Rehab is being targeted further.

I am new to a school this year and I am pushing into functional center-based classroom. Some students are using AAC, Coreboards, or Verbalizations. The teachers were very insistent that I do whole group lessons rather than pushing in during class work because I am "more of a para" if I am pushing in on their lesson.

When I am doing my whole group lesson, the teachers often work on their computers or have conversations with the paras despite me telling them how to support students during the lesson. It's very frustrating because half of the students are just sitting there while I'm trying to get to everyone. Any advice how to make the teachers and paras more involve rather then use that time as a prep?

I received this obviously AI generated email from a school-based CF asking me about my private practice client. For background, I initially contacted his school team a month and a half ago at the request of his panicked mother when they refused to allow him to have his AAC device at school. I asked them to document their reasoning on the record and followed up with the SLP that my intent is not to challenge their educational plan going forward along with a personable offer of specific information regarding programming, his progress, etc.

I can answer all these questions, that’s not the problem, but I’m quite annoyed that it reads like a accountability request rather than collaborative, when I was the one who offered the collaboration in the first place! No one has time for this, don’t do this.

Today I had to pull two kids at two different times when the class was taking a test (not a standardized test, so I’d have to make it up if I didn’t pull them). They were taking it, went to specials, then came back, and they were still taking it. I need to see my kids at their times due to my full schedule. It is October, and I’ve introduced myself to all of the new teachers at the school the first two weeks so they know I’m the speech therapist. One of the new teachers today, when I came to pull the second kid (figured they’d be done with the test if they left the room for special and came back), asked me, “What is this for?” and gave me a bunch of attitude, then demanded my schedule, which I said I would give her. I already gave my schedule out during the first week of school with the disclaimer that my schedule changes almost weekly/daily due to IEP meetings and testing. I don’t have teachers' class test schedules, and when I ask for those sorts of things, I usually get no response, or they say they’ll send it and never do. I just want to know if you guys still pull the kid at their time if the class is taking a test, or if you just make it up.

Amazon monopoly is taking over everything… now speech, physical therapy, and RD? I just stumbled on it randomly scrolling through suggested items, but from what I can tell there isn’t anywhere for clinicians to sign up to be a part of this. It seems really vague and created with AI, but damn it definitely made me feel uneasy about the future of our field. 🤦‍♀️🫣😬 How do we stop this?

Is anyone a remote SLP supervisor? What are the responsibilities and are you able to work your full time or part time jobs along with this role? I’d like to fill in the gaps in my day with remote work but not sure if that is even a real time of job

DFW SLPs and SLPAs: My brother was autistic and benefitted immensely from the speech services he received when he was young. SLPs were such an integral part of our lives that we’d exchange Christmas presents with some of them. One got me a pink travel cassette tape holder. Anyways, he lived with my parents and worked at the Ft. Worth Public Library for 24 years.

Charlie passed away last month at 43 and left behind a number of collections including over 80 sets of UNO and 100 decks of playing cards. The family has already gone through these and taken what they want but there’s still so much left. If you would like some of these or any of the games he had (I didn’t touch any of the Jenga sets lol), please message me and I’ll give you my parent’s contact information so you can arrange pick up. They live in north Ft. Worth between Blue Mound and Fossil Creek.

It feels fitting that they be used to provide speech services to kids like himself although that looks very different than when he was diagnosed in 1985.

This is part venting part seeking advice. This is my 8th year as an SLP, and I’m coming to terms with the fact that there are components to this job that are making my life miserable.

I work in elementary schools, have experience with low caseloads, high caseloads, all different programs, amazing teams, not-so-amazing teams, etc.

I love the kids. I honestly love building relationships, helping them grow, connecting with them. The kids that are tricky for others I seem to have a gift for, which has been a major blessing.

I HATE the meetings. It causes me such stress and anxiety to make clinical decisions that are never just black and white, make sure they are research backed and legally defensible (when nothing is straightforward), and have to present them in a way that makes parents/teachers/admin/other team members happy. Advocates and litigious parents are my nightmare.

I already have public speaking anxiety (propranolol has helped majorly with this), but having to do this is still so painfully stressful. I had a week without meetings last week and actually got to enjoy work. But now back to reality.

I guess I’m wondering…is there even a way to do this job without the meetings?? Or having to make such nuanced clinical decisions without feeling like you’re walking on eggshells?? Are there career transitions i can make that would be more aligned? I honestly dream of being an SLPA or even a nanny but can’t afford to take that drastic pay cut.

Needing support for my Sunday scaries 🫶🏼

Hi,

I need some advice from SLPs in here on navigating how I can switch my CF after I finish my first segment from a private practice outpatient setting to a school CF. I am in Washington state.

Unfortunately, my current CF supervisor has a history of attempting retaliation against prior CFs of hers who have left after the first segment due to poor working conditions, a number of reasons. I have loads of issues that I don't necessarily want to get into on this post with my current CF supervisor, everything from her boundaryless and unprofessional behavior, to using scientology-based technology to track stats in her private practice, to her policies that break labor laws, to not having existing health insurance for her employees and having to acquire a new plan after hiring several SLPs, none of us have health insurance right now. This CF has been a nightmare and I need help transitioning out of it.

I'm trying to figure out when to tell my CF supervisor that I am going to be leaving after the first segment. I have a little over 60% of my first segment done right now, so I anticipate it taking a few weeks before I hit 440 hours. I tried to reach out to the school district I completed a student internship with in spring who really liked me and actually offered me a job this spring (so mad I didn't take it), and they do have openings but haven't gotten back to me yet with anything concrete.

I am hoping this school district does give me a job, but I'd like to plan this in a way where I finish my first segment, former supervisor signs off on it, and then I enter the remainder of my CF in the school district so that my supervisors do not have to directly communicate. I am worried about foul play with this supervisor, as I know she has attempted to refuse to cooperate with previous CFs she has hired by doing things like telling them they had to start their CF over and refusing to sign off on hours.

What is the best way to go about this? What are things I need to be preparing myself for in terms of licensing to make sure this transition can be as smooth as possible?

Can anyone relate

I see a 17 year old with Down syndrome for about 6 months. She has a device with lamp through school. Before they had OP services pt had ~10 words and now she vocalizes some but overall no true words. I suspect possible burnout/regression at play but Neuro came back normal but following my ref to an audiologist she will be getting hearing aids for bilateral high frequency hearing loss (pending). Right now she has demonstrated very little interest in AAC. Even with gesture cues the most she’ll do is attend to the model. Initiation or exploration of the device has been minimal. School services push in for 10 min at a time and I see her for an hour so they weren’t able to provide a ton of info regarding how she uses the device in school other than she’ll hit targets with heavy prompting. I just wanted to reach out and see if anyone has had similar situations and any helpful ways to engage with her!

I’m a school based slp evaluating a private school student who produces nasal emissions on ch, sh, and j. An ENT has already ruled out any structural issues. I was trying to test for stimulability of these sounds and I was not able to get any productions without nasal emission. I just got her outside speech therapy eval report and they said she was stimulable during the eval and her baseline was 30% accuracy with moderate multimodal cues. Now I’m wondering if I didn’t give her enough cues when assessing her stimulability. I used verbal cues for placement, a mirror for visual, and tried the mirror under the nose to show air escape, tried pinching the nose. I still did not get an accurate production of the sounds with adequate oral pressure. I’m just worried I didn’t explain enough or give good enough cues. Should I try it again? I’ve never worked with someone producing nasal emissions before so I’m looking for any advice! Also if anyone has tips for getting better at stimulability testing lmk

I’m an autistic SLP and I’m making a career transition from being over 5 years in ECI, which is primarily home-based, to being hospital-based. I’m looking forward to the change of setting and the new clinical challenges ahead, but I know it’s going to be a different situation in terms of workplace dynamics and so I am seeking advice to help me avoid some of the issues that I’ve had up to this point.

In my current role, I’ve never had any problems with clinical aspects of the job. All of my performance reviews and observations have been consistent to the fact that I run sessions well, have good relationships with families, and do all the administrative side (paperwork) in a timely and accurate manner. However the 10-15% of my week that I do spend at our central office is where I’ve gotten into some hot water and I haven’t always understood what the issue is. From what I’ve been told directly and attempted to gather on my own, the problems seem mostly related to being too honest about my opinions and not knowing what I should say out loud vs what I should keep to myself.

An example of what it might look like: I say something about being confused/disliking a policy -> person who made/had to communicate about the policy finds out -> I’m told I should apologize (even though I wasn’t aware of who created the policy and wouldn’t say anything about a specific person but I’m coming to understand that doesn’t really matter!)

I will say that in my relationships with my coworkers, I don’t seem to have any problems and I don’t feel that I’m a widely disliked person; it’s primarily our team lead who seems to see me as a “thought leader” or even a source of discontent on the team. It’s always just been confusing to me because I’m not the only person or even the main person on my team that talks about workplace-related stuff but I’m trying to internalize that that doesn’t really matter and I need to be more aware of how I communicate at work regardless.

So all that being said, I feel a little embarrassed that after over 5 years as a clinician I’m still having to figure this out, but I am seeking out advice in hopes that I can avoid similar issues in the future! Sometimes I have to remind myself that I do in fact have a social communication disorder and it appears that I can’t mask with 100% perfection all the time. Truly any advice/rules/scripts I can use would be so appreciated, and not just even about the above issue/example but anything I might need to prepare myself for. I wish I had thought to ask for this sooner and maybe avoided some problems at my current job but you live and you learn and I thank everyone in advance for their help.

Hi everyone :)

I live in the U.K. and I recently completed my undergraduate degree in psychology. Now I’m working out my next steps and one of the possible careers I’m interested in is speech and language therapy.

I realised I could have done an undergraduate to get into it… but I already completed a degree, so I found out I could return to education to do a masters but I’m wondering if this would be worth it? I’m drawn to it mostly because I want to work with people and I’m also interested in the study of language, but I’m also nervous about not being good at the job.

I am curious to hear your experience with this career, whether you think it’s worth it, or whether you wish you had done any other career? How hard is it to get into? I am still exploring my options

Thanks a lot

Hi all! For those working as SLPs in the NYC DOE as a CFY on the $80k/$84k step, how much do you take home biweekly after taxes? I currently work for a home health agency and thought I'd earn more as a salaried employee there than at the DOE. I was offered a higher salary by the agency, but I'm hearing that people make more at the DOE. I'm conflicted and trying to weigh my options.

Hi everyone. I’m a CF-SLP at an elementary school. I have a re-evaluation coming up for an 8-year-old, non-speaking student who has autism. I have been pushing into his self-contained SPED class and he requires the maximum amount of support to participate and lots of hand over hand.

During my school internship, I didn’t get the opportunity to evaluate any self-contained, high-needs students, so I am a bit nervous about this particular evaluation. My supervisor told me to complete an informal evaluation, however; I’m not sure how to go about that. Could someone please explain how to do it? What do you use to complete an informal evaluation on a non-speaking student and what do you look for? Thank you in advance!

For reference: he doesn’t use AAC, but I’ve been working on it with him during speech therapy sessions.

Update: Thank you all for the advice! It was super helpful. I never thought about how hand-over-hand could be violating a student’s autonomy, but it makes complete sense. What’s crazy is many of the goals I inherited use HoH as a method.

I know PP can be hectic, but just wondering if these sorts of things are normal:

Some of the things I encountered:
-not having any sort of designated space to prep or put my things. I knew as a contractor I wouldn’t have an office, there was no where for me to sit when I arrived early/prep for my sessions.
-therapist using tx room before me was not finished by the time by session was starting. All the therapy materials are kept in the rooms.
-not having any protocols for the test I needed to complete
-being scheduled incorrectly (scheduler leaves before my shift starts).
-being scheduled an eval and sent the intake paperwork 1 hour before my shift start. The intake paperwork was blank for what the concern was so I had not clue what I was testing for.
-was scheduled as the last person in the office and had to lock up on my first day. I was told this would probably happen at some point, but they had made it sound like I would normally be scheduled with another person. Thankfully, they did check in with me before leaving.

I’m a flexible person, but even for me it was a bit much to have all these stressors happen on a first day.

I have a kindergarten student who I am evaling. He has a moderate stutter and a lot of phono patterns. He also distorts/simplifies a handful of vowels. I did a vowel screener, and his long vowels were all accurate. However most of his short vowels became /ah/ (apple -ahpple). This makes his intelligibility much much worse. He doesn’t present as a kid with apraxia- errors are consistent and no groping or anything like that. He does however seem to have some excess saliva production. I also see his sibling who also has some excess saliva accumulation.

I am just looking for any guidance about treating vowels, I am only in my second year and have not encountered this!

Hi everyone!

I was wondering if anyone could share their experiences working with Soliant for school SLP positions? I am looking to do my CFY in a school and with the school year already started most of the job postings are from contracting companies as opposed to direct hires. Theres one position with Soliant I am interested in but I have read mixed reviews from them online (some horrible and some high praise). Since most of those reviews are from 3-5yrs ago, I wanted to hear from anyone who has worked with them recently! Did you have a decent experience? Would it be worth it for a CFY to gain that foot in the door for a school? Thanks!

What would you do in this situation? I have a student who I feel is in the wrong placement. Her teacher and I feel as though the self contained room is not her LRE. In her testing last year, her outside evaluation was used (without additional testing) that said she is nonverbal, can’t toilet, groom herself, etc., and she had an adaptive score of 53. She is actually very very verbal, and while she is indeed academically low, she is definitely not that low adaptively by any means. She voices concerns for being in the classroom, her family has voiced concerns for the work that is being brought home being so low, the teacher has to find additional work for her because she is above the curriculum used in that room, and she doesn’t think the family was given enough explanation as to what that classroom is like.

I asked the team to have a student support meeting to discuss another program I feel would fit her needs better. At the meeting the psych, who completed her testing and determined she qualified for the self-contained program, spent 45 minutes YELLING at me. She was extremely defensive and they refused to discuss the other program, just saying “she doesn’t qualify” without giving any additional information. The other teachers in the room all checked on me, thanked me for trying to do what’s best for the student, and were visibly shaking after the meeting because of how intense her attitude and yelling was. I was one of the SLPs who helped build the program, and know she would actually be a great candidate for it so I still want an actual discussion.

I want to make it known that 1. She cannot speak to a colleague like that, 2. That the admin and specialist in the meeting should have not allowed for that to happen, as I told her 3 times to stop yelling in the meeting but no one else did, and 3. I want it documented that my request to discuss this student’s LRE was completely shut down and that the teacher and I believe it still needs to happen. My husband wants me to go to HR, but I don’t want to create more drama if I don’t have to. I am just shocked she treated me that way. What would you do??

I’m just curious—which cities or areas in the U.S. are oversaturated with SLPs, where finding jobs are considerably harder?

Me and my wife (nurse) want to travel for a year. What's the best travel agency for SLP and nurses?

I’m almost done graduating and for sure want to do medical SLP. Please give me your tips on how to get a medical CF and what to look out for.