The Preschool SLP: KellyVessSLP

Children who speak freely at home but shut down in public aren’t being stubborn. Their capacity is getting crushed by the demands of new people, new settings, and unpredictable routines. In this episode, we break down how to build capacity using the PRIDE approach—adapted specifically for reluctant speakers and children with selective mutism. You’ll hear how to shift out of “thermostat mode” and into “mime mode,” using 10 minutes a day of pure responsiveness to lower pressure, increase connection, and support communication in high-stress seasons like the holidays. We walk through exactly how to use each part of PRIDE—objective encouragement, reflection, imitation, description, and enjoyment—without adding demands, without pushing speech, and without triggering shutdown. This is the blueprint for helping sensitive, cautious, or selectively mute children communicate more confidently when the world gets loud. In this episode, you’ll learn: • How the Demands–Capacity Model explains shutdowns in public or group settings • Why holiday routines, unfamiliar people, and novel activities increase mutism • How to adapt each PRIDE element for reluctant speakers (no expansions, no recasts) • What 10 minutes of daily “mime time” does to build capacity fast • The specific social and communication behaviors that improve when capacity increases • How SLPs can coach families through this process during high-stress seasons If you work with children who freeze, whisper, avoid, or stop speaking outside the home, this episode gives you a concrete plan you can use immediately. Want ready-to-use activities that make your therapy educationally rich without adding demands? Join the SIS Membership and get weekly materials designed to support speech, language, and social-emotional foundations—especially for sensitive and reluctant communicators. 👉 https://www.kellyvess.com/sis

If you serve young children with behavior challenges, this episode delivers a framework you can put to work immediately. Today, we break down the PRIDE skills: five evidence-based behavior strategies drawn from Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) and Teacher-Child Interaction Training (TCIT). These methods have more than 50 years of empirical support and consistently improve behavior, engagement, emotional regulation, and communication across diverse populations. You’ll learn how to use objective praise, reflection, imitation, description, and genuine enjoyment to build connection—not compliance. This child-directed interaction approach has been shown to make meaningful gains for children with autism, ADHD, selective mutism, developmental language disorders, trauma histories, hearing differences, anxiety, and disruptive or externalizing behaviors. The research is broad. The effect sizes are large. And the application is simple. We dig into how PRIDE skills strengthen executive function, expressive language, joint attention, and emotional resilience—and why these strategies are essential for SLPs, early childhood educators, and anyone working in preschool or early elementary settings. When you have educationally rich activities prepared, you can stay fully present and implement PRIDE with intention, clarity, and consistency. If you want treatment plans that allow you to focus on relationships, responsiveness, and evidence-based connection strategies that actually change behavior, the SIS Membership is designed for you. Each week, you receive educationally rich activities that treat the whole child—speech, language, literacy, executive function, and motor foundations—so you can implement PRIDE seamlessly without scrambling for materials. Join the SIS Membership and make your therapy easier, richer, and more effective: https://www.kellyvess.com/sis Let’s build capacity, connection, and better outcomes—one child at a time.💚Kelly

If you treat speech sound disorders (SSD) and you’re not seeing the gains you expect, this episode is your playbook. We cut through the noise and name the 10 research-informed predictors of slower progress—attention/self-monitoring limits, sensitive temperament, co-occurring language/working-memory load, hearing impairment (fricatives/affricates), motor speech factors, structural constraints (e.g., open bite), low stimulability, later start to intervention, low therapy intensity/irregular attendance, and environmental barriers. Then we pivot hard into the three levers that consistently move outcomes: choosing complex, maximally distinct targets (e.g., SW-blends), delivering dynamic temporal tactile cueing (DTTC-style), and holding the ~80% challenge point to avoid reinforcing error patterns. Concrete therapy examples, parent carryover, and generalization strategies included.

What you’ll learn:

📈How attention and self-monitoring mask progress until generalization “pops”

📈Why a sensitive temperament demands predictability and a responsive start

📈How co-occurring language and limited verbal working memory can look like CAS—but aren’t

📈What hearing loss really means for fricatives/affricates and consonant deletion patterns

📈Practical expectations for motor speech and structural constraints (e.g., open bite)

📈How stimulability with maximal cueing informs prognosis

📈Why start age and habit strength matter for entrenched /r/ and /s/ errors

📈Why frequency > duration for home practice, and how to embed one daily rep

📈The “no-data-during-DTTC” mindset: probe quickly, cue deeply, fade fast

The 3 levers (non-negotiables):

📈Target selection: Complex, maximally distinct clusters (SW > ST/SP/SK) to drive system-wide change.

📈Delivery: DTTC-style, moment-to-moment cueing (choral → fade), with brief probes to verify learning.

📈Challenge point: Keep accuracy near ~80%—high enough to learn, low enough to adapt. If you’re reinforcing errors, pivot.

00:00 Why progress “flatlines” then explodes

03:10 Predictor #1: Attention/self-monitoring

06:20 #2: Sensitive temperament & predictable routines

10:00 #3: Language/working memory vs. “looks like CAS”

14:15 #4: Hearing impairment (HF cues, fricatives/affricates)

17:10 #5: Motor speech considerations

20:05 #6: Structural constraints (open bite, dental)

22:40 #7: Stimulability with maximal cueing

25:00 #8: Older start age, entrenched habits

27:10 #9: Intensity/attendance

28:45 #10: Environmental barriers

30:45 The 3 levers: complex targets, DTTC, 80% challenge point

38:00 One-rep-a-day home carryover that actually sticks

Call to action: Stop reinventing materials. Make your work easy with effective, educationally-rich SSD tools at your fingertips—complex target sentence strips, paragraphs, and movement-literacy activities ready so you can focus on cueing, not prep. 👉 Join the SIS Membership: https://www.kellyvess.com/sis