It's the boomerang-rang-rang

"You wanna know why I can't say my r's? Cause a couple of years ago I got hit in the head by a boomerang. And now I can't say my r's."

I love the kitty boy!

My name is Skippito Friskito.
I fear not a single bandito.
My manners are mellow,
I'm sweet like the Jell-O,
I get the job done, yes indeed-o.

10 fingers and toes

Batman tried to convince me he only had 8 toes today. Well, maybe not quite convince me, I think he just considered it a matter-of-fact that he has 8 toes. I couldn't quite make him understand that everyone has 10 toes so he probably does too. I almost made him take his shoes and socks off and count, but he moves like a sloth so I figured the process would be more time-consuming than it was worth.

You can't laugh!

There are times when it is really hard for me to remember that I can't laugh at my kids. Today was definitely one of those times. We were doing an opening "discussion" using a free language worksheet from Super Duper. It basically described how "today is Good Neighbor Day" and had a short paragraph and the question "Who is a good neighbor to you?" I had my kids answer the question and then write what makes the person the chose a good neighbor. One of my darlings wrote this:

"The mexicans is good neighbors cuz they are nice."

Oh, bliss.

Student Self-Evaluation

I have been using this self-evaluation form with 2 of my students. I think I am going to start using it with more. My goal is to make my students more aware of what they are doing in speech instead of just practicing without thinking about it. I have given them an area to take their "data" with checks and minuses, and an area to "assess" their work. I set the kids up with their own mirror, clipboard, pencil, and form and then let them choose their own target words. They get to be the therapist!

I'm still working out a few kinks in it to make it work a little smoother and more intuitive for the kiddos, but here's draft 1:

Jessica’s Speech Therapy Progress
Date:	Goal 1:	Goal 2:	Progress:
	Total:	Total:	I did better/worse than last time. What I can do better:
	Total:	Total:	I did better/worse than last time. What I can do better:
	Total:	Total:	I did better/worse than last time. What I can do better:
	Total:	Total:	I did better/worse than last time. What I can do better:
	Total:	Total:	I did better/worse than last time. What I can do better:
	Total:	Total:	I did better/worse than last time. What I can do better:
	Total:	Total:	I did better/worse than last time. What I can do better:
	Total:	Total:	I did better/worse than last time. What I can do better:

It's more of a snail's pace

I finally, FINALLY have 1 kid "officially" in Tier 2, 1 "officially" in Tier 3, and one "officially" recommended for a speech evaluation. Can't wait until tomorrow, that list will get a little bit longer. This is fortunate and unfortunate. Fortunate in that it has been 3 weeks since K and 2nd screenings were conducted and I am just now getting to the point where I can actually get to the kids! Unfortunate because, if at the end of this RTI process I have to test and place all of these kids,I don't know what I'm going to do. I've got about 17 starting in the process. I definitely do not have the room for all of these kids in my schedule. I'm not sure what to do because I weeded the Kindergarteners from 44 students who failed to 12 who will be put in tiers, so I feel like I really do have it down to the kids who truly need help! I have tried to pick a few kids to tell the teachers that I really think they can and should make progress in Tier 2 and that I don't want to move them any further along in the process. I really think they can, but on the other hand the teachers are extremely concerned and leery about providing speech intervention. And to be perfectly honest, I hate to give them any more responsibility than they've got.

On a good note, I am in the process of dismissing 2 students from speech with another 2 on my "dismissal radar"!

Like I said, finally making progress, and it feels so good!

"You have plenty of courage, I am sure," answered Oz. "All you need is confidence in yourself. There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. The true courage is in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty."
-The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

I've almost made it an entire week:

-without tears.
-without changing my schedule. Although one of my 2nd grade teachers was trying really hard to today!

Fingers crossed I can make it through tomorrow! This would be a huge accomplishment.


RANDOM! Here are some updated pictures of my classroom!

Hallway conversations

I recently had a conversation with a SPED teacher in the hallway which led to me wanting to provide an inservice for the teachers at my school. Will I actually do this? NO. However, the list of things that I wish I could present to teachers keeps growing, for example:

1. I can actually treat LANGUAGE not just speech!
2. Written language counts too.
3. I can use and I want to use your curriculum to support my language interventions (take that GPS!).
4. What is a disorder vs a difference? Having an accent does not qualify you for speech.
5. Puh-lease don't send me your Kindergarteners with a misarticulated /r/, I promise it's ok.
6. But, if you just can't take it, you can be a speech therapist too and here's how!

Today's topic was: Speech disorders can, in fact, affect reading. I have a student in Tier 3 who, to the average listener, has a speech disorder. He is extremely difficult to understand. However, he does not have an "articulation" disorder like most people would think of when they think of speech. An example of an articulation disorder would be a kid who physically can't make the sound correctly (i.e. lisping an /s/). Instead, I believe that this student has a phonological disorder, which means he does not use his system of sounds correctly. For example, he may be fronting, which means he replaces all of his back sounds with front sounds (cat becomes tat, and dog becomes dod).

His teacher began telling me about how, "I think he can't hear, I think there's a hearing issue. I wonder if his hearing has been checked? When he's working on sounds, he just really can't hear them. He doesn't know they're different" Now, this could be an accurate assumption, and always something to rule out. However, older brother is on my caseload and does not have a hearing issue, he has a phonological disorder. Thus, it is more likely that this is a phonological disorder. He really doesn't know the difference between a /g/ and a /d/. It's possible that his hearing perception is completely fine but he can't discriminate these sounds when he hears them. This makes sense since he can't differentiate these sounds when he says them. So of course, reading is an extreme challenge for him. I did take some time to explain what I thought was going on with him and how this was affecting his reading. And, once placed in speech, I would likely implement some phonological awareness goals with his speech goals in order to help bridge the gap a bit. I hope that I was able to leave the teacher with a little better understanding of the true issue, but I am not sure.

There is so much that I wish that I could truly help the teachers understand as far as speech and language therapy goes. I feel like they think I just take their students away to play games and practice sounds. I wish that there was a more open dialogue between everyone, because I think we would all learn a lot from each other. It would be great to be able to share differing perspectives, but who wants to listen to a first year SLP?

Minimal pairs for everyone!

After my recent post about my discovery of the awesome SCIP program, I feel like I have been using minimal pairs with everyone I possibly can (all of my "fronters" and "r kids" especially)! So far, I am loving this approach. I think it has been much more intuitive for my students. It really makes them think about how to make different sounds and makes the consequences of using the wrong sounds much more concrete. Basically, I have a minimal pair (ex. win and rim, wed and red, wag and rag) and they take turns producing these words. Whenever they pronounce it wrong I quickly say, "You said wed I wanted you to say red. Concentrate and make a good /r/ sound this time."

Surprisingly enough, the kids who have shown the most success with this approach have been my /w/ for /r/ kids. I am not a big fan of /r/ therapy. There is a reason this is the most difficult sound to produce. /r/ therapy has never been one of my talents (not even close!), in fact I want to run screaming from /r/. But, you can't actually do this when you're the only SLP in the school. However, after deciding to make the switch to minimal pair therapy with some of these kids, I am excited to say that in just 2 short sessions, one of my 5th graders who has been in speech for a loooong time went from 50% accuracy at the word level to 90%. Woo-hoo! Not only that, but all of my students can now accurately describe the difference between producing a /w/ and an /r/.

Let Me GO!

I just want to get going! We have been in school for....well, awhile now, and I still have the same stuff hanging over my head as I did when I first started. Let me eval! Let me place! Let me start interventions! I really hate RTI. I also really hate when there is not a consensus as to how to handle RTI.

The worst part is looking like a complete idiot to everyone around me (teachers) when I have to say, "Well, I know that this is something we need to get going on, hopefully next week after this meeting or that meeting I'll have some answers." Two meetings later I have more questions than I have answers.....

Nasal Emission

I now have 3 kids on my caseload with nasal emission (2 pretty severe, one very mild). I am sort of freaking out because I have never treated, let alone even SEEN this before.

Time to research.

Batman!

So, today I may have met my favorite kid. He actually has some great receptive and expressive language skills. We are definitely focusing on the more pragmatic areas of language, if you get my drift :) He loves to talk. A lot. He loves to interrupt others, and loves to tell stories. Also, his answer for everything has something to do with Batman. I am super excited. The following is an excerpt from our session today:

Me: "What have you been learning about in Science?"
Him: "We have been learning how to mix chemicals to make monsters. And Powderpuff girls."
Me: "Um, I'm pretty sure you have not been learning about how to make monsters."
Him: "Batman."
Me: "Ok, no more talking about Batman in speech class."

More changes to my schedule=

eating an entire box of chocolate Teddy Grahams in less than 15 minutes.

What's your number?

Your caseload number that is. Right now, I'm at 43 with about 6 students waiting in the "wings" of Tier 3 who are ready to be evaluated and placed. On top of that, 6 of my current students are profound and considered for the most part "non-communicators."

ASHA maintains that:

"...in order to provide balance between the amount of time available for appropriate services and the amount of time needed to complete other required responsibilities, it is recommended that the maximum caseload size should not exceed 40 students, regardless of the type or number of service delivery models selected. Special populations and circumstances will dictate even fewer students on the caseload, since certain types of services and students are more time-intensive than others. Intervention provided to preschool students emphasizes family-focused service delivery and multi agency collaboration and coordination. When the caseload consists entirely of preschool students, the size should not exceed 25..."
From ASHA's "Guidelines for Caseload Size and Speech-Language Service Delivery in the Schools"

FYI, Georgia's caseload limit is 55. And after 44 of the Kindergartners at my school failed their recent speech and language screenings, I am getting dangerously close to reaching and exceeding this number (caveat, I realize that probably only 10 really need to be seen in Tier 2, but still!). The thing is though, what can you do when you exceed the limit? Someone has to serve these students, and if you're in the field for the right reason you will not refuse to serve them simply because you are overextended. My goal for this year is to not get burned out, but in a county with limited SLP resources, how could I say no?