Speech Therapy Blogs

The Importance of Speech Therapy in the Transgender Community

The transgender community lives with more stigma, harassment, and discrimination than the general population, regardless of what stage of transition they’re in. Despite the hurdles that men and women endure during the transition period, there has been a significant increase in the number of people transitioning. In 2016 it was estimated that nearly 1.4 billion people identified as transgender.

Besides the physical changes a person’s body must go through to complete the transitioning process, so must the voice. Voice Modification Therapy (VMT) has become more accepted over the last decade and has created a need for more specialized speech-language therapy. Read More

Speech Therapy Has Gone to the Dogs

If you’ve ever owned a dog, you understand that dogs can be wonderful companions. They are loyal, fun, patient, and easy to talk to. Dogs are known to be more than man’s best friend; they’re also children’s best friend. More speech-language therapists are discovering that dogs not only make good companions – they make excellent speech therapy assistants. Read More

Dismantling the Road Blocks to Speech and Language Disorders

Recognizing a language or speech disorder isn’t always easy. As SLPs, we often encounter barriers on the road to diagnosing and treating a language or speech disorder in children. At times it may feel as though we’re running into one roadblock after another. Some of those roadblocks are other developmental difficulties or disorders that mask language and speech disorders, while others may be environmental influences.

Activities to Improve Language Processing

Far too often we focus on the wrong things when treating Language Processing. We focus on the pronouns, the letter combination sounds, and sentence structure. Of course, these are important but before we jump into these skills first, we tend to lose sight of the need to treat language processing (LP) first. Nearly all of our activities are done through language. When processing skills are an issue, it’s hard for us to communicate what to do if we don’t understand what it is we’re doing or the tools we’re using. For instance, asking a student to paint a picture will result in frustration if they don’t know what a paintbrush is. Read More

MythBuster! Taking the Fake News Out of Developmental Language Disabilities

One of our roles as SLPs is being an advocate. We tirelessly advocate on behalf of our clients to state, federal, and local government, doctors and insurance. We advocate to teachers, family, and friends and we advocate to the general public, because it is often the general public that misunderstands the most about DLDs but comes to us when a speech or language disorder is suspected in their own children.

Misinformation and falsehoods about DLDs are one of the most popular reasons why people don’t seek out therapy for their children. As SLPs we are constantly dispelling myths about DLDs so more people can seek out the treatment they need for their children. Read More

How to Write IEP Goals for Language

IEP meetings can be stressful for everyone involved. We often have a massive list of goals to achieve with students in what feels like a short period of time. IEP goal writing is mostly just the language you use to explain what the concerns are, how they will be addressed, and what the outcome should be. Though we are the language experts, it can still be a daunting task until we break it down. Read More

How to Help Parents Battle Too Much Screen Time

As a speech-language pathologist, you know all too well about the dangers of too much screen time in children. Children who spend an excessive amount of time in front of tablets, computers, smartphones, or other technology are at a greater risk of regressing from the progress they’ve made during the school year. Read More

Summer Activities to Support Summer Learning

As we get closer to summer break, you might be scrambling to find ways to make sure your students retain as many of their new speech-language skills as possible. Unless your students qualify for extended school year services or have access to private speech therapy time with you during the summer months, the struggle to keep students from the summer slide is something educators and school therapists have been battling for years. Read More

Meeting My Students – Spotlight on SLP Ashley

Working remotely is one of the major perks of teletherapy, but something about seeing your students in person for the first time can be just as rewarding. After recently being featured in the ASHA Leader, our awesome tele-SLP Ashley is back again to share this exact feeling with us. Ashley was highlighted in our #WhereWeWork series last year, in which she shared some home office tips, along with her and her students’ reactions to teletherapy. Read on to find out how her first in-person meeting with her students went!  Read More

What Your Students Need for Successful Teletherapy at Home

Speech-language telepractice allows you to serve a student population where speech therapy may not be possible. Students who are house-bound or in a remote location can benefit from speech-language teletherapy, but not everyone is a proper candidate. There are numerous things your students must have before you can have effective at-home teletherapy sessions with them. Students’ needs will vary, but creating a basic checklist of requirements can help in having successful teletherapy sessions from the start.