Tonya Said:

In-service Ideas for Speech Language Pathology?

We Answered:

Teachers always appreciate knowing just how the speech pathologist can help them to help their students in the regular classroom; basically, how you can help make their job easier, not harder, when it comes to LD/speech/language impaired children. How does the classroom teacher help with speech and language carryover into daily activities? How does the SLP assist the classroom teacher with literacy training? (educators typically don't even know we are trained in literacy, let alone how helpful we can be)

Evelyn Said:

Speech & Language delay?

We Answered:

I also have a son with a speech and language disorder. It is very frustrating, because he knows so much more than he can verbalize to us. And some outsiders treat him like he has less mental ability, even like mental retardation sometimes, and don't challenge him enough in classroom or group situations. So I know how you feel! Getting those verbal skills up as much as possible is the key thing.

I agree that you cannot depend on the school system to bridge that verbal gap, given your description and also my own personal experience. You will have to get involved yourself, but that does not necessarily mean homeschooling. You can either get him private expressive speech therapy, or work on it with him yourself in the evenings.

There is a great book called "How to Increase Your Child's Verbal Intelligence," by Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness, which contains all kinds of verbal games to play with your son that are really therapeutic. Just a few minutes a day will help his overall expressive ability, incl. things like vocabulary, grammar, logic, etc. It's a pretty informal, fun thing that can make a big difference. I'll include the link below.

Also, reading books aloud to him every day helps, too, esp. if you keep your finger on where you are reading so he can follow along. If I come across a word he won't know, we might pause a moment and talk about it. My children act out the portion that we just read when we finish, which makes it extra fun.

Choose your read-aloud books so that they bring in those other subjects of math, history, etc. Biographies or historical fiction about important people, like Washington, Archimedes, daVinci, etc. will bring those subjects to life for him.

For reading, you could take him to a tutor like Kumon, or you could again work on that with him at home. There is a great set of tutoring instructions for struggling learners at diannecraft.org. You would need to buy her materials, though. I'll include the link below, too.

For writing, you can have him dictate stories to you every day, or recount something he did. My son, for instance, was required to keep a "battle log" for every time he played "Battle for Middle Earth" on the computer. At first it was like pulling teeth to get him to sequence the order of events, but after a few months, he was able to knock out the required paragraph in pretty short order. Patience is key here.

Good luck! I hope I've helped.

Tammy Said:

Speech Sciences or Psychology of Language?

We Answered:

I would say 'Speech and Languages' is more biology based, the other is obviously psychology. Do you want the learn the biology of language or the psychology and cognition of lanaguage- this one may be more diverse as it may include animal studies- eg chimps!

Best way to find out is to contact the colleges and talk to someone.

Mark Said:

If my child receives speech services, what should I expect in terms of progress?

We Answered:

Better speeches

Alvin Said:

Can any speech language clinicians tell me if my child is being cheated in his services?

We Answered:

Well, my answer would depend on what your child's problems are, how old he is and what the goals are.

If you have a nonverbal autistic child who's half way through middle school and his goal is functional speech, I'd say you were being cheated.

If you have a child who's in the early part of elementary education, has a slight lisp and his only goals are to achieve phonetic blends, then I'd say it's better.

There really isn't enough information. If you have concerns, you certainly have the right, both legal and ethical to ask the speech pathologist what her plan is. You have the right to request another speech path (which I did do and got, for my child in school). There are a dozen ways to teach language, and it's possible that this speech path doesn't have the key to help your child.

Call an IEP meeting at the very least, and ask what the time line looks like, what the plan is for teaching speech, and why it isn't happening.