Even non-therapy staff inspired by kids at the Foundation

Here is an update from me, Lauren Michaud, administrator of the BRSHF staff blog.

"As Development and Marketing Coordinator, I created this blog in order to be able to post stories from the therapy and audiology staff, as a glimpse into the day-to-day experiences they encouter with our students and clients. I had no intention of posting myself; my role was simply going to be collecting the content and creating the posts. However, even as a layman with no medical background, it's impossible to work in this building without being impressed (and entertained) by our children on a daily basis, and this is a snapshot of the clinic I had to share.

I was on the playground this morning during play time, mapping out the layout for our 50th Anniversary party in September. While I was out there, I had a few observations about the students playing. One young student started our autism/preschool language therapy program this spring with gross motor impairments (meaning she held her arms up at face-level at all times and walked in big stomping-steps). Today on the playground, I noticed she was walking with her arms down in a much more natural stride, navigating steps on and off the pavement that would have likely tripped her a few months ago. Even though our focus is on correcting communication delays, the occupational therapy this child receives in conjuntion with her speech and ABA therapy is clearly having an impact on her overall development. Her progress was abundantly apparent, even to me!

Another child, always good for fascinating narrative, was running around the playground with a zucchini. When I asked him about it, I learned he brought that and an ear of corn from his garden to play with today. Another student asked him to play with a ball he was also holding, and he bargained with her, saying "no, but you can have this zucchini!" It just goes to show, dear readers, that there's always something exciting going on at BRSHF!"

Ms. Bonita inspired by kids' resilience

Ms. Bonita, our front office manager, told me this story from an encounter this morning:

"One of the students here broke his arm over the weekend. He came in this morning & greeted me 'Hi, Ms. Bonita!' like always, and when I saw his cast, I said, 'Oh no! What happened??' He wasn't bothered at all, he just said 'I broke it, jumping on the trampoline on Sunday. Had to go to the hospital & get a cast.' I just couldn't believe that, he was so calm! If I were in that position I'd probably be moping, but he just told me, matter-of-factly, what happened and ran off down the hallway to go to group! I love observing the kids when they come and go everyday. I get to see how they progress through their therapy, and so many of them greet me by name or run up and give me a hug. It really is a great perk of this job!" 

BRSHF's Autism Program Growing

Dr. Brian Esteve, coordinator of BRSHF's program for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders, shared this quick update about the program:

"Last week as we kicked off the summer session, the Autism program welcomed twenty new and returning students into therapy. We started the program in conjunction with LSU six years ago with four children. Two of the undergraduate therapy aides from that first group in 2004 still work with us today - Sarah Brunet is a licensed speech pathologist leading group and individual speech therapy, and Carolyn Barahona is a Ph.D. candidate in Psychology helping to oversee the individual ABA therapy. We're so proud to be able to offer the only clinic-based, scientifically-proven therapy for autistic children here in Baton Rouge, and look forward to growing the program to meet the community's needs in coming years."

Trenae's client goes from jargon to full sentence

Trenae Webb, one of our speech therapists, has this update from parent conferences a few weeks ago:


"It was that time of the year for parent conference... a time to report all the progress that my client has made over the course of our quaterly sessions.  A precious little two year old in my group began with me not yet producing multiword combinations like her typically developing peers and primarily producing jargon-like speech, her own "personal" language.   Well, we've been working diligently on the production of true words through imitation and really manipulating the enviroment for spontaneous productions as well.  She had been progressing well, imitating 2-3 word phrases. A few days prior to the conference, she began imitating 3-4 word utterances.  It was during the parent conference that my little client burst into speech with her own, spontenous request for a ball:  "I want the ball!"   Mom was practically in tears, overwhelmed and exclaimed:  "Wow, I'm amazed!  She's talking sentences!"  Shortly after our confererence, Mom had a great report of how her little girl is suddenly a social butterfly and her use of words is increasing daily.  Ha! What a moment!  Simply priceless and a reminder of why I do what I do!"

Summer Student Aides: The Best of the Best

Ms. Ann Nader coordinates the student workers who provide therapy for our Therapeutic Language Center's group language preschool classes, as well as those who work one-on-one in the TLC's autism program. She provided this update about the new group of aides coming on board for the summer:

"For the last few weeks, I've been working with getting the aides in place for our summer session. Around the semester transitions, we do a lot of work finding students, usually in psychology and speech language/communications to work in the Therapeutic Language Center. We seek student aides from LSU, Southern, and Southeastern, and we have a pretty comprehensive process in place before classes start up again. We're really dependent on these aides for the quality of service we provide, so they go through interviews with human resources as well as the therapy staff, reference and background checks, and are asked to observe group/individual therapy, and attend orientation training sessions. This week, we trained 30 aides to work with us for the summer, 17 of whom are new to BRSHF.


It's a lot of work to get them all trained and assigned, whether they're in groups or working individually with a child on the autism spectrum, but it's so exciting this time of year to be involved with the incoming aides! They are so energetic, eager to learn, and enthusiastic about the chance they have here to gain direct experience working with children. They really enjoy it and we just love having them around. Our clinic wouldn't be what it is without our student workers!"