Podcasts for speech and language therapists

As a travelling therapist, I spend a lot of time in my car, driving between appointments.  This can get a bit frustrating sometimes and feels like a lot of time is wasted, when I could be writing notes, or making resources or seeing children, or anything more productive than driving really!  However, I’ve found a few great podcasts and websites that enable me to do CPD on the move, which is great!  I thought I’d share these with you today.

This post is mostly aimed at other therapists.  However, if you are a parent, do stay tuned, as the first one I’m going to mention is definitely one that you might find really useful too!

• Speech and Language Kids podcast. This is a great podcast by Carrie Clark (who also has a fantastic website which you should also check out here).  She usually makes a new podcast each week, but has been on a break from new episodes over the summer.  Each time, she takes a different topic or skill and gives a step-by-step guide on how to work on this skill with a child.  Examples of topics covered are how to teach perspective-taking to children, how to do speech therapy at home, how to increase self-awareness and carry-over, using video-modelling for kids with autism etc.  All useful stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree.  The great thing about these podcasts is that they are really clearly explained in simple language, as they are aimed at both professionals and parents who are supporting their own child at home.  If you are a parent of a child with a speech and language difficulty, I definitely recommend that you check this podcast out too.  They are full of useful, practical ideas that you can incorporate into everyday life.

• Conversations in Speech Pathology – this is a podcast aimed at speech and language therapists by Jeff Stepen. His website is here.  I discovered this one a few weeks ago via this great blog post from Erik X Raj (which also gave me the idea for this post).  Most of the episodes are interviews with different people – frequently other therapists but also researchers and other people.  There are quite a few episodes about AAC, but a wide range of topics are covered including autism, Non-Speech Oro-Motor exercises, technology in speech therapy etc.  Since I only discovered this one a few weeks ago, I have only listened to 5 or so episodes so far, but I will definitely be back to listen to more!

• Therapy Ideas – this is an old podcast (there are 6 episodes from 2012) but worth a mention. You may well have heard of Therapy Ideas which is run by Rhiannon Walton in London, and she does fab “lightning talk” events which are well worth going to if you can.  The one I went to was great!  If you’re too far from London to do that, then do watch some on her website.  However, back to the podcast!… Before she set up the Therapy Live events, Rhiannon did 6 podcasts, which are really interesting.  They are discussions with other therapists from around the world and how things are done differently.  Well worth a listen!

• Start a Therapy Practice – OK, so this one may not be of interest to all speech therapists, but if you are in independent practice or thinking about it, there is definitely some interesting and useful information here. This podcast is by Scott Harman and he has a website of the same name which you can find here.  A word of warning – not all of the information will be correct or relevant to a UK therapist as he is American and so obviously the information is more relevant to American therapists.  However, I do enjoy listening to this podcast, especially the interviews that he does with other therapists about their private practices, how they have evolved and changed, and the range of other things that the therapists are involved with as well as assessment and therapy.

Do you know of any other good podcasts for speech and language therapists?  If so, do leave them in a comment below – I’m always on the lookout for a good podcast!