Improving Artic Outcomes for Students and SLPs: How One Big School District Did It

Improving Artic Outcomes for Students and SLPs: How One Big School District Did It

by Gordy Rogers, M.S. CCC-SLP School Speech Therapist

TSHA 2015

I have had the pleasure of working with Justina Heintz, M.S. CCC-SLP, an SLP with Northside Independent School District (NISD) in San Antonio, Texas.  This school district is not only one of the largest in Texas but is one of the top thirty largest school districts in the United States.  They approached Speech Buddies with the primary aim of reducing caseloads. And in order to justify such a large-scale adoption of Speech Buddies Tools the district, under the supervision of Ms. Heintz, undertook a pilot study to determine the effect of Speech Buddies Tools on the districts’ caseloads.  Ms. Heintz presented her findings at the 2015 annual convention of the Texas Speech-Language-Hearing Association.  Recently, I had a chance to speak at length with her about this study. She shared some updates: about how the first year of Northside’s district-wide Speech Buddies Tools adoption program progressed, about the impact that Speech Buddies Tools are already having on reducing clinician caseloads, and about how Northside SLPs are improving the lives of the children of NISD.

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Public or Private Speech Therapy?

by Jacky G. Speech Therapist
Children Boarding a School Bus

Image source: Mindware.com

After your child was diagnosed with a speech disorder, you may have felt lost for a little while, but eventually you formulated a plan of attack. You probably read everything you could find on his specific speech disorder and talked to a few experts. Then, you had to make a choice between public or private speech therapy.

Public speech therapy refers to speech therapy that is administered by a speech-language pathologist (SLP) working in the school. Private speech therapy means that the SLP has her own practice or she works in a hospital or clinic. There is also a third option. You might live near a university with a speech clinic. You could enroll your child in speech therapy lessons with graduate students who are supervised by licensed SLPs. There are benefits and drawbacks to all three of these options and in the end, it really boils down to what’s best for your child and your family. Weigh the pros and cons carefully before making a decision.

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