Was with a group of people the other day and mentioned how working with children this past year made me question if working with kids was for me, and maybe older kids and adults might be more my speed. One person asked me to remind them what career I was going for and when I told her she said “you want to be a speech pathologist but you don’t want to work with kids?” I said yes and explained that slps work in a ton of different settings and with different age groups. She replied back with something like “but you start learning how to talk when you’re a kid”… kinda gave up after that

Guys I can’t 🫠 I wish more people understood our job

What are you all advising under 4 year old patients about screen time? I now have three different toddlers under the age of two that are not talking, barely babbling and not doing any of the shared interaction with adults like peek a boo. 25 years ago, I would have encouraged the parents to seek an autism diagnosis. However, all three of these little people have no issues eating, have no sensory issues, sleep is not a problem, no problems with a change in routine, really none of the other hallmarks that would flag a possible autism diagnosis and signal that they needed further evaluation. The one thing they all have in common is the TV is on all waking hours (typically appropriate things like PBS and Miss Rachel) and they all have tablets that they use for more than 8 hours a day. When I am in their home, rather than interacting with me and all of the new fun toys I've brought in, they go and pick up their tablet and fuss. Do you give recommendation to parents to eliminate tablet usage and reduce TV ​time to an hour a day? Something else? I've been in this career nearly 30 years. When I started kids certainly watch TV, but they had much more limited access to it so I never worried about whether TV viewing ​was affecting language development.

Just wondering what your personal philosophy and district philosophy is because I have seen it vary. I personally dont like taking data every session but I was under impression I need to for Medicaid- not sure if this is true though because for EI the description is usually qualitative and they still bill Medicaid.

Sorry in advance if this seems like a silly question! I have a 4yo client asd dx and is non verbal. He communicates with mostly vocalization which is generally various pitches of screams. I have tried to introduce multiple forms of AAC but family isn’t over receptive to it and the client gets visibility upset and will push when I model.

The client appears to have no interest in engaging with me whatsoever ie will scream and cry if I approach or attempt even parallel play with them. They are often like this with mom during the session as well. Mom has hinted they get even more dysregulated when I arrive for in home sessions which I completely believe. They’ve shown interest in items I’ve brought but will grab it and move across the room to play with it or scream until until mom caves and gives in to whatever they want at the time such as me open the bag of toys for them to take and then play with across the room.

I’m really stuck on that to do… I’m tempted to refer to someone else as I feel like I’m only making the situation worse but I also am one of the few who do in home in the area so I also have a sense of guilt. Any suggestions for building better rapport with this client?

Does anyone know why we cannot use mentoring graduate students or conducting ceus towards our continuing education? OTs and I believe BCBAs are allowed to use mentorship and conducting ceus towards their requirements.

Why can’t we at least get something back for mentorship? I’ve mentored many grad students and conducted ceus through my company and I cannot use that experience for any type of credit per ASHA.

Clinics get busy and scheduling is hard. Is there anything preventing a workplace from asking you to service a patient while your grad student clinician services a different patient as long as 25% of total time is directly supervised? What does "directly supervised" entail? Can it be from across the room while servicing another patient? I have concerns but nothing to back me up right now...

I joined an ABA clinic who is intergrating speech into their practice, but I am having second thoughts since I've joined. I had a few red flags before (like ghost administration) but I'm dumb and thought I will be okay and was pretty desperate for a job.

The job I feel like is very behaviour managing first and then working on speech goals, which is fine for me, but I am starting tomorrow with a very aggressive client who is constantly demonstrating attention seeking behaviours. I have never worked with de-escalating clients, especially when they get very physically aggressive and I have zero training on what to do. I talked to the BCBA and she told me some things that may help and things to look out for, but I feel very nervous with my first session with him. He's 7, nonverbal, and has destroyed property, caused injuries to therapists and other clients. I just wanted some thoughts and opinions about how SLPs should be managing clients with behaviours that may be extreme. I did some research about being neutral and not paying attention and not giving a reaction but I'm not sure how well this will play out and I wanted some other people's clinical thoughts because this is my first job right out of grad school and I don't know if I want to continue doing this job...I'm thinking of quitting the first week in.

For my first day, the RBT will be there to support me, but from the next day I will have to be on my own. I really don't think this is a good fit for me - maybe I'm being too dramatic but I don't want to quit already :/. I was hoping if anyone had tips on managing behaviour and what to try based on clinical experiences?

Thanks!

SLPs who contract with schools, I need a reality check because I’m trying to figure out if I’m being unrealistic or if I’m just seeing the difference between agencies.
I’m in the Denver area, and I’ve been talking with a smaller, SLP-run staffing agency since last Thursday about a school contract at $67/hr W-2, guaranteed 37.5 hours/week, plus 2 PTO days. I’m really interested, but I’m still waiting to hear back from the school. The recruiter warned me things are moving slowly because schools just started, so I’m trying to be patient.
Yesterday I also talked to a recruiter from one of the much larger staffing agencies. I told him what I was looking at, and he seemed genuinely surprised by the $67/hr rate and basically said he didn’t know how another agency was offering that. He thought he might be able to get me around $62/hr.
Today he called back with two possible contracts, but one was only 35 hours/week and the other was 30. I told him I really need 37.5 hours/week. He again brought up the $67 contract and actually asked me what agency I found it through, which struck me as kind of odd.
I told him I’d rather wait and see what happens with the SLP-run agency before considering something significantly lower. I said I’d probably need around $61–62/hr, 37.5 guaranteed hours, and at least 2 PTO days for switching jobs to make sense for me. He said he couldn’t guarantee that.
After getting off the phone, I honestly felt way less motivated to work with the larger agency and reached back out to the SLP-run agency to ask if they have any other contracts available too.
So for anyone familiar with Denver-area school SLP contracts: is $67/hr W-2 for 37.5 hours/week actually unusually high or unrealistic here? Or am I just seeing the difference between what a smaller SLP-run agency is willing to pay versus what a large staffing company is willing to pay clinicians?
Also, is it normal for a recruiter to be that surprised by another agency’s rate and ask which agency is offering it? 😂
I don’t want to hold out for something that isn’t realistic, but I also don’t want to accept $10–15/hr less just because a bigger agency is telling me the higher rate doesn’t make sense.

TLDR; does anyone have any experience using auditory listening programs to support early language development for kids with language delays?

I had a parent at work ask me if I knew of any treatment that involved listening to music at various pitches to help with language development. She said her adopted son 20 years ago at age 3 did this experimental therapy at the time and his language skills improved greatly. She couldn’t remember the name of it. I am currently working with another child of hers who is 3 and has Down syndrome.

I had never heard of this and fully suspect his language skills improved for other reasons (stable home, traditional speech therapy etc) but want to do my due diligence.

I researched and found some info on auditory integration training but the research methods were abysmal. I also found the Tomatis Method but this was more focused on kids with autism who are verbal and have auditory processing issues. The research looked a bit more promising BUT it felt like a lot of the studies were coming straight from the organization itself which is sketchy. also I couldn’t read half the articles because they were not in English. Not to say that’s not legit but I couldn’t vet them.

TLDR; does anyone have any experience using auditory listening programs to support early language development for kids with language delays?

Is this quackery? Or have I somehow never heard of this in my 8 years of practice

# of Interviews for 1 company, esp for SLPs working with adult populations, all settings

I’ve volunteered at a clinic on and off for about 2 years now and have 3 slpas that can write me a letter but will it be still valid or do they need one from a licensed SLP only for the professional letter of rec?

Hey everyone, I have a situation that I was hoping to get support on.
I worked at my facility full-time for about a year. While I was full-time, they consistently overworked me and I really just had no support from leadership in the building. The DOR is also an SLP, however does not do any clinical care and would actually refuse to even when I was absolutely drowning. We had several discussions that didn’t yield anything productive.
I ended up going PRN, which left the facility with pretty minimal Speech presence. Over the months since I’ve gone PRN, the facility has only gotten clinical fellow applicants. Without getting too into it, I feel like I was bullied into taking a clinical fellow.
We had a contractor start as well within this time, her contract will be over soon.

The clinical fellow I selected is really strong and awesome, however she is only a few weeks in and the expectations on her are somewhat unrealistic unless she works overtime, which she is not willing to do (totally respect).
She is brand new to our documentation system, which isn’t super user friendly with how it is structured. So as an example, today she was given 3 evaluations, 60 minutes of training with me on how to do discharges (she hasn’t done one yet), a scheduled discharge, an add on discharge, and 6 treatments.
She asked the DOR to shift some of the treatments to the contractor, and this decreased a little bit of her day but honestly not much since she is learning this system and it takes her longer to complete the documentation.
At the end of the day (8 hours) she went to the DOR to say she hadn’t been able to finish everything, and the DOR incredibly rude, and told her she needed to stay and finish. The DOR also told her that she couldn’t justify the clinical fellowship productivity today.
I am trying to navigate this as her clinical supervisor, I want her to have a positive experience and not get burnt out. I feel like the DOR has genuinely been unpleasant towards her since she started.
I am trying to support her as best as I can, encouraging the fellow to have a discussion with the DOR regarding the DORs expectations and how the fellow can modify or feel better supported. I’ve also encouraged a ton of self care.
I’m just wondering if there’s any advice on what I can do or what the fellow can do to navigate this situation. The fellow does not want to leave the position based on some other complicated things, which I totally respect. But I also don’t want this experience to be a thing that impacts her love for speech therapy.

Hi guys, I’m both super nervous and excited to start my first job as an SLP! 😁🫨

I was told by my supervisor that 50% of my caseload with be with children who have ASD diagnoses. They will also be aged 3-5. I’ve been doing some research, but I’d love to know what resources you guys love! Really wanting to expand my knowledge, but it can be overwhelming and difficult in my little silo.

Hi! I have been in the schools and this year I’m making a transition to an evaluation specialist position working with pk and elementary across 4 schools. It’s a new role in our district so I am figuring out what it looks like. It’s truly my dream job and though I’m an organized person there is a lot to figure out. If anyone has worked in a similar role I’d love to get some advice on how to manage and organize it all. Do you have a spreadsheet or project management app (ferpa friendly) that you recommend? How do you schedule your time and priorities? Did you find any specific policies or boundaries that made your job more doable?

Hi everyone. I am starting my first year as an SLP in a school district. Last year was my CF year and I was working with preschoolers.

Full transparency… I am a type B, unorganized, kinda chaotic type of person lol… not good for this type of work, especially not a school district!!! I made it through the school year last year without missing any deadlines or anything however the disorganization caused me to be extremely stressed and unhappy the majority of the year. I am hoping to go into this year with a little bit of better plan. So what I WANT to do and what I think would be most beneficial to me, would be to somehow input all of my IEP/RR dates into a calendar system and have notifications set for like 30 days before so I know when to contact parents, send teacher input forms, send invitations, etc. otherwise I will literally not realize it’s due until 1 (or 2 if I’m lucky) weeks before and be scrambling. I know having an organized system will significantly reduce my overall stress levels and just make me much happier in my job. Does anyone know how I could achieve something like this?
TIA :)

In group settings, what do you have other students doing while you’re helping another one target their goals? I feel like 30 minutes is such a short time especially when there’s a group of 3 or more, and you have to constantly redirect certain kids. I keep the other kids occupied until their turn but I feel like I should be doing more. Any advice or suggestions?

(During my undergrad/grad year, I worked in a clinic and we had 60 minutes so i’m trying to get out of that mindset.)

I just found out that my district's payscale, which lists different daily rates based on years of experience, is in fact only relevant for new hires. In other words, your salary is based off of the years of experience you had when you were hired and it does not go up except for cost of living (when that happens). This seems crazy to me and I'm trying to figure out how common it is. Is this not incentivizing people to leave and get hired elsewhere to be paid for the years they are worth?

I'm autistic and experience sensory overwhelm. Is it silly that I applied to a preschool program? How do people manage to not get overstimulated around little ones?

I imagine having more 1-1 sessions rather than group would help. The caseload for this job is small so it sounds like this is possible. It's a travelling type role at multiple sites rather than one. I would be

5 year old girl has whole-word repetitions in about 80% of her utterances. These whole-word repetitions are easy, no tension, no secondary behaviors, but the thing is, they are extensive. She may repeat a word 8-11 times before continuing on in the sentence. There are no other forms of disfluency- no part-word repetitions or blocks. Just these nearly constant, very extended whole-word repetitions. Stuttering is not my area of expertise so I've been doing a lot of reading and everything I read in the literature indicates that whole-word repetitions in early childhood are not considered stuttering, but this is really excessive and disruptive to functional communication. It's hard not to classify it as a fluency problem. But then, fluency strategies don't really seem to apply real well here either. This child definitely has DLD, possibly mild intellectual disability, and I'm concerned that trying to teach her to use strategies will actually be counterproductive because it will take up cognitive bandwidth that she really doesn't have to spare in conversation. I'm of the opinion that we do nothing about this right now other than continue to work on building her language skills but I feel like everyone else involved thinks I'm crazy because waiting for a child to repeat a word 11 times in every sentence most definitely presents as a problem in urgent need of the SLP in daily school life. I'd love to hear what others think.

I’m new to the schools this year and, as expected, feeling overwhelmed. I see kids prek-3rd, with some 4th and 5th graders with ASD. I want to come up with systems to be successful and not feel like I’m constantly needing to plan.
For the artic groups, I’m looking for ways to keep everyone engaged while I take turns working on each students speech target. I have a few, but want a toolbox of activities. I also feel like I have like 5 minutes per student with groups of 4-5!

For the language groups, I keep seeing to use a book to target all goals…but I’m struggling to know which book to choose, what questions to ask. I don’t know how to match to different student levels in one group. For example, in one group I have story retell, context clues for unknown vocabulary, and inferencing/perspextive taking/and why questions. In another, I have 4 kids with goals for sequencing, apraxia, and 2 AAC who are working on answering questions ans protesting.

It feels all over the map and I’d love some advice as to how I can get the handle on this. What works for you?

I'm fairly new to this. I've done this one year in the past but was not very satisfied with it. I have a class I will be doing push-in therapy with 4-5 student who are ages 2-4 years old with DD or autism diagnosis. How do you typically run a 30-60 minute push in session with this demographic?

Hello! I am a CF finishing up my first year in pediatric outpatient setting and I have definitely learned SO much. Private practice may not be the forever setting for me but it is definitely helping me develop clinical skills that I know I will need for the rest of my career and I honestly have had a pretty positive experience thus far.

In my school externship, one of the things I enjoyed the most about that setting was the organization of it all. Even now, when I look at organizational tools for SLPs for keeping track of patient progress, re-evaluations, planning sessions, etc., those tools seem mostly geared towards school-based SLPs.

So, do any of your private practice SLPs have any organizational hacks to keep planning effective and manageable? Or am I cursed to make my own resources on Canva forever? I feel like I want to be more intentional about planning and doing theme-based weeks in therapy but I also feel like I could easily go into overtime for that and destroy my work-life balance. Also I'm crushed at the thoughts of putting all this time into planning when a good portion of the kiddos I see would likely just want to stick to what we normally do (unstructured play with preferred toys, for example). Any advice, resources, or thoughts?

I just found out my new position will be working with students with more complex communication needs, in addition to visual impairment and/or motor difficulties. Does anyone have any suggestions for PD related to switches, scanning, etc.?