I am not an advocate for teaching carrier phrases, especially when it’s only to increase word utterances. I’ve discussed this in blogs and shows in the past. Dr. Esch is an advocate for focusing on syllables versus word utterances. Carrier phrases can set back natural development in mands and tacts. You can use strategies from my early learner activities like the shoebox which has multiple controls when a student gets a word that is part mand, part tact, and part echoic.
Dr. Barbara Esch’s new Early Echoic Skills Assessment manual will be available in May and can really help anyone who is helping teach speech whether that’s a parent, teacher, caregiver, SLP, or BCB.
Dr. Barbara Esch is a behavior analyst and speech pathologist with over 30 years of experience in behavioral interventions for individuals with developmental disabilities. She has worked in school, home, clinic, and hospital settings. Her workshops, training symposia, and research have been presented in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia and focus on the use of behavioral procedures to improve speech, language, and feeding skills for individuals of all ages with a wide range of medical and educational diagnoses. Dr. Esch received a Ph.D. in Applied Behavior Analysis from Western Michigan University and a Master’s degree in Speech Pathology from Michigan State University.
She is the author of the Early Echoic Skills Assessment, part of the Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program: VB-MAPP (Sundberg, 2008/2014) and the upcoming Early Echoic Skills Assessment and Manual for Speech Acquisition, an expanded version of the original EESA, including a program planning guide. She is the founder and past chairperson of the Speech Pathology Special Interest Group of the Association for Behavior Analysis International. Her research on behavioral treatments for early speech acquisition appears in The Analysis of Verbal Behavior and the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis.
You’ll Learn
Resources
