School Accessibility\u00a0for Every\u00a0Student<\/h2>\n![\"School](\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\")
Photo by Blake Patterson<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/div>\nIn a school setting, many speech therapists will opt to do \u201cpush in\u201d services<\/a>. This means that, for the appointed session, the therapist simply would embed himself or herself in the student\u2019s natural classroom environment. This allows the therapist to provide direct academic support for the student in exactly the classroom tasks that a speech or language challenge might make difficult. So rather than address speech and language goals \u201cin a vacuum\u201d (i.e. outside of the student\u2019s academic setting), the therapist is able to see exactly what the child is struggling with in the curriculum and, perhaps most importantly, how the child feels about these struggles. The therapist can provide immediate psychological support to the child and can also support the classroom teacher.<\/p>\nOften, students receiving special education services in a general education school can command additional resources from classroom teachers. Since in many school districts teachers are so stretched thin, this extra professional in the class can allow the teacher to re-focus on the other dozens of students that are his or her responsibility. This is enormously powerful. In this way, the push-in services that your child\u2019s speech therapist can provide is benefiting the entire class, which in turn, benefits your child.<\/p>\n
Coordinating Support Services<\/h2>\n
Depending on your child\u2019s therapy plan, more than one professional may be involved. This could include an occupational therapist, school counselor as well as various classroom or\u00a0specialty subject-teachers. In the case of a child with a language-based learning difference, the speech therapist would take \u201ccenter stage\u201d in short-term and long-term academic planning. Your therapist may also be the point-person to coordinate the implementation of that plan among the professionals supporting your child.<\/p>\n
For example, your therapist may know that processing complex or multi-step information is particularly challenging for your child. With this knowledge, your therapist would be able to prep your child\u2019s math teacher for an upcoming unit on fractions. The therapist may review some of the language within the unit and make suggestions for how this language can be modified to suit your child\u2019s needs. She may also suggest particularly strategies that could compensate for the processing challenge. This could take the form of specific visual aids or special previews of topics that the therapist can review with your child before the unit on fractions is actually taught. This planning and coordination role is an absolutely vital one. Again, this can take some of the burden off your classroom teacher and in the end, help your achieve his or her academic potential.<\/p>\n
Emotional Support and Advocacy<\/h2>\nPhoto by Shawn Whisenant<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/div>\nRecently, I penned a blog post with\u00a0suggestions for parents on how to talk to children who don\u2019t have communication challenge<\/a> about how they should treat peers who do have challenges. Obviously, this is a vital topic and one that really resonated with my speech therapist colleagues. The volume of response from\u00a0speech therapists who read that\u00a0post shows\u00a0how committed we\u00a0are to the children we\u00a0serve, not only regarding\u00a0speech and language goals, but to each child’s\u00a0overall well-being.<\/p>\nYour child\u2019s speech therapist will spend significant one-on-one or small-group time with your child and will really get to know them. Your therapist can advocate for and support your child. He or she can also be on the lookout for any bullying or untoward behavior from peers that may be linked to your child\u2019s communication challenge. Your therapist can also help be a specialized monitor of your child\u2019s individual academic profile; your therapist will be able to help manage your child\u2019s expectations so he or she won\u2019t get too frustrated by a task that may really expose his or her weaknesses. By the same token, this deep knowledge of your child will help your child realize the sweetness of their successes. This is something that speech therapists naturally do, and do well. So make sure you as a parent access your child\u2019s school or private therapist as just this type of emotional support.<\/p>\n
This post\u2019s focus is simply to have parents look beyond what you might think of as a somewhat limited scope of practice. Speech therapists are a caring, nurturing bunch and they relish the opportunity to be a multi-faceted support throughout your child\u2019s academic life.<\/p>\n \n \n \n <\/a>\n <\/span>\n <\/span>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like so many professionals within the health care\/education world, speech-language pathologists (a.k.a. speech therapists) do so much more than their job description would entail. Sure, they have specific training and often years of experience treating a variety of communication challenges; they can be counted upon to deliver powerful results. Yes, the main thing a therapist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11166,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1730,35,6,1097,268],"class_list":["post-11165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-speech-therapist","tag-local-speech-therapis","tag-private-speech-therapist","tag-speech-therapist-2","tag-speech-therapist-collaboration","tag-speech-therapist-working-with-teachers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/what-does-a-speech-and-language-therapist-do.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11165"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11171,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11165\/revisions\/11171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"School](\"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/14929988367_b97d6d5a4c_o-300x300.jpg\")
Photo by Blake Patterson<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n In a school setting, many speech therapists will opt to do \u201cpush in\u201d services<\/a>. This means that, for the appointed session, the therapist simply would embed himself or herself in the student\u2019s natural classroom environment. This allows the therapist to provide direct academic support for the student in exactly the classroom tasks that a speech or language challenge might make difficult. So rather than address speech and language goals \u201cin a vacuum\u201d (i.e. outside of the student\u2019s academic setting), the therapist is able to see exactly what the child is struggling with in the curriculum and, perhaps most importantly, how the child feels about these struggles. The therapist can provide immediate psychological support to the child and can also support the classroom teacher.<\/p>\n Often, students receiving special education services in a general education school can command additional resources from classroom teachers. Since in many school districts teachers are so stretched thin, this extra professional in the class can allow the teacher to re-focus on the other dozens of students that are his or her responsibility. This is enormously powerful. In this way, the push-in services that your child\u2019s speech therapist can provide is benefiting the entire class, which in turn, benefits your child.<\/p>\n Depending on your child\u2019s therapy plan, more than one professional may be involved. This could include an occupational therapist, school counselor as well as various classroom or\u00a0specialty subject-teachers. In the case of a child with a language-based learning difference, the speech therapist would take \u201ccenter stage\u201d in short-term and long-term academic planning. Your therapist may also be the point-person to coordinate the implementation of that plan among the professionals supporting your child.<\/p>\n For example, your therapist may know that processing complex or multi-step information is particularly challenging for your child. With this knowledge, your therapist would be able to prep your child\u2019s math teacher for an upcoming unit on fractions. The therapist may review some of the language within the unit and make suggestions for how this language can be modified to suit your child\u2019s needs. She may also suggest particularly strategies that could compensate for the processing challenge. This could take the form of specific visual aids or special previews of topics that the therapist can review with your child before the unit on fractions is actually taught. This planning and coordination role is an absolutely vital one. Again, this can take some of the burden off your classroom teacher and in the end, help your achieve his or her academic potential.<\/p>\n Photo by Shawn Whisenant<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Recently, I penned a blog post with\u00a0suggestions for parents on how to talk to children who don\u2019t have communication challenge<\/a> about how they should treat peers who do have challenges. Obviously, this is a vital topic and one that really resonated with my speech therapist colleagues. The volume of response from\u00a0speech therapists who read that\u00a0post shows\u00a0how committed we\u00a0are to the children we\u00a0serve, not only regarding\u00a0speech and language goals, but to each child’s\u00a0overall well-being.<\/p>\n Your child\u2019s speech therapist will spend significant one-on-one or small-group time with your child and will really get to know them. Your therapist can advocate for and support your child. He or she can also be on the lookout for any bullying or untoward behavior from peers that may be linked to your child\u2019s communication challenge. Your therapist can also help be a specialized monitor of your child\u2019s individual academic profile; your therapist will be able to help manage your child\u2019s expectations so he or she won\u2019t get too frustrated by a task that may really expose his or her weaknesses. By the same token, this deep knowledge of your child will help your child realize the sweetness of their successes. This is something that speech therapists naturally do, and do well. So make sure you as a parent access your child\u2019s school or private therapist as just this type of emotional support.<\/p>\n This post\u2019s focus is simply to have parents look beyond what you might think of as a somewhat limited scope of practice. Speech therapists are a caring, nurturing bunch and they relish the opportunity to be a multi-faceted support throughout your child\u2019s academic life.<\/p>\n \n \n \n Like so many professionals within the health care\/education world, speech-language pathologists (a.k.a. speech therapists) do so much more than their job description would entail. Sure, they have specific training and often years of experience treating a variety of communication challenges; they can be counted upon to deliver powerful results. Yes, the main thing a therapist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11166,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1730,35,6,1097,268],"class_list":["post-11165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-speech-therapist","tag-local-speech-therapis","tag-private-speech-therapist","tag-speech-therapist-2","tag-speech-therapist-collaboration","tag-speech-therapist-working-with-teachers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/what-does-a-speech-and-language-therapist-do.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11165"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11171,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11165\/revisions\/11171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Coordinating Support Services<\/h2>\n
Emotional Support and Advocacy<\/h2>\n
![\"Emotional](\"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/3652760632_33316e9959_o-300x250.jpg\")
![\"Parent's](\"https:\/\/www.speechbuddy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/533600a3-8950-4500-aa3b-fab8818be024.png\")
<\/a>\n <\/span>\n <\/span>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"