Survey: Speech and Language Evaluation Process

Survey: Speech and Language Evaluation Process...

Sep 29, 2012 by Teresa Sadowski MA CCC-SLP

During the month of October the bulk of The School Speech Therapists articles are going to focus on the speech and language evaluation process. I know what works for me but there is always room for change and imporvement. I’d love input from other school speech language pathologists. Please take the time to fill out the survey below. Feel free to add any comments or suggestions for articles. Press “next” to proceed to survey. This survey is currently...

The School Speech Therapist Book Review...

Sep 24, 2012 by Teresa Sadowski MA CCC-SLP

The Death and Life of the Great American School System Book Review I’m almost finished listening to the book The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch. All I can say is no wonder the United States finds it’s self in a quandary about what to do to improve all schools. Ms. Ravitch is an Educational Historian who speaks from experience, significant research and some first hand observation. Her book goes back several decades and chronicles the many many attempts to improve schools. It is amazing how many methods have been tried and I might add failed. Reformers, educators (those involved in school reform), administrators and even statisticians have made education so complicated and convoluted over the years it’s no wonder that most reform attempts fail. While reading this...

Numbers vs. Need

Sep 16, 2012 by Teresa Sadowski MA CCC-SLP

Kudos to anyone who has a working schedule in place. Now the question is can your schedule be implemented with quality and consistency. Talking with colleagues in several states, I noted for some, caseload management is a huge issue. Almost all full time therapists have big numbers. Many report 60 to 90 students on a caseload. Some of these therapists have speech language assistants and some don’t. A good assistant can be somewhat helpful but the ultimate responsibility for the student’s programming falls on the therapists shoulders. Over the years I’ve been lucky to work on occasion with principals, team leaders and even special education directors who for the most part were aware of caseload numbers and sometimes understood need differences. I’ve learned over the years to advocate for myself in terms of the...

Carly’s Voice: Breaking Through Autism...

Sep 14, 2012 by Teresa Sadowski MA CCC-SLP

A cousin of mine who happens to have a grandson with autism mentioned this segment that aired on “The Doctors” today. I found it extremely interesting from a speech and language perspective . Also interesting from a life perspective. Take the time to watch the videos, very enlightening. I sometimes put down technology when it comes to developing language but in this case technology gave Carly Fleischmann a way to have a voice in the world. Carly’s Fleischmann on the Doctors I’m planning to read (listen) to her and her Dad’s book...

Sep 8, 2012 by Teresa Sadowski MA CCC-SLP

Share Your S.M.A.R.T. Professional Development Goals I’ve had a few therapists ask me about writing S.M.A.R.T. professional development goals. I can find some examples for teachers, information on “how” to write them and even a few templates. However, there isn’t much out there for speech language pathologists to reference. After a quick search I found no examples specifically for SLP’s. Has anyone recently completed their professional development goals? If you have, share your work. Basically we all work on similar things and with similar students. As a profession our goals should reflect our uniqueness and not be the same as teacher goals. We’re bright people and can figure out how to write a goal but why reinvent the wheel. Not that personal goals should all be the same but you may have though...