Everything is Language

There is a wide span of expected behaviors with young students.  What's more, there is a wide span of behaviors when working with students with learning challenges.  In my years of assessing and working with students like this, it's clear to me.  What you consider a problem, I think is a strength. The student asks you for extra time in a game. The student who works to divert you from your lesson plan. The student who asks extra questions, or wants to know something personal. The student who shares personal narratives on a Monday or Friday. The student who tries to manipulate the situation through passive or active behavior (insert whatever that student likes to do!). You see, I get how these kinds of behaviors can be problematic.  I completely get that these kinds of behaviors can be disruptive.  Not only can they throw off a lesson, but they can mess up a day in school as well. The disruptions make for the problems, but on the other side of disruption is cognition. What goes t

I walked into Rosemary Kennedy School with ideas in my mind.  It was my first job out of school, I was blessed that my supervisor agreed to be my CFY mentor.  I had a caseload of 11 children and was ready to stand on my head to get the job done.  Floortime/DIR approaches were going to be used, AAC technologies were going to be expanded, and I was going to help all of my students. Then I realized I was going to have to test some of my students. The days of a clinical evaluation in grad school went dancing through my head.  Articulation, voice, fluency, hearing, multi-faceted language evaluation, conversational speech sample, language sample...you get the idea. I quickly learned through observation that a school triennial evaluation for CSE and a clinical evaluation are 2 different animals.  Completely. Clinical evaluations require time you don't have in school. Clinical evaluations look at the whole picture while a school evaluation is really looking at academic impact. Clinical eva

Every Fall, my school gets some incoming students.  One of the tried and true goals goes something like this: "The student will sequence 3 pictures into a cohesive narrative" or "The student will organize 3 pictures and sequence using words like first, next, last." All seriousness aside, I see the value in sequencing goals.  After all, a Kindergartner needs to be able to string together a halfway decent story.  Granted, not everyone can sequence with all of the transition words and make it work, but it's still important. Here's what I need my students who are sequencing to do: get the student to understand the sequential order (to me, pictures are the only way to do this.  Maybe text for an older student, but they would have needed the pictures as a foundation when they were younger) Be able to describe the pictures (without the "meat" of the action in each picture, what's the point?) Use transition words (first, next, last, then, after, before

  Working with children with severely unintelligible children is both a challenge and a blessing.   It is pretty clear why it is a challenge, but the blessing is revealed slowly.   With every step forward for these children, you can see how the world of communication opens up. “Communication is the essence of human life”- Janice Light As SLPs, we need to help children who are severely unintelligible get closer to a goal of improved communication.   While the diagnosis of Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) can get thrown around with these children, there are certainly different roads that bring us to the same destination: significant challenges with unintelligibility as well as a disability in overall communication. ASHA recommends considering augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) for children with CAS (ASHA CAS Treatment, 2017), and I would go further to say that we need to consider AAC for children with less severe diagnoses as CAS, but still with challenges in communi

This summer brings new experiences for my family. Camps are closed or restricted in use.  The beaches near me are at 50% capacity (and there's still a ton of people there!).  I am fortunate enough to have a blow up pool in the yard, but the usual summer experience is different, so different. I know it doesn't seem like it, but I feel like it's been summer since school "ended" in March.  Yes, we had virtual learning.  Yes, I did therapy online, but there has been a completely different "feel" to the way this summer has started.  There were usual summer tasks that were done already.  My kids were already in "summer" mode because their 1-2 hours of virtual learning left a lot of time for leisure.  On a good day, they played together and on a rough day, I played referee. That is why this simple summer idea has been such a lifesaver already. Stories Podcast! My children's favorites are numerous- but recent ones include "With Our Powers Comb

There are many ways to learn.   One of the most important is when in reflection.  When you can take a moment or 2 and collect yourself.  Figure out what has happened and what you did about it. Obviously, distance learning or remote learning is not going away for at least the next few weeks.  My colleague's anxiety about what happens after summer break is real.  Returning to school must happen, but in what way and how? I work with exceptional students.  Zoom sessions with students with Down Syndrome, Autism, and Intellectual Disabilities bring challenges.  These sessions also bring realizations. SMILE When I start a Zoom session, I get the wonder of being able to look at myself. My wife is a lucky lady, I know :) Seriously though, start with a smile.  Yes, you are texting.  Yes, your email just pinged.  Yes, you have 5 more sessions today.  Smile.  Smile for the student.  Smile for yourself.  Smile because you are still able to touch the lives of students through a computer. GET IT