Behavior Coaching & Consulting
Using our knowledge of social communication, we partner with families and preschools to troubleshoot and reduce disruptive classroom behaviors like biting, hitting, tantrums, and defiance.
The Speech & Behavior Connection
Speech-language pathologists often support children with decreased communication or social skills. When children have reduced speech skills their behaviors are often intensified in order to communicate their wants and needs.
Our Beliefs About Preschool Behavior
At Speech & Behavior Solutions we believe in a value based approach (what a child CAN do) vs a deficit based approach (what a child can't do) as we evaluate a child's learning and social differences. We believe that all children have strengths that should be nurtured and opportunities that can be coached. We believe that ALL BEHAVIOR IS COMMUNICATION, so if a child is hitting, biting, or displaying other unwanted behaviors at their preschool, they're showing us an area of need, and if given effective support and individualized coaching, we can help them with these behaviors and experience positive interactions with their peers and teachers.
Why Interpreting Preschool Behavior Is Important
When children are labeled "biters," "hitters," or aggressive, this can be a death sentence for their preschool careers because oftentimes they eventually get "kicked out" of preschool. Generally children who have unwanted behaviors do not do them from a place of meanness, they just have a lot to communicate and haven't learned the communication tools to know what and how to say it. We offer on-site preschool consulting to help teachers and administrators help problem solve unwanted behaviors and add effective strategies to the classroom environment.
Next Steps!
Are you a parent or caregiver?
We provide behavior coaching for students at their school to help troubleshoot unwanted preschool behaviors (like hitting, biting, defiance, etc.).
Are you a school director or teacher?
We offer classroom and teacher consulting to help teachers with classroom management, classroom layout, and more.
Testimonials
Parent Review:
"I cannot sing the praises of Andrea Sloan enough. It is not an exaggeration to say she changed our lives for the better. Our daughter was struggling with processing her feelings and regulating her emotions (which, fun fact, was a phrase we had never heard before Andrea!). We were struggling with understanding how to best help her in school and at home with all her really "big feelings." She would become overwhelmed and often get angry or unkind towards others. For us the breaking point was a teacher reaching out with the phrasing that our daughter was "aggressive towards other students" which you can imagine, as a parent was heartbreaking, and honestly, made me feel like I had let my daughter down. We had no idea what to do next.
Then, in flew Andrea like a superhero in a red cape. Truly there to save the day. First of all, she lovingly assured us that it was not too late to see changes in our child. She listened as I -mostly cried- and explained our concerns. She then built a plan to observe our daughter in different environments. One environment being her school. She joined our daughter for a day as a "fly on the wall" and recorded events where she saw her shiny strengths and areas for growth. Andrea then set up multiple meetings- one with us as parents to discuss her findings, and to our pleasant surprise, meetings also with our daughter's teachers as well. Andrea explained our daughter's needs in a beautiful way that helped me to understand my daughter differently. But Andrea didn't stop there, she also created a plan on how to translate all the tools she gave us into life-long growth and skill building. She gave us processes for our family to not only manage but grow our daughter's "emotional toolbox" so we were never left feeling like we didn't know what to do again. Years later, there is rarely a time I do not stop and think of how impactful our time with Andrea Sloan was. We are better not only as a family but my daughter and other children since, have benefited beyond belief from her time, evaluation and coaching." - Chelsea
"I cannot sing the praises of Andrea Sloan enough. It is not an exaggeration to say she changed our lives for the better. Our daughter was struggling with processing her feelings and regulating her emotions (which, fun fact, was a phrase we had never heard before Andrea!). We were struggling with understanding how to best help her in school and at home with all her really "big feelings." She would become overwhelmed and often get angry or unkind towards others. For us the breaking point was a teacher reaching out with the phrasing that our daughter was "aggressive towards other students" which you can imagine, as a parent was heartbreaking, and honestly, made me feel like I had let my daughter down. We had no idea what to do next.
Then, in flew Andrea like a superhero in a red cape. Truly there to save the day. First of all, she lovingly assured us that it was not too late to see changes in our child. She listened as I -mostly cried- and explained our concerns. She then built a plan to observe our daughter in different environments. One environment being her school. She joined our daughter for a day as a "fly on the wall" and recorded events where she saw her shiny strengths and areas for growth. Andrea then set up multiple meetings- one with us as parents to discuss her findings, and to our pleasant surprise, meetings also with our daughter's teachers as well. Andrea explained our daughter's needs in a beautiful way that helped me to understand my daughter differently. But Andrea didn't stop there, she also created a plan on how to translate all the tools she gave us into life-long growth and skill building. She gave us processes for our family to not only manage but grow our daughter's "emotional toolbox" so we were never left feeling like we didn't know what to do again. Years later, there is rarely a time I do not stop and think of how impactful our time with Andrea Sloan was. We are better not only as a family but my daughter and other children since, have benefited beyond belief from her time, evaluation and coaching." - Chelsea
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