E87: Speech Language Pathologists [IEP Team BONUS Series]
LAST DAY FOR GIVEAWAY!!** I used to think Speech Language Pathologists (SLP's) just helped people to talk more clearly... ...turns out they do A LOT more than that! In this epispode we discuss: -Qualifications for SLP's (and a TINY but about SLP Assistants) -Speech Therapy scope of practice (articulation, expressive & receptive language, pragmatics, and augmentitive and alternitive communication) -Roles (case manager, treatment provider) Shownotes Join the Facebook Group!
**LAST DAY FOR GIVEAWAY!!**
I used to think Speech Language Pathologists (SLP’s) just helped people to talk more clearly…
…turns out they do A LOT more than that!
In this epispode we discuss:
-Qualifications for SLP’s (and a TINY but about SLP Assistants)
-Speech Therapy scope of practice (articulation, expressive & receptive language, pragmatics, and augmentitive and alternitive communication)
-Roles (case manager, treatment provider)
Shownotes
Join the Facebook Group!
**LAST DAY TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY!**
- Rate and Review the Podcast in your preferred player & take a screenshot to submit!
- Make sure you are on the email list by CLICKING THIS LINK TO SIGN UP
- CLINK THIS LINK to fill out your submission form!
- You have until Thanksgiving 2022 to fill out your form to be entered into the drawings!
[00:00:00] One of my favorite professions to talk about is SLPs or speech language pathologists. Because I’ve worked so closely with them in the past, both in outpatient therapy, early intervention or birth to three services and inside the schools so if you are wondering about slps speech-language pathologists and slp aids speech language pathology assistants, then stay tuned as we will talk today about their qualifications and certifications as well as what they actually do for your child in the schools stay tuned because we’re talking about slps today
You are listening to the parent IUP lab, the podcast that helps you get an effective IEP plan for your child so that you can get them supported and learning in school. I’m Beth LEAs and Feld occupational therapist, who started to notice trends in parents who got effective IEP for their kids without having to fight with the school. My mission is to help you turn insider knowledge from the school side into effective parent advocacy for your child. The parent IEP lab
is all about the important parent input. Prepping for an [00:01:00] upcoming meeting but also commonly missed opportunities for parents to get effective IDPs outside of the iep meeting so let’s dive into today’s topic and think about what we can change and tweak to get the right formula for success for your child to learn and grow in the school welcome to the lab
It’s here. You know, when I first started talking about our big giveaway a couple of weeks ago, I was like, oh, Thanksgiving is a long way away. If you are listening to this podcast, as it gets strapped on Thanksgiving day of 2022, then you are listening on the last day that you can enter into our huge giveaway that we are doing.
It is super simple to enter into the giveaway. All you have to do is rate and review this podcast in whatever podcast player you use, whether that’s apple podcasts, Spotify, or another app entirely take a screenshot of your review before you hit submit, and then click the link below this podcast in your podcast player to submit your name, your email address, and your review.
Everybody who submits a review. When you [00:02:00] enter the giveaway will get the accommodations one-on-one guide. You cannot find this anywhere else right now. And then we’re giving away 10 IUP. Oh one workbooks, five spots in the December, decoding IEP data workshop. And one lucky winner will get into the ultimate parent IEP prep course, which is now being run as a self study course. So it’d make sure to check that out.
As well on our website@wwwdotbiuplab.com.
So don’t forget to submit your entry by the end of Thanksgiving. And we will draw the pies winners soon.
Thank you so much for reviewing the podcast as I’m sure you’ve figured out. The podcast reviews help this podcast grow. And I’m so excited to roll into 2023. Really helping as many parents
be confident going into their next IEP meeting. So thank you again for reading and reviewing the podcast and giving your honest feedback and helping the podcast grow
Okay. So we get to talk about speech-language pathologist today, and I’m so excited because so many times we actually [00:03:00] share offices between the occupational therapist and the speech language pathologist. And I’ve done a ton of co-treating with speech therapists, both in my first job, when we did outpatient clinics with a focus on AAC devices, which we’re going to talk about augmentative and alternative communication devices in a little bit.
But we overlapped and we often co-treat it, which means that we would see the kiddos at the same time. Also we share offices a lot of the time when we get into the school setting as well, because occupational therapists typically are in multiple different schools and speech therapists typically have maybe one, maybe two placements, at least in a middle size district. So we overlap a lot and we understand what each other does a lot more than I feel like other people on the IEP team do.
So I’m really excited to talk to you about what they do, because I also was very confused when I started, I just thought they did articulation and helped kids, pronounciate their words better, and they do that, but they [00:04:00] also do a lot more.
And I think it’s more complex than I ever realized, um, before getting into it. So if you are new to the IEP team bonus series, we’ve covered special education teachers we’ve covered. Deaf and hard of hearing teachers and teacher the visually impaired. Um, you know, we’ve gotten into a little bit of the basics as far as that goes. So if you’re like, oh, I miss those episodes, you can scroll back so it’s every other episode as you kind of look back in your podcast player, if you’re interested in looking at one of these other IEP team bonuses, and we have a lot more team members to cover too.
So if you’re not subscribed to the podcast yet, I would recommend subscribing because we’re going to cover a lot of these IEP team members and how that helps you as it just gives you context. You know, if you. You are wondering who you should ask about this particular concern, knowing who everybody does on the IEP team and what they do within the school setting, because it’s different in the school setting versus like an outpatient therapy clinic setting as well. So it [00:05:00] just provides you context for who are you going to go and ask these things?
How do you articulate what you need? And so this just helps give you context about what’s going on with the other people that are sitting around the IEP team. That IEP table with you, right? So let’s go ahead and dive in. We’re going to talk about qualifications for SLPs. Now I am using Colorado’s guidelines for speech and language pathologists, but here’s the thing.
Speech-language pathologists are highly regulated. They have a really, really good national organization. That’s called Attia and they are very structured and very kind of rural oriented. Can I say. And they’re very good at researching their own profession. So the cool thing about speech language pathologist, you know, when we talk about OT, occupational therapy leader, we are so like all over the board and we can do everything. And so that makes it really vague. But speech and language pathologists have [00:06:00] this organization that keeps them all organized.
And so even though we’re talking about the Colorado state guidelines for licensure, really, it’s going to be really, really similar across states because Attia. Is really the organization that certifies everybody has to be a member of Asheville. Organization in order to be licensed in a state is my understanding. So like everybody is a part of it and that’s why they’re such a force. So they do a ton of research, um, you know, on.
Minutes per week that are affected for a kid with a certain diagnosis, like all of this information. So as far as the profession goes, they’re really research. They’re really organized. And I just feel like they have way better guidelines set out, especially when we get to SLP A’s, which are the assistants, um, and what they can do and what they can’t do and that kind of thing.
So, I mean, it’s a good and bad thing, but I always take it as a good thing because I just think that they know their profession so well, Well, and then it just kind of blankets this expectation across [00:07:00] even states of what they do and how they do it and what they prescribe as far as like minutes and interventions and things like that. So I believe it makes them pretty effective.
So let’s go over qualifications for Colorado. And again, like, I’m pretty sure that this is going to be a similar, no matter what state you’re in, but if you have any questions about your particular state, that’s when you go into the Facebook group.
So the link to the Facebook group is below this podcast and your podcast player. And so all you have to do is click that link and the answer to the questions so that you can get into the Facebook group and then make a new post, say like, Hey, I’m in Virginia. I’m wondering what the speech, language pathologist things are. This is kind of why I have this question
and we can help you find resources in order to answer your question, give you a little bit more context for your state as well. So the first qualification is a master’s or higher degree in communication disorders or speech language pathology from a regionally accredited institution. They also have to complete and approved speech language pathology program.
[00:08:00] CRA accredited by the council of academic accreditation. So the CAA in audiology and speech language pathology of the American speech language hearing association. So Attia. So it has to be an accredited institution credited program through Attia and then practicum or internship with children and students aged birth to 21 in a school setting equivalent to eight weeks. Full-time under the supervision
of a provisionally, licensed SLP. So this is really interesting because it really says they have to be in a school setting. Now for occupational therapists, I wasn’t even allowed to do a pediatric setting unless I added a third field work, which was an optional field work after my first two field works. So this is something that I think is really good for speech language pathologists that
you have to be. In a school setting, you have to be supervised in a school setting and have some experience before you can work there, which is great. And then pass it to the Colorado approved content [00:09:00] exam. Or a valid Ashleigh certification. I don’t know that I know anybody who has like sat for the Colorado.
Approved content exam. Um, I just know that everybody is certified through Attia that I have ever worked with. Um, as far as I know, right. I might not have known. But I’m pretty sure that everybody talks about Ashleigh that I’ve ever worked with. And I think I’ve worked with probably 20 speech therapists at this point.
We will take a deeper dive into speech, language pathologists assistants or SLP A’s in a different episode, but as a quick comparison and SLPA is an assistant, but still certified in license. So they don’t have to have a master’s degree. They are a bachelor’s degree and then SLPs
they are highly regulated by Asher. So what they can do, what they can’t do is fairly limited and it’s very, very structured. Structured. So they have to have a certain amount of supervision, like direct supervision by an SLP, which means that they are physically there watching them do therapy.
A certain amount [00:10:00] of time and they also are not allowed to do certain assessments, so they can do assessment up to some point where they have to be supervised before they can do it on their own. And so there’s a lot of like qualifications that they have to really demonstrate they have the skills to do before they can do it without that direct supervision of an SLP.
So just so you know, they are typically amazing. They typically have a ton of student contact. They’re the person who really helps relieve the SLP. Because as we’re going to talk about mixed that SLP is qualified as a special education service. So they can be a case manager, which means that they do a ton of evaluations.
They do a ton of case management, as far as writing all the IEP. As far as progress notes, as far as really doing a ton of paperwork and looking at student referrals. Doing RTI sometimes. And if you’re wondering about RTI, we just did an episode with Sabrina asked about what RTI is.
And so SLPs [00:11:00] can do RTI as well. So there’s a huge caseload or hate huge workload that comes with being an SLP because they have that case management workload as well. So SLP. Are really common to come in and help relieve SLPs from a lot of that direct service minute times. And this really works well if you have a really good team working together between NSLP and an SLPA. So we’ll talk more about that in the SLPA episode, that’s coming up, but just so you know, it’s really, really amazing when it works, but just know that Attia is really good about clarifying what SLPs can do, what SLPs can and can’t do and how much.
Skill, they have to demonstrate before they’re able to do that without direct supervision. So it’s really, really, really, really laid out by Asher. So let’s get into the second part of the episode. When we talk about what speech language pathologists actually do. And I remember when I was first in outpatient therapy, I was like, okay, so SLPs do articulation therapy.[00:12:00]
They help students when they can’t say their S sound or their L sound. And yes, that is exactly what they do, but that is only part of what they do. And it it’s really kind of a small part to be honest. Um, they are really, really busy with a lot of different things. And so when we talk about, you know, their workload in their caseload, just think about like, they have a group of students where they’re working on ELLs and S’s and their articulation therapy, and then they have a different group that is working on.
Augmentative and alternative communication devices. And so they have a group that they’re working on those skills with, and then they have this language part two, which is what we’re going to talk about next. So that’s the articulation piece, right? Like they can’t say their S’s. And so they’re looking at their fine motor coordination of their tongue and their cheeks and their lips and their jaw and all of those kinds of things.
And they’re teaching them how to articulate and make the sound correctly so that they can be understood so that they can sound out letters and they can. Spell correctly so [00:13:00] that they can see that sound when they read it is really a foundational skill for so many learning skills down the pike.
So there’s a lot of speech therapy intervention when we’re in the in the lower grades, right. Preschool. There’s a ton of speech, caseload and kindergarten. There’s a ton of speech caseload. And first and second grade, it gets a little bit less for speech caseload because a lot of times the speech therapist will be able to teach them how to use these articulation sounds.
And so as they really are able to be understood and, you know, they’re able to express themselves, they’re no longer getting frustrated. A lot of times they will be taken off of an IEP once their articulation is good enough and they can what’s called test out. So just kind of know. Then a lot of their caseload is actually the younger grades, especially for this articulation therapy. Now, you know, that’s their stipulation piece.
And that’s what I thought of first, but they do a lot more than that. So let’s get into the speech and language part. So the language part of what [00:14:00] they do. Is really looking at, their understanding and being able to express that language. So it’s kind of in two parts from my understanding, again, we’ll have a speech therapist on again, to really discuss what they do in detail, but really from what I’ve heard,
over and over and over again. As I said into the IEP table with them. Is that there is expressive language and then there’s receptive language. So you are using receptive language right now because you’re understanding the words. You’re processing the words in your brain. That I am saying to you so that you can understand the information that I’m sharing with you. And then I’m using my expressive language skills. So I’m putting sentences together. I’m really formulating paragraphs to make sure that you understand what I’m trying to communicate. And I’m using my
expressive language skills right now.
So this part also includes how language has put together. Like, um, they will look at if your child is able to use plural nouns or put SS or [00:15:00] ING on the end of the words, or if they say me instead of I in places, or if they say him and her correctly, or if they mix those up in context, those kinds of things are included as well.
So it’s grammar things. It’s language, it’s how they put things together. It’s how they organize language and interpret it. So it’s really talking. About like the inner brain processing of language. So that’s what they’re looking at. And so often when you see scores from them, you’ll see an expressive language score, a receptive language score, and then a composite. So they’ll combine that together and they’ll look at their understanding of language as a whole as well.
Normally, when you have learning concerns, then you’re going to have a speech language pathologist also kind of test for this language skills as well. So, you know, if you’re like, oh my, my kid can talk. Like we can understand him. Why is he getting tested for speech? Well, you know, that’s probably because they’re testing the language part and not necessarily concerned with the speech part.
So that gives you a little bit of context there [00:16:00] as well.
So there’s two more areas that we’re going to talk about. So you can see that like articulation is only small piece, right? So the next thing that we’re going to talk about is pragmatics. And this is social skills. So social communication. Now this is pretty controversial. We’ve addressed this before with the episode with Becca Baudette. So if you want to go back a couple episodes, I think it’s maybe a month ago before this one released. And so we talk about. You know, social skills and neurodivergent learners and just like how controversial it is, but in true, the IEP lab fashion, I’m just going to like tell you why it’s still going to be done. And then you can take that lens and really interpret it how you want to. Right. So speech language pathologists have like standardized checklist and observations they can do to see if a child is struggling with social language or social skills.
But why this is important is when we talked about the eligibility category series, we talked about in the autism category, how they have to have a deficit. That is [00:17:00] shown in social skills. And so you will see SLPs still do the assessment, even if we are being more culturally sensitive
and more with the autistic community who says actually, like, it’s just a miscommunication between autistics and non-autistic, but you know, this is where we kind of have the system that we have. Right. We have to follow the rules of the system to get your child qualified, whether you choose to make social skills, goals, or pragmatics goals is what they’re called sometimes too.
That’s totally up to you and the team, but in order to qualify for certain categories, they will have this. Caveat in there that they need to have some sort of deficit. I’m saying that in quotes, because it’s said a lot deficit in social skills or pragmatic skills, so that will be assessed. And most often it is assessed by an SLP because they do have those checklists that are pretty standardized, that they can follow as well.
And then the last big thing that we’re going to talk about
is AAC [00:18:00] devices. So I’ve met active and alternative communication. And let me just stop for a second. Cause those are really hard to say first. And then secondly, augmentative is to, it means to supplement. So when we’re talking about an AAC device, which is like a talker or like an iPad with a program that has pictures on it that you touch and it talks right.
So a metadata live means that it’s in addition to so, so many autistics or neurodivergent people or, or people with a Praxia right. Are saying that sometimes when they have anxiety in certain situations, they might need to fall back and use this AAC device. And then some people might need to use the AAC device all the time.
And so a lot of speech therapists, I don’t know how many IEP is I’ve been in where this is a concern. A lot of parents will say, well, I’m worried that if we do an AAC device, that they will not verbally talk and that is not true. Do you remember how I said that? Attia is amazing and putting research together and funding research, [00:19:00] they have actually done a ton of research that says that anything that you can do to augment, to take, you know, sign language and, or.
To take verbal language and or to have an AAC device and, or to take a picture schedule or pointing to things or gestures. Anything that we use to communicate with our children is going to actually expand their whole understanding of language. And so I have heard so many SLPs in meetings, or we’re just in parent education say, Hey, this isn’t going to limit your child’s verbal language.
And actually I have one really good story. About a child who, oh my gosh, she was an amazing AAC user, just like intuitively they got the right system in front of her at the right time. And she just exploded with language on her AAC device. And you know, probably a year after she started playing with this AAC device and really using it to communicate,
she started pairing it with, with verbal language and she just [00:20:00] exploded. And sometimes she would use her verbal language and not even need the AAC device. And then sometimes she would do both together and then sometimes she would just use the device. It just depended on how she was feeling that day at the moment, if she liked the picture, you know, all of those kinds of things.
So what happened was though that a year later after she was doing both and she was talking like crazy and it was amazing and it was so nice to like, get to know her through her AAC device and her verbal language is so fun. She was actually going to a behavioral clinic and they were like, well, she’s talking. So we’ll take away the AAC device
it was really sad because what ended up happening is she got so frustrated that she couldn’t communicate all the time that she shut everything down. She didn’t want to use the AEC device anymore. She wasn’t using her verbal language anymore. We couldn’t understand why she was upset a lot of times because she couldn’t communicate with us and it totally shut her down.
So just kind of as a caveat there. That speech language pathologists [00:21:00] have that research to back up that, but as we’ve talked about before, some SLPs are really, really educated and even specialize in AAC devices. And what they do is they match the AAC device because there’s all these different programs, right? And they’re all different programs that really jive well with different neuro types. And so what you have to do is you have to trial and error, these different programs.
To see what system makes the most sense for the way that that person processes language. Okay. So it’s so cool because there’s two kind of major categories and one is. An app called lamp and then another is touch chat, or like this is a category that makes the most sense to a lot of our brains, because it’s the way that we put a sentence together is the way that it kind of progresses you through building a sentence. And it’s pretty amazing because they will put the two different devices in front of them.
They’ll do some fun activity and the model, you know, the language on the device. And sometimes it’s like, Yep. That’s the [00:22:00] one, that’s the one that’s like really jiving with her, the way that their brain understands language. And so, like I said, it can be a specialty, but not every SLP is going to be a total specialist in AAC devices. So just know that some districts might bring in an assistive technology team,
especially if they’re on the bigger side of a district, they probably have a specialized SLP who does all of these AAC device trials all the time and is very specialized in it. Or they might contract with an outside provider. So I was in kind of a middle sized district. And that’s what we did is there was a clinic that was in the area. Actually, it was the first job that I had that same clinic was contracted to come into the district that I later worked for. And they would come in and do the device trials for the district and really work through funding of those and all kinds of things.
So SLPs really are the people to look at these AAC devices and also occupational therapists. Just work on the access part of it as [00:23:00] well. So we kind of tag team it, it should be kind of like a team approach to this, but many, many SLPs we’ll do these AAC device trials in the training and the training of the Perez and the training of the teachers as well. So a lot of them will specialize in this as well.
So as you think about, oh my gosh, we just covered like four really big ways that SLPs help students. Right. And so you can think about, you know, I was just talking to one of my very best friends. Who’s. Who’s an SLP in the school. And she was talking about how she feels so spread out because what happened is she has the school she’s assigned to the school with the autism program there. So she has a lot of
aAC device users that she’s working with. Right. And she’s coaching the Perez and she’s coaching the, the special education teachers and she’s coaching, um, the individual students with how to access their AC devices. And. New vocabulary and new themes every week right.
And then she also goes into [00:24:00] preschools and that’s a lot of, you know, character building. And can they tell a story and can they pick out the characters in a story and could they follow that story? And then she does, you know, Like kids with learning disabilities in K through five, and then she does.
Interventions with, you know, language difficulties, and that could include expressive language difficulties, and that could include receptive language difficulties. And then she has her group of students who qualify under articulation. So you can think about how many different hats they wear within a school.
And she was talking about how nice it would be if the next hire they did, they could break apart some of that. And so that she could really focus on maybe two areas. And then the other person could focus on two areas as well. So a lot of schools will already do that, especially, um, preschools, because there’s such a heavy case load in preschools for SLPs. A lot of times they will be isolated to just preschools because there’s such a big caseload there. And then some [00:25:00] of them will, you know, specialize in the assistive technology piece or they will do, you know,
The expressive and receptive language piece, but a lot of them are wearing multiple hats and do a lot of different things. So can you keep that in mind? Because you might have somebody who’s really specialized or really loves this particular area. And how cool is it to have a person who is obsessed?
With the area that your child needs help in. Right. But again, that doesn’t always happen. We just know that they’re pretty competent in doing all of those things. And hopefully they’re staying up to date with what’s going on in their field. Attia again is really, really good about providing education and really structuring their learning environment as well. So hopefully that gives you a little bit more context about SLPs and a little tiny nugget about SLPs as well.
And, um, They do a lot and what they do is so, so important. And so you might have NSLP as a case manager, like we talked about, like they are able to have . A student with just [00:26:00] SLP intervention services on their IEP. And you might also have them as part of the entire team. They just might be part of your child’s team along with a special education teacher and maybe an OT and maybe a school psychologist as well. So they do a lot, and I hope that gives you some context for what they do.
And what they would do as far as testing and also intervention as well. Don’t forget by the end of today. If you’re listening to this on Thanksgiving, if you’re traveling somewhere, I hope you have a really good holiday. If you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, then maybe it’s just a regular day for you, but please don’t forget to enter into the giveaway if you haven’t done so already, this is your last reminder.
So go ahead and use the links below this podcast and your podcast player to enter into the giveaway and thank you so much for listening. And we have some really exciting episodes coming up, um, towards the end of the year and really, really fun events. It’s coming up in the first month of next year as well for 2023. So thank you so much for listening today. And I will talk to you soon. Bye-bye.[00:27:00]