Ep. 131 A Sneak Peek into 2026

In the first episode of 2026, Michelle gives a special preview of the exciting guests and topics lined up for SLP Full Disclosure in the coming months. From groundbreaking AAC technology and fluency therapy to the worlds of voice coaching and pediatric feeding, this season is packed with diverse expertise.

Listen in as Michelle shares how she discovers incredible SLPs on social media and introduces the specialists who will be joining the show. You'll hear about upcoming discussions on everything from being a traveling SLP and navigating your clinical fellowship year to the complexities of dysphagia and apraxia. Get ready for a year of fun, learning, and insightful conversations with leaders and innovators in the field of speech-language pathology.

Timestamps:

00:00 - Happy New Year & A Look Ahead at 2026
01:51 - Dylan McConney & the Nerd Chat AAC Platform
03:41 - Tim McKenzie on Fluency and Building Client Confidence
04:45 - Maurice Goodwin: A Look into Voice Coaching
06:19 - Kaylee on Pediatric Feeding in the NICU
07:58 - Brandon, the Traveling SLP
09:09 - George Barnes on Dysphagia and Being an Expert Witness
10:24 - Recruiter Christy Yankovic on Building Clinician Relationships
11:17 - Michelle's Two-Part Series on Early Intervention
12:11 - Laura Smith Returns to Discuss Apraxia
13:25 - Claudia Berger on Traveling During Your CFY
15:48 - The Future of AI in Speech Therapy

Upcoming Guests:

Stay tuned for episodes featuring Dylan McConney (Nerd Chat), Tim McKenzie (fluency), Maurice Goodwin (voice), Kaylee (pediatric feeding), Brandon (travel SLP), George Barnes (dysphagia), Christy Yankovic (recruiting), Laura Smith (apraxia), Claudia Berger (travel CFY), and Israel Montano (SLP AI Tools).

Connect with Us:

Are you an SLP creating content on social media? Michelle is always looking for new guests! Connect with us on Instagram @AMN_allied.

Share Your Experience: 

If you are using AI in your therapy sessions or workflow, we want to hear from you. Send us a comment and let us know how you're incorporating it into your practice.

Transcript:

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:22:15
Hey y'all, it's Michelle with SLP. Full disclosure. Happy New Year to everyone that's listening. I cannot believe that it's 2026. It's just mind blowing. Time is going by way too fast. But 2026 is here and today on the podcast we are going to be talking about all of the amazing things that we have in store for you, in the coming months.

00:00:22:21 - 00:00:26:17
When I first agreed to do this podcast a couple of years ago,

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I knew that I wanted it to be informative and I wanted it to be fun. I wanted everyone to be able to listen to the podcast and be able to take something away from each episode.

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But I wanted us to have fun while we were learning, and so I was kind of concerned where I was going to find my guests.

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But if you can believe it, I have been finding guests on social media. One of my first guests that I had on the show, he might not have been one of the first ones, but he was pretty early on. I found on Instagram and his name is Kevin the Singing SLP. So if you guys have not listened to that episode, go back and listen to it.

00:01:04:04 - 00:01:29:03
It's amazing that I found him on as on Instagram. And then we found on TikTok, a girl named Melissa with honey based speech. So if you have not listened to that one, that one came out fairly recently. So you need to go back and listen to that one. But if you're an SLP that's listening and you post content on social media, Instagram, TikTok, just know that I am stalking your pages.

00:01:29:05 - 00:01:36:10
I love to watch all of the content that's being posted in. So many of the SLPs are very niche in what they're posting about. Like Kevin,

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is the singing SLP. He was very niche. And then,

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of course, Melissa with her private practice, very niche. And so that's where I've been going to find,

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podcast guests and I think it's super fun because it gives me a glimpse into kind of who they are and what their personality is like.

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Because like I said, I wanted this podcast to be fun. So we're going to be talking about some of the podcasts that we have coming up in the next in the next few months. The first person I want to introduce to you guys to is a guy named Dylan Mcconney, and Dylan is the developer and founder of Nerd Chat.

00:02:11:06 - 00:02:29:23
What is in our chat? You say Nerd Chat is a groundbreaking IAC platform and it's literally changing the way people with communication differences communicate. So it is different from your typical AC device in that it is an iOS

00:02:30:01 - 00:02:48:01
platform. It's an app that integrates into your iPhone and allows people to have conversations and messaging over their phone, and you're going to get to hear all about Dylan and his amazing and beautiful story about why he developed Nerd Chat to begin with.

00:02:48:03 - 00:03:13:09
So he's also going to be sharing with us some demonstrations on how nerd chat works. And that is incredible. So this app is is integrated into AMS to elevate platform that I use personally. As I tell a therapist, and it is the most amazing platform I've ever seen. For IAC it is one click changing pictures from picture symbols to Google pictures.

00:03:13:11 - 00:03:41:08
It's so many different languages. It translates into so many different languages. It's amazing. So be listening for Dylan Mcconney and Nerd Chat because that's coming and it is going to be amazing. And you're going to get to see how it works. I also found another selfie, this guy I found on TikTok, and I know he was probably thinking I was crazy when I messaged him, and I always make sure to put my professional my work email address in there so they know that I'm not some scammer.

00:03:41:10 - 00:04:08:20
But I came across, some TikToks of a guy talking about fluency. So Tim McKenzie is a speech language pathologist from the Atlanta, Georgia area, and he specializes in fluency. And when we recorded this podcast, it was so interesting because we didn't so much talk about fluency, strategies and things that you can do to improve in your therapy techniques, although we did touch on that.

00:04:08:21 - 00:04:29:00
He talked more about, building those connections with their clients and helping them build confidence, and feel comfortable and using their voice as they speak to people in their world. And as a stutterer himself. Tim shares his story about what it was like receiving speech and language services growing up.

00:04:29:02 - 00:04:32:14
And then how that changed as he became an adult.

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And he talks about the people that he met and that shaped his life as a, as a career in speech pathology and just as a person. And he was amazing. It's going to be an amazing podcast. So I can't wait for you guys to hear that.

00:04:45:08 - 00:04:56:09
Another guest that we have coming up on the show is a guy that I recently found on TikTok again, and I found him because he had posted a lot of content from Asia 2025 from,

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Washington, DC.

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And so I had been searching for all of the SLPs that were posting content from Asha, and he popped up and he was so energetic.

00:05:05:00 - 00:05:33:04
And he's a man and we need more men in our field. And so I reached out to him. His name is Maurice Goodwin, and he is a voice coach from Houston, Texas. Because remember I told you guys I wanted this podcast to be informational, and I wanted us to learn things from the podcast, and I will have to say that personally, as a speech pathologist, spending my entire career in the school system or in early intervention voice is way outside my wheelhouse.

00:05:33:04 - 00:05:54:16
I know nothing about it. So Maurice is a speech language pathologist. He's a teacher and he's also a musician himself, and he specializes in training performers, professionals and anyone really that is looking to improve their voice. So I'm super excited to talk to him to find out what he does. He's on TikTok. I don't know his TikTok handle,

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He was super entertaining and,

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I can't wait to have him on to find out what he does as a voice coach and how he integrates that into therapy working. Does he work with children and those kinds of things? So that one is going to be super, super fun, and I'm super excited to learn about it because I remember my voice classes when I was in graduate school and I it just never clicked with me.

00:06:17:20 - 00:06:19:08
It never made sense to me.

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So I'm really excited to to talk to Maurice, another SLP that I also stalked and found on TikTok. You can see the trend here. Michel is out here stalking TikToks and stalking all these SLPs on social media is a girl named Katy. I'm sorry, a girl named Kaylee. So Kaylee is a feeding therapist in acute care pediatrics in the NICU, and she also specializes in oral facial.

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My allergy, something that I have recently become pretty interested in and I've been reading a lot about it.

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I just find it fascinating. So,

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she does TikToks on a day in the life of a Nyx SLP,

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working with parents on feeding and swallowing with babies and again, feeding, swallowing all of that is way outside of my wheelhouse.

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It's not something that I'm very knowledgeable in.

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But working in Early Intervention, our OTS are typically the one on my,

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I teams that have taken over that feeding.

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But I can't wait to talk to her and find out what's going on in the area of feeding and swallowing and just get some tips and tricks from her and just hear about what she does as a speech pathologist.

00:07:28:05 - 00:07:31:16
And then, Nikki, I think that would be so, so rewarding to work,

00:07:31:18 - 00:07:51:01
in that area. But it's just something that I never got into. So that one's going to be super fun for everyone. That's listening, that is interested in that medical setting. So we haven't had a lot of medical setting SLPs on. And so that's one of the main reasons that I reached out to her, because primarily our therapists have been school based or early intervention.

00:07:51:03 - 00:07:58:00
So I thought it would be super cool to have someone like Kaylee on the show, to talk about what she does in hospital. So,

00:07:58:02 - 00:08:12:16
another speech pathologist that I found again, and the trend is I found him on TikTok. His name is Brandon, and Brandon is a traveling SLP. And that's what first caught my eye.

00:08:12:18 - 00:08:14:08
Is that he was a traveling SLP.

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That, and the fact that, again, he's a man and I love seeing men in our field that's predominantly,

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women. So he posts super fun, engaging, hysterical TikToks about,

00:08:26:15 - 00:08:41:05
different things. One of the ones that I watched most recently that was hysterical is he was talking about some of the answers that his kids had given in therapy while they were working on figurative language, and it was absolutely hysterical.

00:08:41:07 - 00:08:42:17
He also talks about,

00:08:42:17 - 00:08:54:06
opening up a private practice while he was a contractor focusing on early intervention. So I'm super interested to hear about that part of his career and what that looked like.

00:08:54:08 - 00:09:01:05
And how he brought those two worlds together, being a contractor, a traveler. And then also sounds like he was an early intervention broker.

00:09:01:10 - 00:09:08:23
So that's going to be super fun. And again, I'm just excited to hear his journey as a man in the field of speech, language, mythology.

00:09:09:01 - 00:09:18:14
So TikTok is not the only place where I stalk SLPs. I also, make lots of connections on LinkedIn and page one of our recruiters. That was on,

00:09:18:14 - 00:09:25:20
a while ago, she told me, and I did not know this because I'm Gen X, that LinkedIn is considered social media.

00:09:25:22 - 00:09:47:11
I had no idea. But I was scrolling my LinkedIn the other day and I came across a guy named George Barnes, and he is a board certified specialist in swallowing and swallowing disorders. Specifically in the area of dysphagia. But what really caught my eye was that he is an expert witness in medical speech, language pathology and dysphagia.

00:09:47:13 - 00:09:50:20
And that's something that I know nothing about. And,

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my mom and, kind of a personal note, my mom is in a nursing home, and,

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we've recently had to go and change her diet,

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just because of some dysphagia that she's having. So I'm really interested in picking his brain, and kind of finding out more about dysphagia and how it affects the elderly.

00:10:10:02 - 00:10:20:13
And just find out what he does. And I really want to talk about this expert witness thing, because I think I would die if I had to get on the stand and be an expert witness. But he's going to be super interesting. He's already reached back out to me,

00:10:20:15 - 00:10:22:11
and said that he was interested. So,

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I'm super excited to have George on.

00:10:24:04 - 00:10:47:14
We've had recruiters on the podcast. In the past, we've had Paige on, we've had Joe on, but we're also going to be joined by Christy Yankovic. She is a recruiter with Am, and she specializes in placing clinicians and travel contracts across medical and school based settings. We're going to be going back over how to get started with Am in as a travel SLP.

00:10:47:14 - 00:10:54:11
Or I tell a therapist, but primarily that relationship between the traveler and the recruiter.

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And what

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that relationship looks like and how it can shape and form and mold into something really beautiful. And she's going to be sharing some personal stories and personal success stories about how that relationship changed with the clinicians that she's placed over the years.

00:11:09:07 - 00:11:17:21
And so that was a super fun episode. And I'm know you guys are going to she's going to actually brings lots of knowledge to the table. And so that one's going to be super fun to,

00:11:17:23 - 00:11:27:22
I am going to be also doing a two part series on early intervention and language development, which as you guys know, if you've listened to this podcast before, that is my absolute heart.

00:11:27:22 - 00:11:30:12
I love that birth to three population.

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I'm going to just be talking about things to look for as far as language development. Maybe some red flags, some activities that you can do to build that language in those early stages. And, talking about how that early intervention model differs from a traditional therapy model. I know that's one thing that parents sometimes struggle with when they make that transition from early intervention to preschool.

00:11:53:12 - 00:12:10:11
In that school based setting, in that IFC to an IEP, and not understanding that that parent coaching parent training model in early intervention is very different from that traditional therapy model that we do in the school setting. So that one's going to be really informative. And I hope you guys enjoyed that one too.

00:12:10:13 - 00:12:11:08
I have another guest on and I can't remember how I came across Laura.

00:12:15:09 - 00:12:38:03
I think I found her on Twitter. Honestly, I do believe I found Laura on TikTok. Yeah, I did. I definitely found Laura on TikTok. So Laura Smith is going to be, a guest on the show, and she is a, specialist in the area of a praxis, something that I know a lot about and very little about all at the same time.

00:12:38:05 - 00:13:01:20
That therapy for a proxy of speech, as you know, is very, specific. And so she's going to be bringing her knowledge as a speech language pathologist specializing in a proxy, a speech to the podcast, but also as a mom, she is a mom of a child with a proxy. And an interesting fact about Laura is that this is her second appearance on SLP Full Disclosure podcast.

00:13:01:20 - 00:13:25:17
So we're super excited to have her back, talking about all things related and providing us with some great resources as speech pathologist on where we can go to get more information and develop a better skill set for our therapy. So we're going to be breaking down some myths about a proxy for talking about what progress looks like when you're working with a child with a proxy, and just share practical advice for families and professionals.

00:13:25:17 - 00:13:53:11
So whether you're a parent of a child with a proxy, a you're a teacher. If you're an SLP, this is going to be an episode that's going to be packed with lots of information. That's going to be one to look forward to. Another exciting guest that I'm super, super excited about is our very own Claudia Berger. Claudia is a travel SLP with Am in, and I had the pleasure and the honor of meeting Claudia at Asher this year.

00:13:53:16 - 00:14:16:04
She joined the AMN team at our base and shared her knowledge, her expertise, and her experiences with a lot of the people that came to our booth asking about travel therapy. She was so inspiring. She was so just energetic. She's really young. She's young enough to be my daughter. And I think that's why I fell in love with her, because she's about my daughter's age.

00:14:16:06 - 00:14:51:13
She was just adorable. But she is so very knowledgeable in the field of speech pathology, as most of us are. But I just love her story. So she's going to be talking to us about what it was like taking a travel position right after graduating with her master's degree during her clinical fellowship year, and that is one of the biggest myths and the biggest misconceptions that I've heard from people that came to our booth at Asha is that you can't travel during your clinical fellowship year, and that is not true.

00:14:51:19 - 00:15:11:09
And we have a real life person named Claudia who works with us, who is going to share her experiences. She is currently on assignment, I believe, in Vermont, and this is her second year there. She did expand after her first year, but it was so much fun because while we were at Asha, all of the recruiters were there.

00:15:11:11 - 00:15:20:16
And, her next assignment, she because at travel therapist. The reason you do that is so you can travel the country. So she's been in Vermont. She's from Florida.

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And now she wants to go to the Pacific Northwest. So one of our recruiters literally walked her over to a school district in the Pacific Northwest and introduced them to Claudia.

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They were able to chat and talk, and she essentially had an interview right on the spot at Asha. So I can't wait to find out the status of that, to see if she got that placement that she wants.

00:15:42:22 - 00:15:47:06
In Washington state or Oregon. I can't remember really where it was, but I know it was the Pacific Northwest.

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So that's going to be really fun.

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And I think the last thing I want to talk about today is I when I was at Asha, I met,

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and talked with a couple of people who are in the field of AI. We've talked about AI on the podcast before. And I use AI in my speech therapy sessions pretty regularly, but on a very elementary level, like I'm using ChatGPT to create a third grade reading passage with vocabulary lists with specific, sounds or specific articulation sounds.

00:16:20:18 - 00:16:56:12
Phonological processes. So very, very elementary. And I am aware that there is AI out there that will do way more than that. So I'm looking for professionals. In AI, and I also, want to find out how people are using it in their everyday, therapy, in their practice. So if you are using current, if you are currently using AI, send us a comment, let us know how you're using it and how you're incorporating that into your daily therapy sessions or in your workflow.

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Is are you using it in therapy or are you using it more for planning?

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Soap notes, therapy and that sort of thing?

00:17:03:02 - 00:17:18:00
But I, I am no expert in AI, but I did make a connection on LinkedIn. I know you guys are surprised that I'm talking people on the computer and on the internet. His name is Israel Montano and he's a speech language pathologist.

00:17:18:06 - 00:17:27:16
But also he's the developer of SLP, AI tools. Now, this connection that I made with Israel is very new. I think I've reached out to him via email.

00:17:27:18 - 00:17:43:21
But his AI tool is designed to streamline Soap notes, documentation and clinical workflows. But it also includes the first AI Praxis Prep through quizzes and tests in all three of the exam areas.

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And it's all within an app. So if you're a graduate student and you're looking for a way to start planning and prepping for that Praxis,

00:17:51:17 - 00:18:00:23
this will be a very good episode for you guys to listen to. So wow, that seems like a lot. I can't believe it's 2026.

00:18:01:01 - 00:18:06:16
The podcasts that are going to be coming out in the next few months, and all of those guests that I talked about are in no particular order.

00:18:06:16 - 00:18:31:22
I don't know when they're going to be released, but as you can see, we've got lots of good podcast guests and information coming up. So I'm super excited about 2026. I'm super excited about the guests that we've already scheduled. And if you are posting content on Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, just know that there is someone stalking your page and that someone is probably me.

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So if you get a message, I will always include my, work email with in. So you know that I'm not a scammer.

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If there's any other email address that comes up, do not respond to that email. It will always be my 8 a.m. an email. So you guys,

00:18:47:20 - 00:18:52:14
I hope that everyone had a restful Christmas vacation and holiday season.

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I hope you all had a happy new Year and I'm looking forward to 2026, so we will talk to you guys soon.

00:18:59:21 - 00:19:21:10
Thank you for tuning in to SLP. Full disclosure. You can learn more about this episode and our show on our website at AMN. Health care.com. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend and subscribe to our show on your favorite podcast platform. You can also find show updates and SLP opportunities on our Instagram at AMN ally.

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Special thanks to AMN healthcare for making this show possible. See y'all next time!