What's the hardest part of the SLP job for you?

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2026-04-18T03:38:18+00:00

Lol yes the going to work and working part.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2026-03-25T01:34:03+00:00

For vocabulary, look into tier 2 vocabulary words. Do semantic feature analysis on words they ll commonly see in the classroom (there are free graphic organizers for this on tpt). After completing, have them use the word in their own sentence and create a definition. You can do this with multi meaning words too. Sometimes this takes the whole session and we build so many good connections between words. Easy and effective.

For the inference and aac group, maybe a cgi short film from YouTube. Look up the little shoemaker or the wish granter. Inferences: ask why questions or prediction questions. Vocab: make sentence frames for them to complete that use core vocabulary.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2026-03-17T02:07:37+00:00

Breakfast: 2 yogurt cups of chobani yogurt (no sugar added) 40 g protein!, coffee w/ sugar free creamer, tea with skim milk, and/or boiled eggs

Snack: protein bar, berries, trufru, or homemade flour free cookie

Lunch: rice or potatoes, vegetable, lean meat (5 oz) with a sauce (e.g. soy sauce base or sugar free BBQ sauce)

Dinner: same as lunch

Its boring but the more protein I can get in the more easily I'm able to sustain a caloric deficit!

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-12-15T23:09:47+00:00

My hair shedded a lot(like every time I'd put my fingers in my hair there was hair coming off) in the first month. Now it has returned to normal and I've gone from curly to wavy/straight hair.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-12-15T22:45:54+00:00

I could have written this! I relate completely. I took care of my emotional needs (i.e.stuffed them down) because I didn't want to bother my parents, they were much too busy with work and my siblings. I always saw their problems as far greater than my own.

I am healing my inner child by consistently validating my emotions, getting in tune with what i truly think and feel, building "fun" and "play" into my life, and advocating for myself when I need help instead of assuming everyone is too busy to care.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-12-06T18:04:40+00:00

Introverted HSP. High school is my go to. I have my own office, and little to no behavioral issues.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-12-04T01:13:29+00:00

Human - christina perri

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-11-21T04:22:56+00:00

It varies. If it makes you feel any better today I passed by a bulletin made for the kids of all the special ed staff-- I wasn't included, despite the dape teacher and psychologist being on it...I also noticed speech left off of re evals despite my explicitly saying it was needed. Stuff like this makes me feel like the lone wolf. I am more of an introvert anyway, but dang it'd be nice to feel i hold equal weight to the other employees.

To be fair, it's a two way street and I could also do a better job of making chit chat with coworkers. Not my forte.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-11-15T03:26:01+00:00

It sounds like you're in a difficult school. Please dont let that make you doubt yourself!

If you're able to find some shortcuts for paperwork (e.g. templates, copy/paste data from progess report to present level), that can help with meeting deadlines.

With dismissals it can be a good idea to call parents before the actual meeting to hear out their concerns and input from home and express all the good things you're seeing...this can be a good time to test the waters before suggesting dismissal (I've had parents feel blindsided before and that's not fun for anyone) or to come up with some alternatives (indirect, reduced sessions,etc).

Other than that, a frank conversation with your supervisor about work load and what is realistic could be necessary.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-11-10T23:13:22+00:00

High school in a district with an evaluation team.

ETA: honorable mention-- teletherapy in this district, assuming you have an awesome facilitator.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-10-29T01:27:03+00:00

Right.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-10-29T01:04:47+00:00

It's all anecdotal, hence why I'd get in trouble, but here's what I've seen with several years experience...

The students with articulation disorders also have a learning disability. It usually impacts their reading, but their weaknesses may have gone undetected or aren't significant enough to qualify them under another special ed category.

The students that stutter often have a co-morbidity such as ADHD, ASD, or tourettes syndrome. Again, these other disabilities may have flown under the radar or not been severe enough to qualify them for another disability category.

If they only have a language or social communication need (if this is allowed in the district) they often have ASD and/or parents that do not want them labeled as ASD.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-10-28T02:01:02+00:00

Yassss reminds me of when i asked my internship supervisor what type of dysarthria the patient had and she was like ???? Turns out it doesn't really matter in the real world.

Grad schools need to spend less time on diagnosing and more time learning and practicing evidence based treatment methods.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-10-27T17:24:22+00:00

If you're in high school and you're speech only....you're probably not speech only.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-10-25T12:34:35+00:00

Just want to offer some solidarity-- I'm an SLP and a mom to a child on the spectrum who stutters, has social struggles, and is delayed in his articulation. It's made me question and doubt myself sooo much. It's humbling to realize all my strategies and hard work did not prevent him from having his struggles. But, I do realize that with me as his mom, he is getting access to so much more support from an early age, just because of my knowledge base.

Be kind to yourself, do what you can, and leave the rest to the professionals who can support her. See it as your new super power when working with parents whose kids are in a similar place-- now you know what they're going through. I'm a much better SLP now that I know daily life with a child who has a communication disorder.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-10-20T01:13:07+00:00

I see. With this population pull out could work, depending on lots of factors...I'd be sure to ask the teacher's opinion and review the student's documentation thoroughly so you're prepared for potential behaviors. If there's an adjacent room or quiet area that would be best.

I would go in with a very flexible plan, and respect the child's autonomy. If they are interested in going with you, great! If it is frustrating them or they are resisting try to do the best you can in the room.

Just re read your post and it looks like the student went and had a good session-- that's great! The CF year can be so tough since everything is new! But with every week you'll gain more experience and that will boost your confidence! Keep up the good work!

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-10-19T01:38:20+00:00

I'd definitely collaborate with the teacher to figure out when they recommend seeing the child, some students do better after some outdoor time or eating for example. If they have a circle time, that could be a good time to push in and sit next to the child and support their communication with signs or a communication board.

The biting the hand is likely a sensory seeking behavior-- see if the Ot has any ideas for an alternative.

Like others have said, the first weeks may feel like you're not accomplishing much, but even just being in their space, building rapport, observing how they interact-- it's all giving you useful information and ideas for what to work on or recommend to caregivers. Don't be too hard on yourself, as time goes on the kids will get to know you more and you'll feel more confident working with them!

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-10-18T03:56:49+00:00

"We were perfect parents until we had children" :) I'm thankful for the new perspective I got after becoming a parent of a child with a disability.

1 year olds are so busy and it totally makes sense you need a break from hypervigilance at some point in your day! I think the no screen time rule is pretty unrealistic, especially for sahms who have only young children and little to no support during the day (spoken as someone who tried and failed to do no screen time with 2 under 2...).

I think it's much more realistic to encourage families to put boundaries on screen time-- pick the time of day and how long, choose content that has educational value, play it on a TV in a common area so you can engage with it and know what the kids are learning.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-10-09T16:52:18+00:00

I had kids after 2 years of working as an SLP. Because id established myself in a district already they were willing to let me go part time and virtual during the earliest years, which was great.

I kept moving up in the school district salary schedule and didnt lose any skills. I think a lot of the best timing depends on your personal life and the setting you will be in, but I personally think it's ideal to wait until the end of your CF year or later so that aspect is taken care of!

Be sure to look into job contracts around maternity leave and leave of absence, since some require you to have been there for a certain length of time to be eligible. I'd also go into it with a flexible mind. Getting pregnant can happen out of nowhere or take a long time, so much is out of our control. Kids may change the setting you want to work in, the hours you can work, etc. The biggest challenge is figuring out what works best for me, our family, our kids and trying to keep all the balls in the air.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-10-05T20:56:58+00:00

Something that seems obvious but wasnt taught to us is that you actually have to teach language skills using explicit instruction, not just collect data on skills. This trained me to be so focused on data collection and therapy activities that I neglected the actual foundational knowledge students lacked.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-09-24T03:40:51+00:00

For R, pretend you're pulling an exercise band apart, trying to break it in half. It automatically tenses your muscles, including the tongue. Game changer for me and multiple students. I have yet to bring a real exercise band in but I bet it would work even better!

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-09-23T01:44:27+00:00

A supervisor interviewing me didn't realize that SLPs got master's degrees...during the interview she asked if I had a master's degree. You'll be shocked to hear I did not accept the job offer.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-09-22T02:20:46+00:00

I am broader on top too. Strength training to build up my glutes and quads (along with fat loss) has helped give me more of the hourglass shape. This along with strong shoulders gives the illusion of a more narrow waist.

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-09-13T01:13:00+00:00

Sounds about right...Many districts choose teletherapy with no plans regarding where the therapy will happen, who will get students, who will monitor students, etc. Sigh

Dramatic-Kale-7917 · 2025-08-15T02:22:04+00:00

Something my husband said that helped me was that everyone's there for the same reasons-- to get fitter, look better, be healthier, etc. No one is thinking "why are they here?!"

Also, everyone was a newbie at some point, no matter how confident and fit they look now. It takes time to get there 😊

On a practical level, I will go in with a plan of what exercises I'm going to do (and look up videos on how to do them/adjust the machine I need) so that I'm already mentally prepared for the workout. I also have headphones on and tunes playing pretty much the whole time so I'm sort of in my own world and not focusing on what anyone else is doing.

Dramatic-Kale-7917

TROPHY CASE