 years of age (primarily high school) and Junior T-COMM will be for patients between 10 and 13 years of age (primarily upper elementary to middle school aged). Some of our patients have already begun this program and we are ready to open up other times and dates as we receive referrals. We would especially like to offer these programs in the morning hours for those teens and pre-teens who are being homeschooled and may be more flexible in their daily schedule. The ultimate goal would be to have two offerings of each level with the starting dates staggered so that parents would not have to wait any longer than 5 or 6 weeks to have their child enter this program. We also hope to collaborate with other professionals in the area (e.g. physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, OTs, etc.) to add to and improve this program.

We are presently accepting referrals for any teenager or preteen who you think could benefit from this exciting program. Feel free to contact me with any questions. I'd love to be able to share our vision for our patients in more detail.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.

Bill Moylan, MS Ed., CCC-SLP
Carolina Speech and Language
office: 843-832-1795
email: bill@carolinaspeechandlanguage.com