SLPs, BCBAs, and MI: How Better Collaboration Helps Families

What happens when two professionals want the same outcome for a child… but speak completely different languages?

In this episode of MI for Change, I’m joined by Rose Griffin, a speech therapist and BCBA, to talk about one of the biggest challenges in our field: collaboration between SLPs and BCBAs.

We talk about where miscommunication happens, why jargon creates unnecessary walls, and how Motivational Interviewing can help us approach these conversations with more curiosity, less defensiveness, and better outcomes for families.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Where collaboration between SLPs and BCBAs often breaks down
• Why jargon and assumptions create so much friction
• How social media has shaped perceptions of ABA
• What clinicians can do to enter difficult conversations with more curiosity
• Why parents should never be stuck in the middle of professional disagreements
• Small communication shifts that can strengthen collaboration immediately

This episode is for BCBAs, SLPs, OTs, psychologists, educators, and anyone who wants to work better across disciplines.

Because at the end of the day, we all want the same thing:
 better outcomes for the child and less stress for the family.

Learn more about Motivational Interviewing and explore on-demand courses at www.drmonicagilbert.com

Join the MI Academy for practical training and resources — and enjoy an exclusive 15% off with code MIFORCHANGE at checkout.

📲 Connect with me on Instagram: @drmonicagilbert

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of Am I for Change? And today I invited this person that I met over LinkedIn, and I've met her in person as well. And I want to hear her perspective on SLPs, BCBAs, and motivational interviewing. So, Rose, thank you so much for coming here. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Thanks for having me on. And I am a speech therapist and BCBA. There are fewer than 550 of us as a recording today, pretty sure. It's a unique group. Sometimes we go by the name Unicorns, and it's something I'm super proud of. I love being able to build a bridge between both professions because the longer I've been in this, I see that people really struggle with the communication piece and collaboration. And so I'm trying to make a dent and uh make it better for everybody. So I have experiences in the schools and working in non-public programs. That's how I found about uh ABA. And um, I've just never looked back. I've been duly certified for about 15 years now. So most of my career has been in this unique position. Um, and I really love it. And this is the first year I've actually stepped away from clinical work and I am just doing everything for ABA speech, which is my small business. And I have a membership called ABA Speech Connection where we offer CEUs for speech therapists, BCBAs, and now RBTs too.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for for all of that, all those great resources. Um, so let's jump right into it. I I know that you are uniquely positioned, as you mentioned, as an SLP and BCBA. And I've seen a lot of your content, and I love it when you start mentioning that we are talking about the same thing. A lot of the times it's we're just doing it in different ways. Like I have a CEU and I've done you know a similar thing myself. Um, as a clinical psychologist and as a BCBA, there are a lot of interventions that we use as clinical psychologists that are basically ABA interventions. We just call them differently, but it's at the end of the day the same thing. So, from your perspective, where do you most often see the miscommunication happen between both fields?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

I think that our scientific jargon on both sides is hard and that leads to a lot of miscommunication. So I've been creating and have in the past, you know, I'm a big fan of Instagram, LinkedIn, and all the things. And so just talking about the different vocabulary, I know it's not exactly the same. I've already had, I knew I would get nasty comments from BCBAs about that. You know, I know tact and label it could be different, but I'm really just trying to disseminate information, not to say, hey, I'm the smartest in the room. It's really just to say we don't want to have a collaboration opportunity missed because we're using jargon from our own fields. So I, you know, we are ethically called to use understandable language. And so I really take that ethical code to heart. I taught an ethics class for about five years here at Kent State. And so I really try to live by the code. I think it's really tries to help us be better professionals. And so I don't think it makes us less of a BCBA to use words like labeling and requesting, but I know that other people um feel that way. And I know sometimes for insurance you need to have those scientific terms. Or if I'm doing an ace talk, I obviously want to make sure that I'm using that. But I think it's those things are really um a barrier. And then, you know, if you're consuming a lot of social media content as a speech therapist or OT, you might have a lot of negative information coming across your field feed about ABA. And so I think that I've talked to people in real life I've had on my own podcast that have said, you know, I really just thought a certain way about ABA, but then I actually had a family member that needed it. And I went in and I saw it and it completely changed uh their mind. And so I think those are some barriers to collaboration.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Okay. Yeah. And I've I've seen that happen too. And a lot of the times I have families that come in in the psychology field and um, or I do the this the psychological testing, and then I recommend ABA, and they're like, well, we've we've heard that ABA is abuse and we've heard all those things. And when I I tend to get those comments, I know that a natural reaction and something that we call in motivational interviewing, the fixing reflex comes up, and I want to tell them, no, ABA is wonderful. And and I want to give them all the examples. I want to show them all the graph, use my jargon, whatever it is. The reality is that that is going to turn the family away. We have to first understand where they're coming from. Like, like, where is it that they heard this? What is it that they've heard? What is the information that they are getting, consuming from social media? We need to first understand that and then in a very respectful way offer the information. Is it okay if I if I do explain to you how ABA actually works? So that's something which we call the EPE approach and motivational interviewing that I use a lot of the times. And I'm wondering if perhaps when SLPs do speak with BCBs, if they could use something like that that could help in that communication. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Yeah, and I think that I just made a TikTok about this. I'm back on that platform, I don't know why, but it's just asking people, what is your experience with ABA? Now, that kind of video does not get a lot of views. Okay. That might get a thousand views. But if I make a video and the hook is I saw a speech therapist post in a Facebook group that they're gonna put on their private practice website, that they don't see any clients for speech therapy that also get ABA, that gets a lot of views because people really have thoughts about that. That's called social media, that's called getting attention online for my small business. But that is a question I think we should lead with as BCBAs. What is your experience with ABA? And that allows us, and I'm not an expert on motivational interviewing, but to have reflective listening, to really want to know the answer to that. Like, did you meet a BCBA that was unkind to you, that made you feel less than? I don't know the experience that they've had. Did you work somewhere as an RBT and it was not a progressive practice? I don't know, but we don't know what that learning, we say for students, they're learning history. We don't know what that person's history is with taking in information about ABA. So I think when we ask those open-ended questions, that really, and we're ready for the answer, right? And we're not gonna come back like you're saying with the solution. We need to kind of show people the path forward and show them what ABA can be. Um, and I think that's important to ask those open-ended questions and to really listen to what people have to say.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah, and it all starts with a mindset. It all starts with that different mindset of instead of me going, and I know you've spoken a lot about, you know, the IP meetings and things like that, instead of going in there with like, I have to defend my profession or I have to defend this or or whatever it is, go in with the mindset of curiosity. Like, I am curious, like, where is this coming from? What have you heard? You know, what are the these challenges or these barriers that are standing in the way? Um, if you go in with this mindset of I'm going to come in with curiosity, it changes the whole thing. Like your goal is completely different.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Yes. And I, you know, I was just talking to I, uh Dr. Matthew Broadhead, he was on my podcast before, and we're gonna work on a project together. And we were talking about, I was like, you need to write a new article about um how to get ready for contentious meetings with other professionals because we know sometimes going into meetings that we have different viewpoints on intervention or we have a different training in mind and a path forward for the client. And he said it's something simple of, okay, there's a couple of different ways to think about it. How are we getting ready for that meeting? And then, or what are we thinking during the meeting? And I think that's really important. I hadn't thought about it that way. I'm always thinking about how can I provide information through social media or my email list that's going to help people through these contentious meetings because we know at times these meetings were not on the same page. And we don't have to have group think. We don't all have to think the same, but we do have to have ways of thinking, like you're saying, like reflective listening, asking questions, being curious. And I think that we sometimes are so amped up knowing that somebody maybe doesn't like ABA or has a certain idea about it that we're already defensive and we're already on edge when we enter the meeting. And that's not gonna set a good tone. And people can tell.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Absolutely. It's that fight or flight response that you know just becomes activated when we go in. Um, so again, going in with that curiosity mindset and also um, for example, in an IEP meeting, I would like to think that everyone there has the same goal in mind. We're just perhaps going in different ways. But when we are able to reflect that and and sort of like unite those values and saying, hey, we're working for for the betterment of the child, right? Um, then then that changes the whole like communication and dynamics as well. Yes, absolutely. Okay, so what are some struggles that you sometimes see um with SLP when they're working with parents? Um, so what are some struggles that you see as an SLP and then as a BCBA? And are they the same or similar?

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Yeah. I mean, I think when working with parents, what's nice about the field of ABA is BCBAs have to provide parent training. And so they know that on some specific rhythm and schedule, they're going to have access talking to the parents. And then we as BCBAs are always talking about like, how can we make this parent training really helpful for the parent? How can we make it systematic for our business so that many people can provide really robust parent training? For speech therapists, if you're seeing a child in a clinic, you're obviously going to be able to see at least a guardian or a caretaker when they're dropping the child off and picking them up from therapy. But as a school-based professional, as a speech therapist, you don't really have access to the parent. I mean, I always tried to do things like email the parent at the beginning of the year, every single student on my caseload, which was really a lot of work. It would take me all day. But I wanted parents to know, hey, I'm here. If you have any questions or if you just want to say hi or you have concerns, I think that open communication sets the tone. But if you have a kid and maybe it's a parent that's really busy or they're just not overly involved, or they think, hey, the school's got it, you may really only talk to that parent before the IEP time. So I think that is another thing that maybe BCBAs don't know is that speech therapists, especially school-based, don't really have this magical time to talk to parents. And usually as a school-based SLP, you're tasked with seeing so many kids that your caseload could be so huge that you're just trying to get the minutes in that you said you were going to provide. And so I think it's really different coming from the SLP and BCBA lens as far as working with parents.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

You know what? I never really thought about that. Um thank you for bringing it up. Is it the same thing like clinic-based SLPs?

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Well, for clinic-based SLPs, I mean, if the parents bringing them to therapy, you might see them. But let's say the kid gets out of school at three o'clock and grandma brings them at 3:30. These are just situations I've been in, or a caretaker or a babysitter, a nanny. Let's say, you know, I used to see a child, their dad was a very high-powered attorney. And so this person had a nanny that would see them after the school day. And that's who I build a rapport with. You know what I mean? Like I also talked to the parent via email. It wasn't like they weren't an absent parent, but they just were busy. So they were trying to make sure everybody was getting what they needed. And so it can be that you're not even seeing the parent. Just depends.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Yeah. So it it's um, I I never really thought about that. Thank you so much for bringing that up because I I think it's interesting. So, from from what I heard you explain, um, BCBAs tend to have like more time doing the parent training. Like we we have codes, billing codes that we can use for parent training. So you guys don't have that as SLPs.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

No, we don't at all. Uh-uh. No, we just we just don't. I I talked to a speech therapist who's starting a really cool business who has an insurance code. I don't know if it's in every state even, but it's like this carryover code for speech therapists. And so she's gonna do a free CEU for us for speech therapists this summer because I was like, I think this is really important. Nobody knows about this. Not enough people know about this particular code. And she has like a company that like helps you provide that carryover service. So, you know, that she's kind of motivated to share about it in that way. But I was like, this is important because we don't have anything like that that's uniform across the field.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

So I think it's a cool thing to discuss. So knowing that, I'm I'm kind of thinking right now, and and my wheels are kind of turning, like how important. Like it's it's now it's much more important to really have that interdisciplinary like connection with BCBAs and SLPs. Because imagine if if we would connect, we would have that communication. Maybe the BCBA is the one that spends more time with a parent, and they can also, you know, kind of like transfer or or help generalize some of these skills that are that are learned in SLP. I mean, that's just such such a great and needed connection.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Yes. And I think that's a great way to think about it. And not every SLP thinks about it that way. So, you know, there's this whole line of, I don't even know what to call it. People in the SLP field have said that, you know, ABA is encroaching on the field of SLP because as a business owner, this happens sometimes where a student may get 20 hours of ABA and they could get one hour of speech. Well, they're not at the same place and logistically they can't do both, so they choose the 20 hours of ABA. So then speech therapy providers are starting to think like, oh, well, this, I don't like this. You know what I mean? This is starting to affect like our clinical care, but it's also starting to affect them financially. So there's people that think that. But the I like the way that you just automatically think of the positive. Like, what if this could actually leverage the opportunities that we have to work on generalization? And so that is a great way to think about it. And I hope that that is how people start to think, you know, and that's why I love businesses, and I know it's not every business model that's able to offer SLP services, ABA services, OT services all under one roof, because it's easier in theory for the parent to get the child the services they need under one roof, and it's easier for the professionals to collaborate in theory because you're closer in proximity.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Not always the case, but yeah, it could be. Absolutely. So if SLPs have such little time to really interact with parents and and and kind of like share all the things that they've been working on, um, how could they use, and and I I know that that you've learned some some parts of motivational interviewing and some are just like inherent in the way that you communicate, but how could they they use some of these motivational interviewing techniques in order to effectively build that rapport in such little time and actually just start, you know, communicating in a better way with them?

SPEAKER_01 14:58

What I would have some of my classrooms do when I was working in the schools that in non-public programs, the parents would the teachers would send home a note that said, like, this is what they worked on in speech therapy. They would give them like one objective. So I think like this idea of open communication is really important. And what something I would do for my students that I was seeing on more of an intervention model in the school is I would check in with parents because those students didn't get progress reports. So I would just email the parents every time that progress reports would come out and try to have that open communication. But it is really difficult. I think that if we, you know, ask these more open-ended questions, I think that we can get more answers. I'm reading a book right now. I think it's called the coaching habit. So it's like these seven questions we should all be using. And the first one is, what's on your mind today? And I was thinking like my business mentor always says that to me. Like when I do these calls with him, he's like, What's on your mind today? But it is nice to ask these more open-ended questions because I think that way people are going to share more once you have that, those lines of communication are open.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Yeah. And I definitely open-ended questions are really important for building rapport and also um, you know, evoking some some of this change, right? Um, and and also reflections. I think reflections are very powerful. Like a parent that comes to you and they're frustrated because your child is three and and and they're not saying a word and and they've been to this, and perhaps they're getting ABA and it's not uh effective or ethical or good ABA, and they're coming to you and and really, you know, reflecting on how they're feeling and reflecting on on these challenges and and helping them um, you know, sort of see like what the other side really looks like. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

And I think just being empathetic, you know, I had a business master of mine I was in, we did this Enneagram test, and it's free and it just gives you a number of what your personality is. And I'm a two, which I think is like I'm empathetic. So I feel like that is easy for me to like try to be that way with people, just to show empathy. And there, I forget what article it is, but Leanne Page did a talk for us in the ABA speech connection, and it talked about this study where people, I think they were like cancer patients. And if people just asked them like a question about how they were feeling or about the treatment, that they rated that as a such better experience as a patient versus people that don't have like a good bedside manner and you know they're not asking those questions. It's like everybody wants to know that that you care. Like that does feel good, like it makes humans feel good. So I think sometimes we're just so wrapped up in all the things that we need to get done that we don't remember that there's a human component there because we're so tasked with helping so many people.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah. And and that's what that's why we came into this field. We came into this field to help others. Um and in reality, sometimes we we miss the fact that they may have better solutions than we do. So we we have to understand that and and really respect that autonomy. And that's why I I love using a lot of these um evoking questions where you're not really telling the person exactly what to do, but you're evoking um and and they will tell you. They're they're the experts sometimes of their child as well. Um, and and it should feel more as a collaboration, which is where I think we are all trying to get closer to, whether it's psychologists with ABA therapists, OTs, you know, speech therapists, I I really would love to see more of that partnership because we can do so much together. We can do so, so much together. So true. And um, so how can in I guess in a perfect world, um, SLPs and BCBAs work together to get that parent buy-in? Like, how do you see it from your perspective?

SPEAKER_01 18:48

I think what's most important is just understanding who's on the team, especially if you're not all in the same organization. I think making contact, because oftentimes that means that a parent's gonna have to sign a release form. So I know that seems so simple, but you know, it's like, well, maybe the parent doesn't bring them and then I have to send it via email and they never signed it. You know, like these are things that could take months if we let it go, right? So I think just number one, knowing who is on the team. And I think number two, just sending an email to those people that are on the team to say, hey, I'm here. I would love to have a conversation about so-and-so, or, you know, inviting them to some type of intake meeting or whatever it is. Um, we just had a speech therapist do a cool course for us in the connection where she is a speech therapist. She used to be kind of anti-ABA, and she then had a family friend who got an autism diagnosis. That family friend said, Hey, we're gonna take our kid to ABA. And she was like, please don't. And then she went to observe. And then over the course of time, now a big part of her private practice is providing speech therapy in ABA centers. And something that she does that's really cool is she is probably an independent contractor coming into these centers. But what she does is after the intake takes place at the ABA center, they get together and they meet and they talk about the goal setting. And I think that is a really nice idea. And I think that if you can make it all work from a financial standpoint, that's the time to do it because the BCBA is probably gonna say, like, oh, we're gonna work on functional communication training tied to this behavioral goal. And then the speech therapist can maybe help inform what that might look like and vice versa. And so it's a nice cohesive way to plan for that intervention piece. And they've just made that work from a logistical standpoint. And I she just said that that's been a great time to really meet with everybody and it sets a tone for the collaboration going forward.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Yeah, I absolutely love that. So in our center in Crystal Minds, we do something similar where we have a sister company where we do the mental health stuff. So we do the diagnosis there, and then um we move it over to ABA if the child does that have the diagnosis that needs ABA. And then we have a collaboration between the BCBA therapist, um, the psychologist, which is sometimes myself, um, and also the therapist that may be seeing the child for individual therapy. Um, and then sometimes the parents, the parents also need like family therapy or couples therapy or whatever it is. And I love that everything is under the same, you know, the same umbrella where we can collaborate back and forth. And and I have seen um since I've started doing this, I have seen such like, I mean, it it's incredible to see how both places connecting can really work together and and you see how effective it is for the family, you see how effective it is for the kiddo or the client. Um, and and that's what I would want to see, right? That I think that's what we all want to see moving forward with these collaborations.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Yeah, a hundred percent. And I feel like just because people are in the same roof, too, it doesn't mean they're automatically going to collaborate. You really just have to be a good consumer and ask questions. And, you know, because I I get all the collaboration woes. That's what people like to tell. Me, which is fine because I I want to help make it better. But we want to make sure that if we're there, that we're doing the work because it's not easy. It's easier to just work in our little silos and to make our decisions based on our training and our experience. And I always say that not only the client is going to transform when we collaborate, but also like you're talking about the parents and also the clinicians, because I'm sure that you've learned things through these collaborations that have made you a better clinician and vice versa.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

Yes, absolutely. And you brought up a really good point because we love to throw the word collaboration around. And I see that some people, the way they collaborate is like, you know, making a phone call. Hey, I am, you know, and I've had a speech therapist call me and they're like, hey, I'm the speech therapist. Can you tell me how things are going? And I kind of like share, and that's it. It dies there. And I'm like, this wasn't really a collaboration. A collaboration would have been like a team meeting where we're going over these objectives. I want to see what you're doing. I, you know, that for me is a collab, a true collaboration. So you're right. We have to be intentional with these collaborations. It can't just be like a phone call and then you let it die. Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Yeah. I think just having some type of rhythm, even if it's just like as a school-based person, sometimes twice a year I would talk to people before the IEP and halfway through the year, just to catch touch base about the student. And it was eye-opening, right? Because seeing a kid in school versus seeing a kid in outpatient therapy is very different. So we were able to take all that information together and have those set times to talk.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Um, so I'm gonna get a little controversial now. Okay. So what are some of these chat traps? I call them chat traps when we are working with parents. These are like chat traps that we tend to engage in, um, that kind of in other words, turn the parent off. Um, but when it comes to like SLPs and BCBs, what are some of these chat traps that SLPs engage in or BCBAs engage in?

SPEAKER_01 23:52

I think topics that are really hard for us to communicate around are AAC. I think that's a really big one. Um, we're trying to change the narrative on that at ABA speech, and we're putting together, we already have some courses in the connection, but I'm putting together a 10-hour AAC course that will be for speech therapists and BCBAs because we as BCBAs really don't have that training in AAC, but we're just automatically tasked with being able to help understand AAC, the idea behind AAC, collaborating around AAC. And so it makes it really difficult because we might not have a speech therapist to collaborate with. We might be the first person to see the student. We might have a student who's on a wait list for speech therapy in our area and they can't even get access to a speech therapist to do an AAC eval. And that can be really, really difficult. I think also when somebody's not yet speaking, we get into these philosophical differences about BCBAs seem to really like PECs. And I mean, I like the co-creators of PECs, Lori Frost and Andy Bonnie are you know friends of ABA speech. Um, but a lot of speech therapists think that, you know, they don't like PECs anymore. I don't know. That that came from social media and it and it's hard because we want to get kids started with a way to communicate with the world. And so I feel like that just puts people in a triangle with parents. It's like maybe the BCBA says PECs and the speech therapist says, no, the student needs a dynamic device to start, and then we just get into this circle, and then the who's in the middle, the parent. Like they don't have enough to deal with right now. You know what I mean? Raising a child who has high support needs. Um, I think that can be really tough. And then the other one that I think is really kind of a hot topic, I feel like it's maybe not as big is gestalt language processing. I feel like that's a really big thing. Speech therapists are really into that line of um intervention and BCBAs. We don't think there's robust intervention and parents, who knows? They're consuming social media, you don't know what side they're on. So that gets really complicated. But I think that can get us trapped into putting the parent in the middle and making them decide like which way are we gonna go? And I just don't think that's fair to do to parents.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, one uh big thing for me. I'm just thinking about my history um, you know, in in the field was I remember when um I there was a speech therapist that was teaching more. Um and then for for BCBAs, it was like more what stop teaching more. We want like the, you know, like have them manned for for the thing that they want instead of the more. Um, so back then I didn't know about motivational interviewing. So of course that relationship was lost, completely lost.

unknown 26:31

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

Because I went in there like as a very passionate um BCBA, and I was like, well, I think this, you shouldn't be teaching more, blah, blah. And of course, if she had any doubt in it, that asserted her reality of like teaching more and more often. Um, because I I I pushed her to that other end because of my communication.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Right. Oh, yeah, that's a good, yes, and core verse fringe. So that brings up a good point. I don't know why that is. We don't learn that in graduate school as a speech therapist to teach more, but it is something that a lot of people default to. And I we train on that a lot. And that's we're gonna cover that in this new course that we're working on. But how do we select vocabulary for kids who are emergent communicators? What is gonna be powerful vocabulary and what is gonna help them be spontaneous and generative in their language? And it's not a hundred percent core. That's what research says.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Yeah, yeah. So how would you um, I guess, have um a conversation with someone that is like, well, we have to use more and you know, that this is the way that it is, this is the way that it works. Like, how would you approach that communication or that conversation?

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Yeah, what's interesting is even my husband who is in medical device sales, I remember they were teaching, like one of our kids went to daycare and they were teaching them sign language, which I think I think is great, but they were teaching more. And even my husband, who just we share an office, so he hears me talk all the time, he can talk ABA and speech, but he said, Why are they teaching more? That doesn't make sense. More of what? And that is, I would just ask questions. Like we're talking about like how are you working on that? What does that look like in the session? Like, I'd love to, if I don't have time to observe, I'd love to know how we're working on that and what does the data look like. And sometimes that's where it all falls apart, right? Because more of what? You know, but that's a big thing I used to talk about and train on that all the time. But now we talk about it in core verse fringe. And that's that's the truth, is we really want our students to understand. I do something, I get something. I do something, I get something. And I used to have a talk called The Power of Manding because it is powerful. And it is powerful for kids to understand their communication has power. And so I think the idea of asking the questions is important. But you're right. Once we, once we interrogate somebody and we, we ruin that professional relationship. Um, the other thing that Dr. Broadhead said in this article that I love, it's like a 10-year-old article about collaborating with non-behavioral colleagues, is you know, when we ask a question like, where's your research for that? Which, you know, you might have said in that conversation, we erode the professional right. Where's the data? We erode the professional relationship. And you had just said it. It's like once that relationship is broken, it's really hard to get it back. Really hard.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Yeah, yeah. And now you're making me think, I feel like I need to like find that speech therapist and like, you know, like mend a little bit you're out to like lunch or something. Yeah. But yeah, and then I think also like for that parent, imagine a parent who is having the speech therapist, and this is just an example, that is using more and telling them to use more. And then you have a BCB that's saying, no, that that's really not the way that that it, you know, that it should be taught. And and I think um as a BCB, I I can only speak, you know, as a BCBA, but as a BCBA, I think one of the the things that now knowing more about motivational interviewing, what I would try to do is, okay, so let's focus on the goal. Like what is the goal that you, speech therapists, have for the child? What is the goal that I have for him? And how can we get to to that goal and explore a little bit about not so much why she's using more, but how do we get there? And if our values match and they align, then we're going to have a better conversation. And then she's not going to, and at some point in the conversation, I could probably bring up like, hey, where did you start using more? And and you know, is is that effective for you and all that? But that's after we build a better rapport, right? It can be like the first conversation that we have. And I think that that's what we should be thinking about as BCBAs and SLPs when we are collaborating.

SPEAKER_01 30:39

Right. It's like, what do we want to be true? We want it to be true that we have a good collaborative relationship. So, what do we have to put in order? It means that this isn't going to be a one-off conversation. It doesn't mean we're going to talk to this person every week, but we do have to have this open dialogue and just have professional curiosity about what the other person's doing, that we're not asking to be like, oh, gotcha. See, Skinner said we shouldn't work on that. You know, like they don't care about Skinner. We do. They don't. So we have to just try to be genuinely curious about what it looks like to visualize being there if we're not able to observe. And I always just love it when people reach out to me and say, like, oh, well, I was having this conversation and I shared this article with somebody, and it's a speech therapist or BCBA. And I'm like, that's really what we want to get towards is like sharing clinical research. That is exciting. And that's kind of the gold standard of collaboration. I know we're not all there, right? But that should be kind of this idea of we want the student to benefit from both services. And how do we make that true? And it's by trying to be uh mindful that two, that speech therapy has value, that OT has value. It's not what we were trained in, but we want to try to understand the value and how it's helping to benefit our students.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Right, right. Because the then that's really the end goal. That's why that's what we're here to do. So we're both working for the same thing. Absolutely. We have the same why. Yeah, we have the same why exactly. Um, so if a BCBA wants to strengthen their relationship with an SLP, um, what's like one small communication shift that you would recommend? Or or vice versa, right? Like what's a a good communication shift you would recommend?

SPEAKER_01 32:29

I think that just asking them about what the sessions look like and what's something that's really working for the student. How has the communication looked? Are they spontaneously communicating in the sessions and what does that look like? I think allowing people to share the wins that they have in therapy is really powerful. I remember when I worked at the Cleveland Clinic, it was very, oh gosh, it was probably almost 20 years ago now. And our director would say at the end of the meeting, like, what's a win that somebody's had this week? And I mean, we were working with kids that were very aggressive, engaged in self-indurous behavior. It was a very dangerous kind of work setting. And it felt so good to just raise your hand and be like, oh, I taught so-and-so to answer what's your name, you know, personal safety question. Those were like so exciting, those moments to share. And I think that when we get people excited about all the good that they're doing, um, that that's really reinforcing to say, like, wow, that's amazing. Like, what awesome progress. Because we all got into this field to help and to be able to share that enthusiasm for what is going right is uh is a good feeling.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

Yeah, yeah, perfect. Um, well, thank you so much, Rose, um, for coming to my podcast. I really appreciate it. And I hope to see you here again. I hope to see you in in one of the conferences. Like we we saw each other, I think it was maybe last year, two years ago. Two years ago at Fava. That was fun. Yeah, that was fun. Um, okay, well, thank you so much. Where can people find you? What are some things you're up to? Let us know.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Come and visit me at abaspeech.org. I have information about our membership, the ABA Speech Connection. And I have a book coming out July 2026 called Say It With Me, which is all about using naturalistic interventions to help all students find a way to communicate with the world.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

That's awesome. And I want to give you like a little token, um, you know, a little gift. So I'm going to be sending you our new um motivational interviewing deck cards. So these are like cheat sheets that have reflections, it has open-ended questions, um, and all that. And so you can use during the sessions. And this is great for SLPs, for BCBAs, for anyone working in the field. Um, so I'll be sending you one of these um as a token of appreciation for coming here. Thank you so much. Thank you. I love it. It was great to see you. You too. Bye. Thank you for joining me on today's episode of MI for Change. If you're ready to keep growing your motivational interviewing skills, I'd love to invite you to explore my MI Academy, where you'll find a full library of on demand courses designed to help you put MI into practice with confidence. You can learn more at www.drmonicagilbert.com. Until next time.