University of South Florida

Candace Hurley, Sarasota County
Lamarque Elementary School
CARD Staff: Megan Fitzpatrick

Candace Hurley is a Speech Language Pathologist for Sarasota County Schools who provides speech/language therapy services to students with autism spectrum disorder. She has a master’s degree in communicative disorders from University of Central Florida and a bachelor’s degree in hearing, speech, and language sciences from Ohio University. She holds a Certificate of Clinical Competence from ASHA. She has spent the past 6 years providing communication training and diagnostic services to students with autism who range in age from preschool through 5th grade at an elementary school that houses four self-contained ASD classes. She has used many different service delivery models in her therapy including whole group instruction, one-on-one instruction, small groups, social skills training, and consultation/collaboration with classroom staff. She has attended Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) training and utilizes picture exchange communication with many of her nonverbal students. She participates in assistive technology evaluations and implements many different levels/varieties of speech generating devices. She uses music therapy paired with visual aides in order to increase specific receptive and expressive language skills. She assists classroom teachers with incorporating and making visual schedules and visual aids as well suggesting strategies for tailoring their academic instruction to incorporate communication skills training. Candace was a CARD Conference presenter in 2010. She currently lives in Sarasota with her husband and her 3 year old son, Carter.

Proposed Project:

The teacher is creating a reproducible binder for all staff members who work with their students with autism and using a color copier/scanner/printer to simply the production process. The binder will contain all of the visual supports necessary to enhance the students' educations (including class schedules, individual visual schedules, visual aids for cueing and labeling purposes, pictures of the staff and students, copies of common behavioral supports, and picture symbols used for communication books such as food items, school items, preferred activities, preferred reinforcers, attributes, and sentence starters) in order to provide the students with greater consistency in their visual supports as they transition to various grade levels/classrooms.