Years ago, I was burnout (and honestly bored) with my career as a neuro-based Speech Language Pathologist. So when the pandemic hit, and many of my therapy sessions were converted to telehealth, I felt even more pressure to try something different in my therapy sessions. So, I did what any respectable millennial would do—I turned to the internet. The examples of therapy activities for adults that DIDN’T consist of a board game, a workbook, or flashcards were few and far between online.. At the time, there was Sarah Baar from Honeycomb Speech who provided some great ideas on her website, but overall, my caseload was appeared more high-functioning and not as aphasia-heavy (more cognitive-communication. Therefore, I needed to generate some speech therapy activities of my own…… Therapy activities that would help my patients get better and meet their needs, but wouldn’t bore both either one of us.
This led to me starting an Instagram account called “the.neuro.slp”. With this account, I began highlighting more functional therapy activities for those Speech Therapists working with adults in different settings (outpatient rehab, inpatient rehab, skilled nursing, assisted living facilities, etc. =)
And since TIME and MONEY are two things most Speech Therapists say are barriers to providing the most FUNctional care, I decided to use the acronym “F.A.S.T” when I shared FUNctional ideas for speech therapy activities for adults…. These ideas became known to my online community as “F.A.S.T Ideas”.
Then came “F.A.S.T Hauls” in which I videoed my shopping trips to make purchases of items that could be used in FUNctional ways in therapy sessions.
Then came “F.A.S.T Activity Guides” in my digital store, where I detailed how to set up and lead the FUNctional therapy activities, how to take data during the activities, how to scale the tasks, and what specific goals would be relevant to the therapy activities.
Here I am now ---- 5 years later, still sharing and helping other Speech Therapists to generate F.A.S.T Ideas, still going on F.A.S.T Hauls, and still creating F.A.S.T Activity Guides. But now, I have over 10,000 other people (social media followers + email subscribers) to share this F.A.S.T journey with. How fun?!
That’s the history of F.A.S.T in a nutshell. I hope it inspires you as much as it does me and I also hope that you’ll take F.A.S.T’s principles and apply them to your everyday clinical practice as a Speech Language Pathologist. There’s so much more to speech therapy than workbooks. There’s so much more inside of us as clinicians and so much more we need to get out of our patients. So, remember, think F.A.S.T. when you’re collaborating with your patients on your next therapy activity.
*NOTE: If you’d like to participate in the 5th annual #NoWorkbookWeek (April 7-11th), comment below. I’d love to connect with you and be a resource as you take on this annual challenge. And who knows? Maybe after a week of #noworkbooks, you’ll never use them again!
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