When I talk with SLPs new to the schools and especially to recent grads working in the schools, I often hear comments about the volume of paperwork. Paperwork can be tedious and time-consuming, but it is also a stark contrast to what we did in grad school. I think the bigger shock of working as… (read more)
It wouldn’t be June without our annual End-of-the-Year Party at the Kennedy School, and so party we did on Friday night! As a group of clinicians and support staff who work in different settings and at work sites spread across 5 different states, it is always delightfully fun to come together in a common space. We… (read more)
People have lots of preconceived ideas about what it’s like to be an SLP contractor in the schools. You can get a pretty good idea about what those ideas are if you listen to what they say when you tell them that’s what you do . . . Don’t you get tired of bouncing around?… (read more)
Go with me on a journey back in time, won’t you? Back to a time when you didn’t know what IEP, IFSP, PLEP, PLOD, LRE, CD, SLI, ID, ED, SLD, or any other special education acronym meant. When you sat down at your first SpEd team meeting and looked around and wondered, “Who are all… (read more)
It’s Better Hearing and Speech Month! As professionals in the speech and hearing sciences, we’re tasked each May with bringing awareness to communication disorders and the work we do to remediate them. It’s a big job, and thankfully there are thousands of us out there spreading the good word about what we do and why… (read more)
Earlier this week Kim Mahi and Lori Pastoor wowed our group with their presentation on Orofacial Myofunctional Disorders (OMDs). I mean, really. Kim and Lori have received extensive training in this area. They shared case studies of clients they see at the Hello Clinic, as well as videos of treatment. Orofacial Myology is more than… (read more)
On Saturday, April 21 we had the privilege of volunteering with Michelle’s Love. The mission of Michelle’s Love is to help relieve the stress of single parents undergoing cancer treatment by offering financial relief, house cleaning, and nutritious meals so that parents have more time to heal and to share quality time with their children. … (read more)
April is Occupational Therapy Month! The American Occupational Therapy Association is celebrating this year as the year of empowering independence for their clients — certainly a goal SLPs and OTs share! In that spirit, I thought I might offer some of the ways I work with my OT partners to improve service for kids across… (read more)
There are lots (and lots) of companies that provide contractors to school districts, each of us offering a little something different. One thing that is the same no matter who you work with, though, is that you’re asked to sign a contract. It’s usually full of lots of words that are really important to keep… (read more)
A couple of years ago I wrote a blog post about how special ed departments can (and should) harness the power of social media and the web to recruit top talent to their districts. Life on the internets being what it is, however, means that even something 2 years old can be woefully out-of-date, meaning an… (read more)