Photo by Marcus Aurelius: I've been an SLP for 39 years. That's a long time. I've seen a lot of changes; some of those were procedures/ideals that circled back to where we started. A lot has happened. A semi-quick recap:  We've gone through a global pandemic and 9-11. I've raised 3 boys and have managed to stay married for 39 years.  I've worked in 3 states, 6 school systems, and 15 schools (8 of those in my current school system), and have served hundreds of students from Pre-K through age 21.  I worked in an SNF for 2 years. I've had leadership positions within the S ..read more

Photo by Mizuno K Yes, here it is. Another post on working on that /r/. It's the bane of most school-based SLPs' existence. There. I said it. It's not easy. The sound is so complex and the student has to remember a million different things! (Maybe not a million, but it will seem like it!) As my experience has grown, I'm discovering more ways to explain to students how to make the /r/. Self-awareness is such a huge part of it. I tell my students that I can't do it for them...all I can do is tell them what to do. It's up to them to feel the tongue position and to hear how the productio ..read more

Photo by Ashwini Chaudhary(Monty) on Unsplash Raise your hand if you have students/clients who will generalize their target sound into other positions of the word. ✋ I am definitely right there with you. Here's my thought: If a child doesn't know where to make the sound, how will the sound be made in the correct position? It's frustrating, I know. I've been there and I continue to be right there in the thick of it. I am big on using children's books in my therapy. In fact, it's rare when I don't use one throughout the school year. I will use a book for several ..read more

It's been a fantastic run, but I've decided it's time to make some significant life changes. Retirement is looming in the very near future, so I've made the decision to close the blog and Instagram account. My IG account will close on May 31, 2022. I will keep my TpT and BOOM stores open and may add more products as I see the need. Thank you for listening to what I had to say over the last 9 years! If you would like to keep in touch, my Instagram account will be @mskicoop You can also follow my husband & me on our camping adventures: @flying_the_coop ..read more

Is it a true baseline if the responses are imitative?Taking baseline data for my articulation students has been a huge dilemma for me. Sometimes I will just use the data from the previous school year; other times I will use the S-CAT (Secord Contextual Articulation Tests by Wayne A Secord and Richard E. Shine)- Contextual Probes of Articulation Competence. In using this, however, there are a couple of things I'm not real crazy about.  1) there are no pictures so the responses are imitative, and 2) some of the words are not in a child's vocabulary, especially in the cluster analysis secti ..read more

Photo by Agung Pandit Wiguna from Pexels  I love using book companions for in-person learning. Once the initial prep is completed, my planning is usually done for at least 2 weeks, sometimes longer. With distance learning being a reality, how can you use book companions for virtual home practice? It takes a little bit of planning, for sure. I've begun using a lot of virtual learning techniques with my in-person students. Sometimes I will let my students choose if they want paper homework or Boom™ decks. Guess which one most of them choose?  Steps for Gett ..read more

Photo by Janko Ferlic from Pexels If you're a school-based SLP (and I'm assuming if you're reading this, you are) who is preparing for the return to school, you may be anxious and quite nervous. I get it. The unknown of what the school year will look like; the changes you're going to have to make before and maybe even from week to week are going to make your life a little hectic, for sure. Quite honestly, I think the school systems are doing the best they can in trying to figure out the best way to have students educated while keeping everyone safe. First, let me say th ..read more

With school systems around the country deciding how to make sure children have an education, some people's anxiety levels are sky-high. My school system just started back to school on a staggered schedule. At the time I'm writing this (because it could change at any minute), students attend school twice on that schedule and then everyone who hasn't opted for virtual learning comes back.  How are things going to look? What is Speech/Language Therapy going to look like during this time? In my room, it's not going to look much different. Sure, I'll stay away from play-dough (I did that anyw ..read more

I've said this before: You CAN teach an old dog new tricks. As my very unique school year comes to a close, I started to reflect on what I would have done differently. Teleservices: HindsightIn a previous post, I mentioned that my state regulates teletherapy. The State Education Department took a little over a week, but they came out with a decision: Our therapy is considered an extension of the services the regular education teacher is providing, so we were given the green light to see out students through teleservices. Zoom was not available to us for a couple of specific reasons, and I wa ..read more

This is a whole new ballgame for most of us: Distance Learning. How do we cope with it? As School-Based SLPs, how in the world do we best serve our students from our homes? I'm going to outline my plan in this blog post. 1. I've set up a Google Voice Number. I wasn't able to set it up through my school Gmail account, so I'm using another Gmail account. It would be very easy to set up an account through an email created just for this time period. I don't like to give out my home number, although the very few parents who have it have not abused it. Google Voice makes it very easy to give a nu ..read more