Everything is Language

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 ch...

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...

“Use your words.” To me, the most ineffective teaching method is telling a child to “use their words.” No one is innocent, and I will admit that first. I have used that prompt in the past. There are a number of reasons I feel we should be cueing our students in different ways. Students with Autism, emotional challenges, and developmental disabilities often hear these words- “use your words.” As educators, family members, and people… we can do better. For students with Autism, I see “use your words” as a problem because we are assuming something; that the student has the capability of “using their words” but isn’t. For students with emotional challenges, we are figuring that there is something that we will unlock for the child when they “use their words.” For students with developmental disabilities, we are guessing that there are words in there and that there is hope they will use them. This is not even to consider the prompt dependence that we might foster by giving...

“I’m too poor to pay attention.” I would love to say I can take credit for that statement because it sums up my experience working in schools. Our students are experiencing more and more difficulty with attention in classrooms. As any good educator, I want to know.. “why?” Is it environment? have we inundated our students with too much technology?  have we put on the TV too early in life and not cultivated play?  have we put too much pressure on younger students thus causing a fallout of anxiety and inattention that is hard to dig out of?  is it what we are feeding our children? The dyes and chemicals that are wrecking the balance in their brains?  It could be all of these and more… is it nature?  are kids just born with more inattention than before?  have kids been like this and now we are overdiagnosing?  have kids been like this and our culture now frowns on a child with too much energy?  It also be these reasons and ...