[ Post a Response | Articulation, Language, and Fluency ]
Posted by teachme
on 2/6/2009, 1:26 am, in reply to "Just need to vent"
69.200.226.70
The fact that you described yourself as too old, not motivated and narrow-minded is a red flag. Plenty of us welcome a new challenge each day as we work with students with different needs and get pleasure from even the smallest moments of progress. With the current economy in the state that it is in, how can anyone even complain?
Reading, spelling, math concepts and social skills all have a direct link with receptive and expressive language. If a child demonstrates difficulty understand what was read, then how will he/she be able to engage in activities such as sequencing, recalling details, making predictions and other language based tasks? How can you even question math concepts when The Boehm Test of Basic Concepts (Boehm-3) measures understanding of basic positional concepts when following oral directions and assesses many quantitative concepts such as Part, Some,First,Few,Every,Second,Widest,Half,Fewest? In pragmatic language, The Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL) assesses knowledge and use of pragmatic language rules and judgment of their appropriate application, the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fourth Edition (CELF-4) has The Descriptive Pragmatic Profile, which is a normed criteria checklist, to identify nonverbal and verbal pragmatic deficits that may negatively influence social and academic communication in context and the Test of Pragmatic Language Skills (TOPL-2) which we use to assess pragmatic language skills with various social situations that students are required to respond to. For instance, “what would you do if…
It’s quite discouraging that statements were made that these areas should be addressed by others. We shouldn’t pawn these areas onto other professionals and especially classroom aides who probably have no formal education in language and language development to the extent that we do. Everyone is so quick to say, “Not my job” All of us new slps are exposed to and experiencing all that the "seasoned" slps are venting about. Did you all think you would actually do the same thing for your entire career? As in life there are going to be challenges and changes but it is critical as a clinician to be able to be flexible and change with the times so we can provide the most effective treatment. Aren’t you the experts in language development since you have been doing this for years? If we are just coming out of school, what makes us the experts of every disability within the schools? You should all view the Guidelines for the Roles and Responsibilities of School-Based Speech-Language Pathologists on the ASHA website (which is being modified from the 1996 version) which even notes the speech-language pathologist's goal is to establish an environment that allows for maximum practice and development of all language skills, whether through reading, writing, listening, or speaking. I know parents post their questions on this site and really hope the parents of children with disabilities don’t come across all of the “venting” as they rely heavily on us to be the voice for so many that can’t effectively communicate.
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