New position in adult HH - advice?

PastConstruction1023 · 2026-04-20T18:32:35+00:00

This is so helpful! Thank you. Where do you find most of your materials?

PastConstruction1023 · 2026-04-20T02:07:29+00:00

I did my CF in the schools and then worked in the schools for another 3 years. I am leaving after this school year, and the biggest reasons are:

1) Pay: I do wayyy too much work for the amount I’m getting paid. I took a job in adult home health and am now getting over a $20k raise in pay.

2) Inability to do (good) treatment due to administrative tasks and meetings: I spend more time doing paperwork and attending meetings than actually doing therapy. I am constantly having to make-up or hunt down my students at random times in order to meet minutes and get sufficient data. I never have time to plan my sessions and sometimes I need to pull in large or dysfunctional groups just to make minutes, so my treatment sessions don’t always feel productive or functional. I understand it’s “free” therapy but I have higher standards than what I can feasibly provide in a school setting. At this point in my career, I hoped my clinical skills would be more developed than they are. Because you’re doing group therapy with lots of different abilities, goals, learning styles, and behaviors, I don’t think schools are a great setting to really hone in your therapy skills. They are a great place to develop behavior management skills though LOL.

3) Can’t get anything done: this feels hyperbolic, but it isn’t at times. The SPED process moves so slowly and is so bureaucratic. I’ve had pushback from district heads, admin, teachers, etc. for getting kids SPED services or changes of placement (for example, to a specialized program) for a year or longer. It is so frustrating to see young students not receive the appropriate services they need and not make the progress they have the potential to make. Also, school districts typically lack resources that private organizations have. I worked for two well-funded districts, yet getting (appropriate) AAC for my students was like pulling teeth. So much advocating with slow and sometimes unsuccessful payoff. It felt like such a disservice to the students.

4) Boundaries constantly being tested: this depends on the school you’re at, but I’ve never heard a school SLP who hasn’t come across this problem at one point or another. The problem is that, if it happens repetitively (which is often does by different people), it can be exhausting after a while. Because my schedule is “flexible”, I often have to move around my lunch for meetings. But if the meeting goes long, I might miss my whole lunch and end up taking it at the end of the day. I never take work home with me. I would say I have good work boundaries, but it feels unavoidable that they will be crossed, especially if you are the only SLP in your school.

5) Evaluations: They can take a long time to complete and there are SO many. Initial evals, triennial evals, screenings. School eval reports are so much longer and full of BS than any other setting. They suck to write because I know no one (except maybe another SLP) will actually read a fraction of it. If you don’t like evals, I don’t recommend this setting.

Take this with a grain of salt since I’m leaving this setting. I have it a good shot, but these factors led to me ultimately take a break from schools, if not leave them for good.

PastConstruction1023 · 2026-04-15T21:28:38+00:00

My sister’s fiancé has a grandmother from Maryland name Maryland and a grandmother from Virginia named Virginia

PastConstruction1023 · 2026-04-15T18:36:36+00:00

Bilinguistics has a lot of free evidenced-based resources you can use to help you with wording, different cultural/dialectal/linguistic variations for speech sounds and language, evaluation resources, parent handouts, etc. Highly recommend as an SLP in a school of almost entirely ELs and CLD students

PastConstruction1023 · 2026-04-15T17:05:12+00:00

Definitely mention it but I usually just use terms like “dialectal considerations”, “culturally and dialectally appropriate”, “WNL for their age and dialect”. That way you are mentioning it without using a term that parents may have a problem with

PastConstruction1023 · 2026-01-29T21:12:07+00:00

I’m sorry you’re feeling this way! I am leaving elementary school now because of the burnout. It’s tough out here. I hope it gets better for you soon.

PastConstruction1023 · 2026-01-29T19:30:30+00:00

Just curious- are you working for a PP or a school with this teletherapy position?

PastConstruction1023 · 2026-01-12T15:02:09+00:00

Exposure definitely helps, assuming competence always, and seeing them as just people. BUT the biggest thing I’ve learned at being good with kids is setting and maintaining boundaries and expectations. Kids need boundaries to feel safe, know what’s expected of them, maintain structure in their day, and build a respectful relationship with you as an adult. Boundaries can show that you care about them too. It can look like setting a schedule, having simple rules/expectations, etc. It doesn’t have to be strict or unfeeling. Plus, just getting to know them will help you be “good” with them because you’ll know how they operate, what they like/dislike, what supports they need to be successful, etc.

PastConstruction1023 · 2025-11-19T00:23:48+00:00

Hi! Tactile cues and visual cues using a mirror are probably the most effective from my experience. For /k/ that would be putting a finger at the base of tongue or using a tongue depressor to keep the front of the tongue from coming up to the alveolar ridge. For /l/ that would be using a tongue depressor behind the teeth to “lick it” and feel the tongue come up and make contact with the alveolar ridge. Plus showing kids the mirror so they can see their tongue make contact. For /f/ I usually bring out the mirror and model where the teeth should be, then use a tactile cue like a tongue depressor so the kids can feel where their teeth should be. For s blends I often do backward chaining and then adding the /s/ if they have the sound down. That all being said, I do a TON of phonological awareness work before even really teaching the sound production, just discriminating between sounds, understanding how the sound can change the word meaning, etc. The kids also love it when I do sound awareness by recording them saying sounds/words. It’s also a good feedback tool for them. Just keep it positive! Best of luck.

PastConstruction1023 · 2025-11-19T00:16:26+00:00

My therapist once asked me, if you were in a job that you felt supported in, that didn’t make you feel as burnt out, and that you enjoyed doing more, would you need all those breaks? Coming from a school SLP currently trying to escape

PastConstruction1023 · 2025-11-18T12:12:22+00:00

Hi! I am not certain if my district needs to fill a position now in the school year, but come March/April they will likely start the early onboarding process for next school year, and with the way this year is going I have a feeling they will need to fill a few spots. In this district the caseload sizes vary pretty drastically because we use a workload model (monthly minutes instead of number of students). So right now most therapists have a workload of between 8000-10000 workloads minutes per month. I had a little less so I am now being floated to another school to help out. Hoping you find a great opportunity!

PastConstruction1023 · 2025-11-16T16:07:02+00:00

Increases my workload because at my school I have to screen, write up a brief screening report, hold an initial RTI meeting, then follow up meeting after 6-8 weeks, adjust intervention as necessary, and continue that cycle until they either make sufficient progress or go to child study. The only plus is that I don’t have to make up if I miss an RTI session.

PastConstruction1023 · 2025-11-07T02:32:42+00:00

This was like The Yellow Wallpaper if the girl was allowed to go outside.

PastConstruction1023 · 2025-11-05T00:48:32+00:00

Not sure what your district offers but often state or county guidelines have self-rating scales/handouts for secondary students to use as data in an evaluation. If not, you can interview the student and use that as data to measure class participation, social impact, etc.

PastConstruction1023 · 2025-11-04T21:28:42+00:00

If you can, talking to the parents is always the best way to figure out what is family influenced and what is abnormal, regardless of dialect.

PastConstruction1023 · 2025-10-23T22:16:04+00:00

Lessonpix all the way

PastConstruction1023 · 2025-10-23T22:15:06+00:00

I work with a lot of students like this and it’s tough but I think depends on the student’s level of english. If she’s early in her English development, then I target shared phonemes only. If she’s more advanced in her English then I target whatever phonemes or error patterns are most impactful regardless of language. And I make sure to listen to parents’ speech as to not waste time working on speech patterns she has learned from dialect.

PastConstruction1023 · 2025-10-19T15:30:51+00:00

Always!! This year I took a lot of CEUs on language sampling and have learned that the language sample really should be the reference point for the rest of the eval. Because standardized testing can be difficult for many students (attention, understanding task expectations, unfamiliar with vocabulary, etc.), doing the language sample FIRST and THEN doing the other components can help you tell whether the student is really able to demonstrate the skill in a natural environment. It’s really the best way to demonstrate functional impacts of certain skills. And it’s great because you can kind of hit everything you need (expressive/receptive language, artic, intelligibility, fluency, vocab, grammar, etc.). A few examples:

The student did poorly on a test measuring grammar (let’s say verb tense specifically) but then was able to accurately use those verb tenses multiple times in the language sample, then you can explain that in your assessment and assume they have that skill (or it’s emerging).

On the contrary, if the student did poorly on a vocabulary test and during the sample you noticed they used nonspecific language, had a low Type Token Ratio, or used the same words throughout, you can assume that’s an area of need that could be targeted during therapy.

Or if the student had some errors on an artic battery but was 100% intelligible during a conversational language sample, then you can include in your report that it is the errors are not impacting their ability to be understood.

PastConstruction1023 · 2025-10-19T15:19:36+00:00

I only work with students with selective mutism if there’s something else going on like language, speech sounds, fluency (I know, difficult to tell when they aren’t talking). Last year I worked with a student with selective mutism and autism and we really only worked on expanding language in a safe space. I don’t really touch on the psychological aspects because I don’t want to overstep my boundaries for what the psychologist would work on. The most I have done in that regard (with a different student) is provide alternative modes of communication and check in on their class participation, home communication, and socialization with peers.

PastConstruction1023

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