Scholar Completion Seminar
Congratulations on completing Project INTERACT! We hope that you are finding new ways to apply the knowledge and skills you gained in Project INTERACT in your current clinical settings. Please take a few moments to view Dr. Ogletree’s video below and then let us know how you are incorporating evidence-based practices (EBPs) into your school and clinical experiences by posting a comment describing a time that you used an evidence-based practice you learned in Project INTERACT. (Just use the back button when you finish the video to come back here and post a comment!)
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I currently work in a SNF, but while my patient population is primarily adults, I still use my INTERACT training daily. INTERACT has better prepared me to support the needs of people with ASD who enter our facility. I educate staff, identify communication needs, facilitate supportive communication options, and identify interventions to improve their independence and autonomy within the helathcare setting, such as using schedules and use of symbolic communication options to support comprehension. I also use the skills I developed in interdisciplinary communication and teamwork in order to improve patient care for every single one of my patients.
Hi all! I am currently finishing year 4 of teaching and 2 as an ECS teacher in a middle school setting. I find myself using EBP’s daily, while also sharing these EPB’s with my TA’s and colleagues. One of my favorite EBp’s I have implemented strongly this year was PECS (picture exchange communication system). I have multiple students who are non-verbal and struggle to communicate their wants, needs, emotions, etc verbally. PECS allows them to take control of their own communication and gain independence and confidence in sharing with others. I have seen my students request their PECs book throughout the day and implement it consistently and efficiently to communicate with their staff and peers.
Project Interact has made me even more comfortable working on teams as a school psychologist intern. I work amongst teams daily and refer back to my ebp’s often to problem solve supporting students. Often students are brought to our problem solving teams and it is helpful to have the experiences/knowledge of Project Interact to rely on
Hey everyone! I refer back to so many EBP practices learned from my time in Project INTERACT. I currently work at a skilled nursing facility but I have been able to educate and provide education and advocacy to other professionals (physical therapists, occupational therapists, nursing, and social workers) with pre-conceived ideas about ASD. I have several autistic patients who benefit from AAC to assist in communicating wants/needs/ideas. I implement AAC into sessions while educating staff and family members on valuing AAC as communication. I also implement visual supports, to support generalization and easing transitions. I really enjoyed my time during Project INTERACT, I have learned so much about being an effective, collaborative clinician.
This is my 3rd year teaching in a special education environment and I use EBPs all the time in my work. I have lots of different students coming from different backgrounds and ability levels and it can be very challenging to figure out what that child needs or what they are trying to communicate to me through their behavior. A lot of my student’s rely on different levels of support done through: prompting, modeling, visual schedules, timers and reward systems. Interact was a great tool for me to get a baseline in a lot of EBPs and allowed me to research many and find what best meets my students needs.
Project interact has better equipped me as a school psychologist to work in interdisciplinary teams which include special education teachers, speech and language pathologists, occupational therapist etc to serve and assist others in serving students with ASD and other severe disabilities based on their individual needs. From the special education identification process to providing recommendations for resources, evidenced based practices, and interventions to utilize with students. Some evidence based practices that I’m currently using or recommending to others within my role include discrete trial training, modeling, positive and negative reinforcement, functional behavioral assessments, prompting, and visual supports with the most common practice being functional behavioral assessments to better understand the underlying cause of student behavior and identify interventions or practices to best serve their needs. These practices can be used with varying ages and needs.
My time in Project INTERACT provided me with several strategies and interventions that have been so useful in providing speech/language services to students on my caseload in a school setting. I have had several opportunities to work with other professionals in our school, including regular education teachers, special education teachers, occupational therapists, psychologists, etc. to assess and provide interventions for students on the autism spectrum and students with intellectual disabilities. Some EBPs that I use on a daily basis include visual supports, modeling, reinforcement, and AAC. I have found that visual supports, including visual schedules, are beneficial for not only my students on the autism spectrum, but also all of my other students as well. I frequently collaborate with other professionals in the school to discuss and implement visual supports that will help students on the autism spectrum function in the classroom and allow them to better access the curriculum. I am so thankful for the opportunities Project INTERACT gave me to learn and grow in my field.
Participating in Project INTERACT helped me to gain needed knowledge and expertise in working with autistic individuals. The experience has really enhanced my time at WCU!
I am still completing my doctorate in psychology at WCU and have been able to apply some of the skills I gained through our interprofessional teaming in Project INTERACT into my practicum experiences working with interdisciplinary care teams providing assessment and intervention services to older adults. Learning about augmentative and alternative communication through Project INTERACT has been helpful in considering potential supports that might help clients who do not use spoken language to communicate their needs and preferences more effectively, giving them the opportunity to be heard and understood. I also work as a mental health therapist outside of school, where I have had the pleasure of working with individuals on the autism spectrum, as well as parents and partners of individuals with autism. I have used a variety of EBPs that we learned about in Project INTERACT in this setting, including reinforcement, social skills training, visual supports, and parent-implemented interventions. I am very thankful for having the opportunity to participate with Project INTERACT!
While I’m currently employed in a SNF, I use my training from INTERACT often. I use some of the EBPs I learned with patients and share them with staff to facilitate better patient care. I have worked with staff to develop patient schedules and facilitate improved communication options for patients with ASD. I also use the skills I built in interdisciplinary teamwork and communication to better coordinate with other rehab disciplines and medical staff to improve patient care.
As a special education teacher, I use EBP everyday! I use time delay most often to teach my students new materials. In addition, I rely on symbol communication and tactile communication to teach my students. The resources that ProjectINTERACT provided me with help me in my everyday teaching life. In addition, the skills they taught me have helped me collaborate with professionals when completing IEPs and Eligibility.
This is my second year teaching at an elementary school. I use a variety of EBPs in my classroom but I have shared a few of my staples. I like to do continuous interest inventories with my students so I am able to provide encouraging reinforcement strategies. I have found positive reinforcements help students with behaviors, completing classwork and it even helps with their self confidence. Another EPB that I use is task analysis, I love using this when teaching math word problems. It helps me, as a teacher, to see what specific steps the student may be struggling with. Prompting is also used on a daily basis in my classroom from academic skills to self care skills.
As a Special Education teacher, I use EBPs everyday in the classroom. I specifically use prompting, PECS, task analysis, and reinforcement every single day. I have 9 students this school year, 6 with autism. Project INTERACT influenced how I use EBPs with my students. Prompting and reinforcement comes naturally when teaching a lesson. I use task analysis to teach all skills whether academic or functional life skills. We use PECS for students who have verbal and nonverbal communication. I am so grateful that Project INTERACT improved my use of EBPs in the classroom.
I am currently working as a School Psychologist in Burke County Public Schools. Project INTERACT better prepared me to work in interdisciplinary teams and I work closely with the pre-k team and complete TPBA’s frequently. EBPs that I have utilized and/or consulted about with colleagues include visual schedules, social stories, and modeling with various students. One student in particular relies on his visual schedule daily in order to be successful throughout his school day. This experience has allowed me to be better equipped to work with students and staff in the school buildings and provide support to those who need it.
I learned a lot and gained valuable information during my participation in Project INTERACT. I just got hired for an ECS position at a school. I plan on using several EBPs such as visual supports (e.g., visual schedules), AAC (e.g., coreboard), prompting (e.g., system of least prompts), reinforcement (e.g., tangibles, verbal praising) and social stories for my students since many of them have never attended school before (e.g., first day jitters, behavior expectations, etc).
Project INTERACT helped prepare me to walk into my classroom feeling ready and confident!
Hello 2022 INTERACT Scholars! Post a comment here about how you are using EBPs in your current setting!
I had such an amazing experience in Project INTERACT! I have not yet started my job- I begin mid-August so I haven’t had the chance to implement EBP yet. I do plan on using EBP relating to social narratives, modeling, and prompting. I am also expecting to use EBP relating to AAC devices.
I am so thankful for this experience and look forward to applying the knowledge learned in my field. That said, I have a job, but do not start working until the end of August, so I don’t know exactly what my caseload will look like. I will use EBPs such as social narratives, modeling, visual supports, AAC, prompting, reinforcement, and more as my clients work towards meeting their goals/objectives.
Okay, not sure how I missed this but I do have a lot of experience, now that I’m the lead teacher in the classroom, with EBP’s. I use three constantly with different students; prompting, time delay, and modeling. I actually use MD the most as a lot of my students need to see visual examples all the time.
I’m grateful for my time with INTERACT and all the skills I learned. It definitely prepared me to work with my IEP teams, understanding where they are coming from while adding my own experience to help create goals to benefit our students.
I had a wonderful experience with Project INTERACT! I felt so prepared to work on IEP teams to meet the needs of the students due to my interprofessional practice provided though this grant. Specific EBPs that I use daily are visual picture cards and overall AAC, social stories, prompting, modeling, and structured practice. I am so thankful for INTERACT for making me feel more comfortable and confident using these interventions as well as working on a team!
I am not currently employed in a setting with children, but I do use EBPs everyday! The EBPs I use the most are modeling, prompting, time delay and visual supports. I plan to continue to implement these and additional EBPs into my work with children in the future 🙂
This was such an amazing experience and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to engage in ProjectINTERACT! One of my current employers is a rural community mental health agency. In addition to implementing EBPs (i.e., social narratives, modeling, prompting, reinforcement, social skills training, visual supports) with a client who engages in Outpatient/School-Based therapy, I have also been able to implement an approach/outlook that is sensitive to the needs of this client/their family who live in a rural area based on ProjectINTERACT readings covering this topic. Along with saved lectures from ProjectINTERACT, I frequently refer to AFIRM modules and that wonderful EBP chart to assist in identifying best EBPs to implement based on my client/client’s family’s needs.
Thank you for my time with project INTERACT. ONE EBP that I use with my students and in my classroom is the use of an AAC device to increase my students means of communication. We also use picture schedules so students are aware of changes and what is coming next in the day to ease transistions.
Hi everyone! Thank you for the opportunity for Project INTERACT and all that it brought me. Thank you to my team and the wonderful professors who provided an enriching learning experience. My time as a clinical fellow SLP has been full of learning. I work at a pediatric private practice where we currently serve several autistic children and their families. I have been able to implement EBP using AAC in both assessment implementation and education to parents and users. I also take a child directed therapy approach to increase success and motivation. I incorporate visual supports throughout therapy and the clinic has visual schedules in restrooms and in the kitchen. Teaming is key to successful therapy. I work closely with other speech language pathologists, occupational therapists, and physical therapists. We have weekly whole team meetings to ensure we are providing the best care to the patients we serve. I have learned how to determine early signs of autism and have worked directly with developmental pediatricians to ensure families have the services they need. Without the grant, I wouldn’t feel as confident as I do when providing evidence based services! Thank you 🙂
Participating in the Project INTERACT experience has been invaluable to me as a budding clinician. Related to the provision of EBPs while working with autistic clients, I have placed a heavy emphasis on visual supports, augmentative-alternative communication, prompting, and time delay. I also place high value on naturalistic interventions/client-led approaches to the extent possible in a contrived setting such as the one I work in: an integrated pediatric private practice that is also a certified autism center in eastern NC.
While applying visual supports, I am intentional about including visuals and multi-modal input during explicit teaching phases prior to targeted activities. For example, I may write out different WH-question words and draw visual representations of target answers, such as WHO = PERSON or ANIMAL (with pictures). While using augmentative-alternative communication, I lean on augmented input. I also incorporate low tech aided (e.g., picture cards) and low tech unaided (e.g., baby signs/total communication) systems while targeting requesting and commenting skills. The use of prompting is ubiquitous throughout my session, and I lean heavily on gestural prompts as well as indirect verbal prompts. Using indirect verbal prompts allows the client to truly ‘think’ about whether their response was correct (e.g., “hmmmm, is it a horse?”). This is intended to elicit a self-correction/repair/additional attempt. Time delay/wait time is essential not only between tasks but also within tasks. I am intentional about clear transitions and providing clients extended time between the prompt/given answer and their response (e.g., comprehension questions during joint-interaction/shared reading).
In the area of interprofessionalism, I am intentional about collaborating with occupational therapists and physical therapists in pursuit of achieving shared goals. Their input allows me to better understand how our clients are functioning across demands. I am also committed to interprofessional education, and have indulged in providing resources to and gathering resources from my colleagues. Two areas of shared education that have been recent include pediatric feeding and echolalia/natural language acquisition.
Thank you to everyone that has allowed me to be apart of Project INTERACT and to my awesome cohort/professors for helping me grow! 🙂 I am a pediatric home-health SLP serving the surrounding Charlotte area. Majority of my clients are receiving early intervention. From what I have learned about ASD and other severe disabilities from Project INTERACT, I have been able to educate families, begin to initiate discussions about red flags that I am seeing as a clinician, and referring them to seek further evaluations. I have been doing a lot of functional communication training and coaching parents throughout and the end of each session using parent implementing intervention. As we know parents/caregivers are the ones that are with the child the most and with home-health this is the key area to coach parents/caregivers since you are in the child’s natural environment. For children under 3 years old, I collaborate with a service coordinator and other key members of the team including but not limited to OTs, PTs, parents, etc. Working together and reviewing a child’s IFSP has been great and I am thankful that Project INTERACT has trained me for this.
I am daily grateful for my time in Project INTERACT! I am currently working as a pediatric psychologist in an outpatient clinic and will soon primarily be administering autism evaluations. I use EPBs in my daily approach as I provide recommendations for parents and as I set up my testing room for kiddos. I also am more equipped to collaborate and communicate with team members in different disciplines within the clinic, including SLPs, occupational therapists, and physical therapists. My time in Project INTERACT learning about these disciplines has helped me be a better team member in my job today!
I am thankful for my time in Project INTERACT and the valuable experience it provided me as a future School Psychologist. During testing with all my students, but especially for those with autism, I have been utilizing task analysis and picture schedules to help students easily transition throughout the testing process. I have assisted teachers with using time-delay when working one-on-one with students. Additionally, due to developing my team skills throughout Project INTERACT, I hope to one day work on Transdisciplinary Play Based Assessment (TPBA) teams with preschools. I enjoyed working on a team in Project INTERACT and receiving TPBA training will allow me to continue my passion for providing team based services for students with autism.
Thank you to all the faculty who have helped with Project INTERACT! I currently work at a community mental health organization in Western NC. Part of my role has been consulting with staff who have a client that has been diagnosed with ASD or suspected to have ASD. Some EBP’s that I have recommended and provided training materials on include reinforcement, modeling, prompting, social narratives, time delay, social skills training, and visual supports. Additionally, at my current practicum placement, TEACCH, I utilize many of the EBP’s I learned during my time as an INTERACT scholar. Specifically, I have utilized task analysis, self-management, naturalistic intervention, and more. The teaming skills I learned as a scholar have also served me well while working with other processionals (i.e., SLP, Social Worker, Counselor) at TEACCH.
Welcome to the Scholar Completion Seminar, 2021 INTERACT Scholars! Please submit a comment to tell us how you are using EBPs in your current setting!
I am currently working in a high school for students with AU. I currently work with Speech Pathologist, behavior specialist, parents, and co-teachers to help support our students to be successful! We all work together to create a plan for our students and I have been able to be confident and use EPB’s to help guide our team.
I am an SLP at a short term rehab. I work daily with an inter professional team of occupational therapists and physical therapists. Project interact provided me with first hand experience working on an inter professional team. That experience has prepared me to be a leader at my job and encourage collaboration between the disciplines. Evidenced based practices that I frequently use are promoting, modeling, and visual supports in therapy. I am also able to teach these skills to coworkers and nurses.
I am currently an SLP at a pediatric outpatient clinic in Tidewater Virginia. I often think back to my time in Interact when I’m planning sessions, writing notes, or talking to my team. I often think about how we talked about visual schedules working for children on the spectrum and have showed many parents how to go about implementing them at home.
First, I would like to thank all the faculty involved with Project INTERACT. It is because of the dedicated faculty that the program itself is so successful! Project INTERACT has greatly contributed to my own professional development! Since, participating in the program, I have had the opportunity to work with an interdisciplinary assessment team. I have also utilized many of the EBPs not only as recommendations for the neurodivergent clients that I have seen at my internal practicum site, but also in session with clients to better faciliate testing. For instance, I have used reinforcement with neurodivergent children to keep them engaged with testing. I have also provided recommendations to parents about using social stories with children, and having created one of my own during Project INTERACT has helped me in conceptualizing this intervention for families! I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in Project INTERACT!
I am currently an Exceptional Children’s Resource teacher for students in Kindergarten through 4th grade. I enjoyed working with my teammates on projects for Interact and that we were able to stay together throughout our time together. It was helpful to be able to bounce ideas off of one another, to tap into their individual knowledge banks, and to work with people we had come to know. I learned a lot about the role of the SLP, which is an area that is very new to me. I work in “real life” with an amazing SLP and it has helped me better understand how we can collaborate to meet students’ needs. This school year, I have been able to request AAC for students where prior to Interact I would not have had that knowledge to advocate with. We use an app called the Bridge App and it has been a powerful addition for several of our kids. It is amazing to see how something so simple can have such a big impact. It allows the students to ask for basic needs and wants and even to make jokes with me and other kids! I use many of the evidence-based practices we covered in Interact, such as the aforementioned AAC, but also modeling, prompting, positive reinforcement, social emotional learning, visual supports, and more.
Project INTERACT has been one of the best experiences I’ve had at WCU. Not only did I learn so much, the supportive staff and design of the program was entirely beneficial. One of the evidence based practices that I use the most is visual support. These are definitely a go-to during a time that may be overestimating or to simply get the point across. Additionally, I use constant time-delay quite a bit. Especially when teaching something like new vocabulary words. Overall, I have used a variety of strategies that I learned through Project INTERACT.
I learned so much from Project Interact. I am currently a SLP at an elementary school and Western NC. I learned a lot about interprofessional teaming in the program and had a great experience working with students in related fields. In my current position, I collaborate and work in a disciplinary team daily and frequently communicate with families. The team will work together to evaluate a student with ASD, set intervention goals, problem solve hurdles to the students’ progress and check in on growth benchmarks on IEPs. Some EPBs I use with my students include, modeling, prompting, reinforcement, social skills training/narratives, video modeling, visual supports and AAC. Thanks Interact!
Thank you all for the wonderful opportunity to participate in INTERACT. This program has proven useful with all my colleagues interactions and working as a team towards the same goals.
I have used different EBP this past year working with middle schoolers with needs from Autism to slight learning disabilities. I have been able to adjust my teaching and following assessments accordingly to each students needs. Particularly u use modeling, peer instruction, behavioral visual charts, small group and individual instruction, visual schedules and explicit specified instruction.
Simplifying and chunking with visual support has helped many of my middle school aged students to work independently and with greater success.
First, I would like to thank all of the professors and my classmates for a wonderful experience with Project INTERACT. I value my experience in the program and aim to continue utilizing the skills learned in my future work. At this time, I am continuing my doctoral degree in psychology. However, I have had the opportunity to utilize interprofessional teaming skills and evidence-based practices at my practicum sites. While at my previous practicum site, I was often able to collaborate with speech language pathologists, behavioral health/psychologists, occupational therapists, clients, and their families to complete comprehensive evaluations for autism spectrum disorder and develop treatment recommendations in communication with the team members. These evaluations were some of the most thorough I have ever completed and it was incredible to work with so many other professionals. In addition, I have had the chance to continue learning about evidence-based practices and will be working to apply these skills at my new practicum site this coming semester. At this new site, I will be working with clients of all ages to provide therapeutic interventions, primarily cognitive behavior therapy, trauma-focused therapy, and parenting skills (including differential reinforcement skills).
Hello INTERACT Scholars! Tell us how you are using EBPs in your school or clinical settings!
I am currently teaching in a middle school separate setting (self-contained) classroom. Most of my students are on the autism spectrum and/or have mild-to-moderate intellectual disabilities. I have been using several different EBPs in my classroom, including prompting, reinforcement, visual supports, and social narratives. Social narratives have been particularly effective for teaching social skills such as respect, communication skills, and self-control. One of the main reinforcements in my classroom is ‘sticker sheets’, where our students earn stickers for positive behavior; once each box on the sheet has a sticker, they can turn the card in for a reward.
I have really enjoyed my time with Project InterACT and am so appreciative to have had the opportunity to take part in it!