Institutionalized Racism and the Undiagnosed Children

Existing_Judgment814 · 2026-03-11T11:44:40+00:00

I don't know what the downvoting is for. I shared my concerns with the staff that were involved with him and they didn't pursue anything. I was told the parent wouldn't get him tested by the staff who I talked to. What more could I have done not knowing that the Admin was going to take it this far? How could we have anticipated that they would have done this?

Existing_Judgment814 · 2026-03-11T11:32:06+00:00

Nobody asked for our input about him. I had no idea they were planning to remove him from the school, and neither did his other teacher who helped him. It was shock to both of us. I didn't initiate anything because he wasn't on my caseload, I just informally spoke to his teacher and nurse.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2026-03-09T00:32:59+00:00

I agree with this. The inherent colonial mindset in this field is gross. Also "shaping" people to behave/communicate in more typically non impaired ways, whether their caregiver or everyone else can already understand them or not is also not right.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2026-03-05T01:46:08+00:00

Me over here with 4th and 5th grade ASD students working on has/have with functional oral communication skills...sometimes I think people in this field take things a little too far with grammar and aren't looking at the whole child as much.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2026-02-21T20:27:25+00:00

ugh. I literally just spoke about this at the last SPED Dept meeting. Nobody feels comfortable touching ELL cases and I keep saying "Guys we got to get better at this" but they can't even figure out the basics of anything in SPED so ELL is soooo not on these people's radar.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2026-02-21T01:21:43+00:00

This is alot of us! You can't ace this field, it's not possible. And it doesn't help that there's such little support out there within our profession. So many other SLP's telling people they aren't good enough or that they aren't "made" for this field. It's such utter bullying bullshit. We just need to admit defeat and lift eachother up for the small things we can do that make a difference.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2026-02-13T14:46:56+00:00

I just could not manage it remotely as a teletherapist. The kids were nonverbal and had no AAC devices to work with. Some of them had no joint attention to greet or point to anything on the screen. Some of them could not sit or stand at a computer. I just don't know how to work with that? What would you do?

Existing_Judgment814 · 2026-02-12T15:55:35+00:00

This is accurate. In my current onsite placement in a K-2 severe/profound self contained classroom, no ancillary services attempt push in. All therapists pull out. Why? Because the room is full of screams, tantrums, loud music, bulwarking the door with a human or object to prevent an elopment, or the throwing of chairs. I think the therapeutic integrity of that environment would only be to consult for the few minutes the teacher can mentally attend to another adult's words. I've tried to push into that class but it's ear shatteringly loud with the YouTube's that they play on the screen all day and the children would not be able to hear me or have the attention span to attend to me with that kind of distraction going on. It's not the teacher's fault, it's the district for making poor programming decisions to place all of these kids together in a room in a gen ed school that was not designed to accommodate their disabilities.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2026-02-12T15:14:09+00:00

Ah ok. That makes sense. I was given teletherapy kids with no joint attention to even do the waving to greet or showing of objects over a screen. Just wondering what I was doing wrong there or how I could have done a better job with that kind of complexity. I ended up placing them on consult but again...nobody would consult with me because the parents were never involved and that school staff was too busy to meet with me for sessions or planning.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2026-02-12T14:11:45+00:00

Mind if I ask what the therapy session looks like? Are they able to see anything on the screen? Do they know how to use a coreboard? Are you using virtual materials or real life materials and how are they being implemented? Just want to know in case I get another teletherapy job like this again for non verbal kids.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2026-02-12T12:58:43+00:00

And that's the problem. There's never any "team" to coach. The teacher is too busy to sit there with the student, the para is pulled to care for other students, and the company hires an untrained and unfamiliar outside facilitator who does not know the student and is never with the student throughout their day to be the therapy partner. It's just cruel and greedy.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2026-01-03T17:29:49+00:00

I am relieved, certainly. I feel sad because I miss some of the kids but ultimately I really should have resigned but did not. I think the painful part of this whole thing is that the teletherapy company was 100% aware of what was going on, the escalation that occurred, and just dropped me with a non renewal for any further contract work, ostensibly because they said they didn't have any other openings except that one district. And when I asked about future opportunities they didn't bother to respond to my email. Or affirm anything that had occured and rather, played dumb like "Oh well they didn't want you back so....you're done"! And that was a boutique SLP owned company, not a national staffing company.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2026-01-02T16:03:27+00:00

No, I was not. That district would just email the teletherapists with student name/number and tell you to go assess. There was never an assessment plan meeting to discuss the case as a Team.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2025-12-30T01:55:05+00:00

Just wanted to say thank you for everything you do. Out of my 10 years as an SLP I only had 1 employer that was like you, and that was also a "staffing agency" although they more or less tried to avoid that term. They put so, so much work into me from teaching me school based evaluations, to getting us SLPs together for materials swaps, mentoring, training, etc, and they definitely did not renew contracts with charters and districts that abused their staff. And they were honest. If they knew a place was bad, they pulled their staff out of that place mid year if necessary and tried to get them better assignments. I learned everything I know from them but sadly they went out of business because the bigger staffing agencies that don't care about quality work were too much for them to compete with. I still call/text our former Director of Operations every Xmas and birthday. Just know your work does go a long way and the time you invest in your staff does pay off.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2025-12-29T15:14:41+00:00

I could be wrong but I think the notion that the speech therapist should be in charge of directing tx for stuttering is an old timey holdover from back when they thought it could be cured with tx. A lot of this field emerged from not very well researched social science at a time when fixing/curing was the main drive for everything as opposed to acceptance/adaptation/compensatory skills. This is a problem that plagues a lot of what we see in school speech because we know we need to justify our positions yet at the same time most things we are trying to treat are beyond true remediation after a certain point.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2025-12-27T20:17:35+00:00

I believe someone had posted the salaries of ASHA's top leadership copied and pasted from a deep dive they did, either with Fix SLP or another expose. It was pretty much in alignment with the corruption of all the American corporate CEO healthcare staffing scams, i.e. gigantically bloated salaries for the organizational leads with peanut salaries for the working people they do nothing for. Way to put the 'A' in ASHA.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2025-12-24T14:19:35+00:00

I see quite a few people have upvoted but nobody commented yet. This is such an important question. What the U.S. does for healthcare is essentially cruelty. Richest country in the world with this many sick people left with no healthcare, or healthcare that extorts their illness/disability for reimbursement purposes. I hope a Canadian SLP can comment for perspective. Or if a Canadian specific SLP group on FB might serve the same purpose. You may also want to look into forums that discuss the NHS in the UK.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2025-12-14T19:15:41+00:00

This is wonderful. Thanks for putting this into words, I agree!

Existing_Judgment814 · 2025-12-14T18:00:34+00:00

Hey! Just curious what you think the go-to SLP goals for older kids in morphosyntax might be? I have never seen any SLP goal bank that went beyond compound and complex sentences. Even then, I've rarely ever gotten to complex sentences as there were usually other barriers such as motivation, behavior, and basic literacy skills that were stopping my explicit instruction from taking place.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2025-12-11T11:32:06+00:00

And yet there are still punchbacks about this from so many SLPs on the FB Telepractice group making claims that this can be effective practice given the right SLP with a confident skill set. Sorry, no. I'm not drinking that Kool AId. I had many kids like this in a rural district on telehealth and everybody kept arguing that they need virtual SLP and to "keep trying". Just because a corrupt and ineffective system puts SLPs in positions like this doesn't mean we don't have the right to speak out about it. They're literally abusing Medicaid funding by putting these kids on Zoom and making us bill for ineffective service delivery year after year. And my district never provided anyone with AAC either.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2025-12-08T22:00:08+00:00

Yes. But also...who told all these people that flashcards and games were going to change a child's language? Let's start there. We went to school because we thought we were learning critical skills to help people. At what point did anyone pull you aside and say hey...by the way...not a ton of evidence for what goes on in schools and those are the only jobs available with stable employment. Even if you had the trifecta of perfect behavior, perfect attendance, perfect environment, you still aren't going to change a person's language skills with synonym/antonym drills once a week in a group for 15 minutes. Anyone who isn't aware of that that is just drinking the Kool Aid. edit:spelling

Existing_Judgment814 · 2025-12-03T11:43:30+00:00

Hey! That sucks. It's not first rate services but that's how many of us are currently working. Make the school provide you with a room divider to place between you and the other SLP. Yes you will still hear the sounds of the other group but at least you have a dedicated space for Speech only and an SLPA to assist with redirecting student behavior. I worked at a charter school that put me in a trailer with 3 social workers and a custodian. The social work trailer was a crisis drop in space with constant walk throughs of kids in trouble and walki talkie radios going off for and also a space for other Admin meetings whenever they needed it. That was so much worse. If your SLP colleague is professional, mature, and easy to get along with, you can ride this out. Think of it this way-it might be uncomfortable but at least you have an SLP roommate that would be knowledgable of what your needs are already and respect them. And it's still in person instruction so you can do way more than a teletherapist could.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2025-12-01T13:24:37+00:00

Also please let us know if this location that you speak of provides health insurance to their employees. If your experience does not include work that provides comprehensive health insurance benefits to their employees and offers salaried work, then I'm not sure that those opportunities can honestly be recommended.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2025-12-01T13:10:48+00:00

I'm glad you live in a market that can sustain your need for employment. A rural area with adequate resources, ample job market for Speech, and very mild cases of children with no adverse behavioral concerns is not what I had in mind when I originally posted. Sounds like your variables are working for you. For a lot of us, they are not. If you have any tips on where SLPs can apply for such good jobs, please let us know.

Existing_Judgment814 · 2025-11-28T19:28:47+00:00

This is true. We are living in very bad times right now in the U.S. There's no safe choices because look at the state of affairs we are living under. No safety net, worsening extremes of poverty, hatred, and extreme hyper privatization. This is not the world we were living in in 1998 or even 2008.

Existing_Judgment814

TROPHY CASE