In this seminar, participants will learn about structural and functional differences in the autistic neurotype that contribute to language acquisition differences and how musical rhythm can enhance this process. Corinne Zmoos, MS, CCC-SLP will synthesize and comment on neuroscience and clinical research findings that describe the organizing effect that rhythmic input can have on a child's ability to process and make meaning out of speech streams. Participants will come away with practical techniques that leverage the mathematics of rhythm to create acoustic, linguistic conditions that may be easier for autistic children to process and encode.

Learning Outcome(s):

• Describe at least 2 structural differences in the autistic brain that may contribute to language acquisition differences.

• Explain at least 2 reasons why rhythm may enhance processing of language input for autistic children.

• Choose at least 3 rhythmic techniques that they would use with an autistic client to enhance language acquisition.