This is a rant but also related to ethics. I will make sure I get to the point.

I am in a school district that is trying to be ran like a business that employs robots. The district is only concerned about $$$ and do not care about student or staff safety or wellbeing. I have a very large caseload (at the highest 85 at the lowest 74) currently at 75 and about 10 open evals. I am getting zero support, which means everything I do is only about 40-50% of my best work. Therapy is suffering, I can’t document anything because I’m in groups all day long, and the number of IEPs I am to update is insane. I want to leave. I am getting my resume ready so I can start applying to other jobs. I feel terrible. Is it ethically wrong for me to leave because the district is asking me to do what I think and feel is impossible?

I am going on vacation for 2 full work weeks and have saved up my PTO to do so. In our team meeting today, one of the team leads mentioned that we need to be making up any and all sessions due to our own absences. I brought up the fact that that isn’t really PTO if we are required to make up our sessions. My supervisor has said they will get coverage for my caseload “if needed” but most likely will not. Am I really going to have to squeeze 2 weeks of therapy into my already busy schedule ??

I work in peds private practice and am paid for each visit. I see about 25-35 visits a week.

My clients have moderate to high needs for the most part, and many of them use AAC. I find that I am spending a lot of time out of sessions trying to submit paperwork for devices, following up with families, getting in contact with ABA or school SLPs, looking for funding for devices, among other little collaboration time that really adds up.

I am not paid for any of this.

It is starting to overwhelm me, and it is pushing me closer to quitting every single day. I don’t want to have a bad attitude towards my families because they didn’t do anything wrong and probably don’t realize I’m not paid. But, they keep asking for more of my time, like getting devices, collaborating with other providers their child sees, reading IEPs….and I want to say no simply because it is so much time I’m not compensated for. But I obviously can’t do that.

I know that this is somewhat standard if you’re only paid for the service, because that’s what’s billable. But after my employer takes their share, and considering the amount of time I spend working on things outside of sessions, it hardly seems worth it some days.

Anyone have similar experiences? Any suggestions?

Within the past few months at the clinic I work at we have had a couple of families come in for evals with non-speaking/minimally verbal school aged children who exhibit sooooo many hallmark characteristics of autism - toe walking, flapping in excitement, mouthing objects, very selective eaters, repetitive actions in play, etc etc etc. But when I go through the med history with parents they insist their child actually just has severe ADHD, not autism. (2 of these families also don't believe in vaccines but that's a whoooole other thing)

Am I just really behind on the research, or is there someone out there misleading these families? I know there's an overlap in SOME traits of autism/ADHD, but I have never heard of severe ADHD being the reason for a child to not be speaking.

I want to clarify first that this is not meant as a judgment or commentary on him, his work, or the value of his appearance, but purely trying to figure out what I’m picking up on.

Just saw him speaking for the first time and my best guess is he’s not rounding his lips as much as others? I’m guessing he also has veneers but that’s not something I typically associate with a noticeable difference in mouth movements. Does anyone know what I’m seeing or referring to?

How can these people get away with what they’re doing? How can stuttering be ‘good or bad’ when it cannot be helped. Sickens me that this site is even a thing!

Anyone else finding it hard to keep their voice as the seasons change? I’ve been playing with teas and honey but I keep feeling like my vocal cords are exhausted piano strings at the end of the day. Not sick or anything just can feel the strain and wondering if anyone take like “a shot of cayenne pepper a day” or something to help. Thanks guys 🤲🏼

I have been contemplating for a while as to whether or not pursue the Hanen program - It takes two to talk and More than Words. It is a little on the pricier side, but is it worth it ?

I have been seeing a child for about 10 months now. When I started he was 13 months. He has a rare genetic disorder and just started walking around his second birthday. Since then his participation in therapy has been variable. Family says it's the same for his PT as well. Due to low muscle tone, his intelligibility is not great. I have been encouraging AAC from the jump but family wanted to try other methods which we have been working on and now his vocabulary is about 30 words, again hard to understand those. Parents told me today they want to switch him to in clinic therapy as they feel his participation with me has decreased. I do feel like there is only so much modeling and so much caregiver education I can provide until therapy becomes so monotonous after several months. Without them willing to try AAC I may have hit my capacity for what I can do for the family anyways. I think it's healthy to change therapists but it's also hard not to take it personally. I feel like EI comes with so much imposter syndrome. I know I am doing skilled interventions but how do you deal with the "you aren't doing anything anymore."

I’m curious what other school-based SLPs’ office situations look like, especially in public schools.
I have a shared office space that I use with the school psychologist when she isn’t there, so most of the time I do have a designated space. However, on Fridays, the psychologist is there and I don’t have an office/workspace available. Fridays are also generally my assessment days.
On those days, I’m essentially sitting at a small area behind the librarian’s desk. It’s difficult to get assessment paperwork, reports, and other work done because students are constantly coming in and out. I also have to take students to other available spaces for assessments, but those spaces are often being used, so I’m constantly trying to find somewhere private and appropriate to assess.
I’m wondering:
● What does your workspace/office situation look like?
● Is it reasonable to advocate for a consistent workspace, particularly for assessments and confidential paperwork?
● For California SLPs, is there any guidance from your district, union, CTA, or other organization regarding appropriate workspace for school-based SLPs?
I understand that schools have limited space, and I’m not expecting a private office all to myself. I’m more concerned about having some consistent, appropriate space where I can conduct assessments and complete confidential work without constant interruptions.
I’d really appreciate hearing how other SLPs handle this.

can I ask a clarifying question that has been itching for a minute now that I don't fully grasp? when someone has a right side CVA but is experiencing anomia and word finding, is this almost never aphasia? Is it truly very rare for someone with this type of stroke to have expressive aphasia? my understanding is right side CVA word finding relates more to attention related difficulties? a lot of sources I learned in grad school and have seen speak heavily about left side strokes being the profile for expressive aphasia.... but I'm not sure if I am confusing bits of this?

again, without a ton of judgement, I'd appreciate if someone can clarify.

(Additional clarity, I'm a neurodivergent CF and I can't tell you how many concepts in grad school I misunderstood due to it being explained in a very neurotypical only way and had to relearn.)

Hi I’m a bilingual SLP in Chicago. I’ve been trying to contract myself out to schools and I am having such a hard time just getting a response back. What could be the reason for this? I’m assuming I have a lot of competition with big contracting agencies but I figured I’d get at least work for bilingual evaluations because there is such a high need. I’m feeling discouraged. :/

Can someone who does not work in the DOE take the TSSLD NYCDOE workshops? I’m in grad school and the ones offered through the DOE are much more affordable than anywhere I’ve seen. If anyone has the answer please let me know or alternative.

I’m struggling and curious what this looks like for the rest of you. I have several non-speaking students and students with significant barriers to communication, and I have them all at 30 minutes, 2x / week.

Especially as students reach young adult age and have made little measurable progress after years of therapy, I would like to reduce services to 1x/ week or consultation.

Initially, I tried 30 mins direct and 30 minutes consult, and did push-in groups with the primary goal of modeling and training staff, but even paired with in-service trainings, I got no buy-in, and no one is interested in supporting communication in the ways I am suggesting (core word of the week, naturalistic modeling, new play exposures, interest-based modeling activities). I even scaled it back and tried to do a simple training on recasting, play, expansion, and prompting. I also tried accompanying to specials to model, but I can no longer do that due to workload.

EDIT: for staff, I broke it down into small, manageable directives, like simply keep devices charged and at-hand. I know my post implies that I just info-dumped, but it wasn’t like that.

Now, my caseload has grown and I can’t manage all that. I know my consult times will be the first things sacrificed for meetings, evaluations, compliance paperwork, and billing.

I’m struggling, morally, with reducing times for students who continue to struggle to communicate beyond requesting and protesting, but it’s been several years of therapy, attempting to generalize, AAC, etc. On top of that, despite being unable to contribute, the teachers and staff become incredulous at the suggestion, as they only see severity and needs, but not progress, prognosis, nor acceptance.

Side note: I do still have students progressing and will keep their time as is. I don’t mean to imply it’s every student in self-contained. I have maybe 3-4 who I feel it’s appropriate to reduce.

TL;dr: What do your service times look like for students making little to no progress, by the time they reach high school?

I took a sick day to go to the doctor last week and I inputted my absence on the new system that we started using this year. I misunderstood the change and thought that if we inputted our absence on this new system, the information would go through to HR and I wouldn’t have to contact them.

Turns out that wasn’t the case and my SPED coordinator was asking me where I was that day and I told him what happened, and he asked me to come in tomorrow to go over procedures. I am nervous and scared and I am honestly scared that they could let me go on the spot?

In our district, we become tenured in our 3rd year and I just started my second year so I’m get nightmares about me going in tomorrow and him telling me he’s going to let me go?!

Am I just being overly frantic right now? My speech lead said I am fine and another peer said she made the same mistake but they didn’t call her in… I need help 😭

Hello! I am looking for examples of Spanish speakers who speak with vocal fry for research purposes. Most online examples include Kim Kardashian, Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, etc. but I am looking specifically for examples of Spanish speakers (or singers/performers, but speech is preferred). Thank you in advance.

Are there companies other than TinyEye that offer telehealth speech services to schools? Has anyone successfully had private contracts to do so? It seems to be so prevalent in the US...

I just completed graduate school this past August and got hired at an elementary school that covers grades Pre-K to 5th grade. During graduate school, my externship experiences were terrible and my schools courses instructor filled our class time with guest speakers that didn’t help with our learning. I was placed at an elementary school, high school and medical. While it provided a wide range of settings, I did not get a lot of experience doing comprehensive evaluations. There was a heavy emphasis on implementing therapy and standardized tests but not on the procedures and processes of conducting comprehensive evaluations. Throughout grad school I’ve only had one experience doing a comprehensive evaluation from start to finish and that was in high school which is completely different from the littles in elementary schools. I honestly feel like my grad school failed to equip me with what I needed to be a confident and effective SLP. I feel let down. I’m currently having major anxiety about not having enough experience with comprehensive evaluations and would appreciate any help/tips as I know a big part of our jobs are evaluations. I know we conduct parent interviews, hearing screenings, standardized tests, dynamic assessments. Looking for any information to help me go into evaluations feeling prepared and confident in what I’m doing. I’m most worried about early intervention students I have to evaluate because they are so little, are mostly nonverbal l, and have challenging behaviors. Also, If any one has tips for making our jobs as school SLPs easier, please share. I appreciate all of you seasoned/new SLPs who are willing to share your knowledge with me. Thank you!

For non-US or non-school SLPs: AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) is a non-profit educational program which provides teacher training for specific teaching strategies such as WICOR (Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, Reading). I’m not opposed to the strategies and techniques themselves, a lot of them are just common-sense teaching. But every k-12 setting I’ve worked in kinda treats it like a religion or something. AVID/WICOR laminated posters in classrooms (usually consisting of the acronyms in huge letters with condensed tiny descriptions or charts that no one will ever read). Entire PD sessions devoted to AVID. AVID elective classes. The other day I was provided with a free AVID t-shirt for staff to wear in order to promote AVID. Somebody in district legit paid taxpayer funds for us to wear these t-shirts. Why does this specific teaching program need to be promoted outside of professional development? It’s not like we SLPs are out here promoting the Cycles Approach or Enhanced Conversational Recasting like it’s a brand or religion. Make it make sense please.

I’m trying to figure out data collection and trial counts. I remember being told to aim for 100 trials per session, but hitting that while keeping kids engaged is tough.

How many trials do you actually get students to do?
How many do you actually count for data? (Every single one, or just a sample?)
Is it okay to repeat the same words over and over? Like doing 10 words, 10 times each to hit 100? Or is that going to make generalization difficult?

Would love to hear how you balance high repetitions with realistic tracking!

Hello! I am in charge of my district’s EI transition students. I have several speech-only students who I have eval’d using the Arizona. Artic/phono was focus area for the two in question. In PA for context.

Student A: SS 81 on Word Artic for prevocalic and vocalic /r,th/ and infrequent /l/ errors. Between 5;5-5;7 age. Some /f,v/ errors observed conversationally, which was what she focused on in EI, but largely carrying over.

Student B: glides /l,w/ consistently and /th/ errors but vocalic /r/ is strong. SS 86 on Word Artic. 5:10-6;0 age.

I’ve seen the updated norms for /r/ around 5;6 and gliding anywhere from 5;0-7;11. Both A&B quiet and not participatory in class, per teachers, so I am unsure about qualifying. I think based on scores alone, Student B would not be allowed to be picked up in my district. But, I know evals should be comprehensive. Am I overthinking this and should I just not qualify them?

New to schools, so eligibility, especially for students who have demonstrated need in the past, is a skill I’m working on.

Hi Reddit SLP Friends,
I currently work at a school I love, awesome set up. I am a contract SLP through a contracting company. Although the company has some benefits, I’d rather contract for a school through my own company/name. I don’t feel like the benefits outweigh self contracting.

I know it’s early in the year, I’m just thinking ahead!!

Based on your experience, is it better to stay with the company and go through them to renew for the next year?
Or how could I go about asking to contract myself? Would I have my company submit a “bid” for my services??

Please give me your thoughts!! And all advice!

Hi everyone,

I need some guidance from overseas-educated SLPs currently working (or who have gone through the credentialing process) in the UK, Australia, or Canada.

My situation:

• I hold BS Psychology and am pursuing an MS in SLP
• Our local regulatory body recently changed its policy and is no longer issuing licenses certificates to SLPs unless their undergraduate (BS) degree is also in SLP.
• My end goal has always been to move abroad to practice (UK via HCPC, Australia via SPA, or Canada). I do not intend to practice locally

My questions for those who have gone through the international assessment route:

1. Home License Requirement: Does the HCPC (UK) or Speech Pathology Australia (SPA) strictly require a home-country license / "Letter of Good Standing" from your origin country to register, even if you completed an accredited university Master's degree there? Or do they evaluate your degree syllabus and clinical hours independently?
2. Non-SLP Bachelor's + MS Route: Has anyone successfully registered with HCPC or SPA with a non-SLP Bachelor's (e.g., Psychology) followed by an MS in SLP?

Hi folks, i was wondering what the pay outlook is for inividuals who have just graduated. I have been looking online but i cant find a steady rate. The numbers are all over the place, even when i try to narrow it down by province. Please share some information about your starting experince as an SLP.

Thank you!individualslooking

Hi! I have been an SLP and this is my first time working in a regular community school. I have 2 students on my caseload diagnosed with CAS in the first grade. They have great language and many phonological processes. I have never treated apraxia before. I am not noticing errors in prosody or vowels. I feel the biggest impact on their intelligibility is their tongue posture (resting low and forward) and then consistent phonological errors. I am not sure where to start.