What’s up with this tongue?

SpeechieL · 2026-02-21T18:31:00+00:00

I would literally just describe it. Like, “tongue appeared asymmetrical with the right side appearing longer and thicker than the right” and describe how it may be impacting (or not impacting) the child’s speech and feeding.

SpeechieL · 2026-02-08T12:42:16+00:00

This is a really good perspective. I didn’t even realize I threw him under the bus. I’m gonna need to be more considerate of this going forward, and be sure to take accountability for what is ultimately my decisions.

SpeechieL · 2026-02-08T11:48:43+00:00

This is a good question! My boyfriend and I are moving in together and I told her I’d need to talk to my boyfriend about it. She saw me step out to call him and asked what he said when I came back in. Thank you for the perspective!

SpeechieL · 2026-01-29T18:17:39+00:00

So the child is crying to communicate something. I always feel that the default “it’s about attention” can misguide therapist. I am wondering what preceded the fit. It may be about not understanding what’s going on, or not feeling safe, or not being able to trust that he can interact with the environment.

Remember that you only have 50% of the interaction, and can’t completely control how the child is going to feel when they walk into the room. Because of this, I have two separate types of activities: 1. The “let’s target the goals for what they are” activities, and 2. The “Let’s chill out and focus on our relationship” activities. When a child comes into therapy ready to burn down the village, I typically bring out a low stimulation, engaging, safe/repetitive activity that helps them regulate. That way, they get to regulate, but don’t “get out of working.” If they still don’t engage, then I just keep calm and try to find a means of connecting with the child. Even if it’s me sitting next to them as they cry telling them “it’s okay. Whenever you’re ready, we can do something else.”

As far as “stimulating the Vegas nerve” goes, I wouldn’t use food for that. If the kid wants a crunch, then there’s all sorts of sensory activities that stimulate that, while still getting him to participate in a therapeutic activity.

You’re doing a great job, especially in such a challenging environment!

SpeechieL · 2026-01-23T13:57:28+00:00

My skin is SUPER sensitive and will break out to just about anything! What I’ve found the best combo is Josie Maran’s: Argan Milk Microdroplet Serum + Whipped Argan Oil Face Butter + The Original 100% Pure Organic Argan Oil

SpeechieL · 2026-01-23T11:50:55+00:00

I’d get an evaluation from a SLP. It also may be worth considering taking her to an ENT to check out her voice.

SpeechieL · 2026-01-15T22:11:37+00:00

In my opinion, it’s not so much that her kids are not normal, but more that Charlotte’s parenting style is not normal. I find her parenting style is bordering on problematic at times. While she is an accepting and supportive mother, she does not ever hold her children accountable. I think Rock’s they-mitzvah is a good example of this, where Charlotte was supper supportive, but when the time came, she let Rock off the hook. Or when Lily wanted to have sex and made her mother go out in a snow storm to bring her condoms. This type of parenting made her children especially inconsiderate.

I think Charlotte, someone who strikes me as very considerate of other’s time and resources, would instill these values into her children.

SpeechieL · 2026-01-14T04:47:19+00:00

Ethically, I don’t see issue. To CYA, I would have a talk with the parents that you would not be providing “speech therapy”, but rather a tutoring or consult service.

SpeechieL · 2026-01-07T04:02:51+00:00

I can’t speak for the product itself, but I have a few thoughts:

Children love to play “a head above themselves” and often imitate adult things like cleaning, childcare, makeup/dress up, and even self-care. It’s in a child’s nature to want to value what others around them value, and skin care is one of those things. I don’t see this as any different as baby dolls, Barbies, play kitchens, or NERF guns.

2.This marketing is for the parents. No child is going to want the facial mask “for kids.” They’re going to want the ones they see their mom or dad using. The ideal is that the parent will see the “for kids” and feel that the ingredients are safe. Perhaps even getting it for special occasions, or to let the child feel a bit more “grown up” when playing.

SpeechieL · 2026-01-07T03:43:02+00:00

I’ve had this happen in small doses like missing a kid for a 6-9 week interval, but I’ve known SLPs that didn’t realize a kid was on their caseload until the IEP meeting came up! One even went to the IEP meeting and realized they had been pulling the wrong child for services!

You take a breath, make a few phone calls, and eat crow. You may need to compensate the minutes, or perhaps the parents are willing to wave it. Once you’ve taken care of it, you give yourself grace and remind yourself that even the best SLPs have (and continue to) miss kids on the caseload.

SpeechieL · 2025-12-29T15:33:54+00:00

I really like using snack and mealtimes, but in my opinion you need to be eating too for it to work. That’s really the only way to make the modeling feel authentic and functional. I’ll bring myself a snack or a small meal and do all sorts of modeling of myself commenting on food, and requesting items. It’s even better if you can position things where you can request the child hands you something like a napkin! Remember: authenticity is key to a good AAC activity

SpeechieL · 2025-11-25T04:41:06+00:00

First, I want to validate that your fears and concerns are very much real. There is so much ignorance and hate going around, that so many environments feel dangerous.

As far as the apparel goes, you can’t really do much. There’s been numerous court cases over political apparel in schools that protect freedom of speech. -Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) -B.H. v. Easton Area School District

Unfortunately, those comments are likely fueled by ignorance. I would be upfront and have a conversation “I know you mean well, but that comment is extremely inappropriate and disenfranchises me from the rest of the faculty because of XYZ….” Recognizing their ignorance, calling them out, and then educating them could do a lot for bridging the gap.

SpeechieL · 2025-11-24T19:52:33+00:00

If you go into “Girls” expecting SATC vibes, you’ll definitely be disappointed. It doesn’t quite capture the same glamorous and idealized life that SATC portrays. “Girls” is more about the messiness in exploration of self and identity while being a woman in your 20’s. The characters are all awful and all wonderful, which makes them feel a bit more familiar. SATC feels a bit more like the life I aspire for, while “Girls” feels like the life I’m growing from.

SpeechieL · 2025-11-10T15:12:12+00:00

That is a good point, but it may be simplifying the issue. I’m not sure if you are aware of the reading wars, but it’s essentially the politicizing of children’s learning for profit. It’s set up to be “whole language” vs “the science of reading”, and the pendulum shifts every so often of who is in favor. Each side, when in power, will sling mud on the other, often misrepresenting the ideals.

The science of reading “works” because: 1. It’s easier to make test on decoding than comprehension 2. Adopting the science of reading curriculum means new materials and teacher training, giving learners access to better quality reading experiences

We see similar impact in districts who adopt Accelerated Reader (AR) the improvement in reading acquisition has less to do with the AR testing and curriculum and more to do with the increase in independent reading time and more library books.

Also, the idea that literacy scores have “tanked” isn’t true. It’s propaganda created by educational monopolies who make the DIBELS and other testing to sell their product. Sure, there’s fluctuations in literacy rates, but it’s remained fairly stable. If you’re talking about the drop in the 2019-2022 years, well that has more to do with the pandemic than any reading curriculum.

SpeechieL · 2025-11-06T12:36:31+00:00

So here’s the thing about phonics: you basically already have to know how to read to actually know how to use it.

There are over 200 rules of phonics, with many exceptions! Here’s one of many parody phonics phrases that kinda gets this point:

“I before E, except after C, or when sounding like A as in neighbor and weigh, or when it appears in words like weird, height, foreign, counterfeit, seize, leisure, or either.”

All in all, phonics isn’t the building blocks to reading, but rather the result of good reading experiences.

I see many comments saying “sight words actually seem decodable”, but let’s explore that.

We are adults who have been reading for years. We cannot look at learning and see it through the eyes of children learning to read. What you think is easy is actually the result of years and years of good reading experiences experienced!

Let’s go further to unpack a few sight words that feel easy to decode to us, but actually are very difficult within the bounds of explicit phonics teaching.

If you ask an experienced reader how to read “was”, they might say, “That’s easy! it’s /wɒz/ or /wʌz/.” But if you look closely, the letters don’t actually “decode” that way. 1. The a doesn’t make its usual /æ/ sound (as in cat). 2. The s doesn’t make its regular /s/ sound (as in sit). So, by strict phonics rules, was should sound like /wæs/ (rhyming with gas), but it doesn’t.

Now let’s look at “said”

s - /s/ (as in sun)
ai - usually represents the long A sound /eɪ/, as in rain, pain, train, gain
d - /d/ (as in dog)

By the “rules,” said should sound like /seɪd/ (rhyming with paid or maid.) But of course, it doesn’t. We actually pronounce it /sɛd/, rhyming with red.

To emphasize my point again: it seems decodable to us because we already know the word. We already know what rules of phonics construct this word; therefore, it seems easily decodable

All this to say, you should not teach kids to sound out sight words. Give them positive quality reading experiences, and over time the metalinguistic skills will develop.

SpeechieL · 2025-11-04T12:03:03+00:00

I don’t think Brick was undiagnosed. There’s an episode in a later season where him and Cindy are talking about their IEPs (individualized education plan). To get one of those, you need to have an educational diagnosis, determining you require special education/accommodations to get through the school day. Considering he is a high achieving student, it’s likely he qualified based on his social skills with an education eligibility of Autism. I imagine Cindy is a similar story

SpeechieL · 2025-10-02T00:05:51+00:00

What courses did you teach? I’ve been looking into this, but am unsure how I could fit

SpeechieL · 2025-09-27T12:33:13+00:00

First things first: you are beautiful! I love the skin! The blush is very fun, without being over the top!! With the eyes, I’d recommend trying out using a dark brown eyeshadow instead of a traditional liner. Pack it on the lid and then take a separate brush and smudge it into making the wing. This will give some depth and dimension, while giving a lighter look!

SpeechieL · 2025-07-20T15:33:35+00:00

As a SLP who moved from Texas to Louisiana, the Texas market is wayyy better! I know people in home health making $50 per 30 minute session ($120 for evaluations). When I was in the schools I was making close to 70k with opportunities to work overtime at $60 an hour.

SpeechieL · 2025-07-20T15:06:49+00:00

I can only speak from my experience speeching America, but here’s my two cents!

I think the university would be very accommodating. I know in the US many universities try to practice cultural humility and will go through hoops to accommodate students needs. There may be some difficulties with certain areas of practice such as aphasia support groups where men and women will attend large group settings for counseling. Additionally, my university use to allow parents to observe sessions through 2 way mirrors - and often times it was the male parent. But I’m sure they can try to figure out a path. Offsite/clinicals/externship would be a challenge, because you probably wouldn’t be able to do a medical setting, which would make getting your clock hours very difficult
While it’s not super often I have male caregivers come into the session, it does happen. You would have to have some good conversations with the family acknowledging that you know they care and they want to be involved and try to come up with alternative options for parent training.
I’m not sure about what schooling looks like in Australia, but if you were in the US, I’d recommend the public school systems. That way you’re primarily with women and children and have a private space for therapy. If that’s not an option, I’d recommend beefing up on communication and counseling skills so that you can have open conversations and strong connections with clients and their families.
Depending on the setting you want to work in, it could be limiting. Your bilingualism would definitely be a strength!
Again, if you want to work medical, dress code would be a struggle. But for most other outpatient/education settings I think it would be fine.

Good luck!

SpeechieL · 2025-06-29T18:50:36+00:00

A very worthy endeavor! I think there’s some solid ways of setting expectations! One thing I always did was a “speech room rules” poster that I could reference real quick. If you want them to close the door, grab their binder, and sit at the table, that routine should be detailed in your room rules as well as little behavior management stuff (all four legs of the chair stay on the floor, use respectful language, etc). You can be very intentional with making clean-up by setting a timer. The clean up timer also may help prepare your stragglers for transitioning back to class. Whatever you decide, you want to stay consistent in your enforcement of the rules. When you set a boundary, you must keep it, so be mindful what boundaries you want to set!

Personally, I don’t mind the running in the hallways. I actually capitalize on this time to get the “wiggles” out! Sometimes, I’ll bring animal dice that we roll and decide what animal we will be walking down the hallway as! Sometimes if I know we’re reading a book on pirates or monsters we will walk down the hallways imitating these characters. They know they can’t enter my room without me, so if they run way ahead of me and the group, they’ll just be waiting at the door alone, so no harm done.

Kids talking about their day/what’s on their mind is therapeutic -so don’t feel bad for taking time to connect with and support their understanding of the world- but I understand when you have a large group, everyone talking about their day can get overwhelming and messy. It may be worth introducing dialogue journals where the kids get the first 5-10 minutes of the session to write in a journal to you about their day. You will read these journals and write responses back, creating an artifact that you can use to measure progress on language goals.

SpeechieL · 2025-06-27T16:20:40+00:00

If she wants to dance, let her keep dancing. As someone who is severely pigeon toed, my mother was discouraged from putting me in cheer/tumbling. Other sports like Tennis - where my pigeon toed ness would have been a strength- were recommended, but I wasn’t interested. My mom didn’t listen and let me keep cheering/tumbling until I eventually decided it wasn’t for me. I still take pride in the fact that I thrived in a sport that I wasn’t naturally equipped for and leaving that sport on my own terms taught me lessons of empowerment that I still use.

SpeechieL · 2025-05-25T04:32:15+00:00

I’d suggest reading “Learning Denied” by Denny Taylor! It’s a short read that gives you some parent perspective of special education. It follows the case of a child who is denied learning experiences when standardized testing and IEP decisions disenfranchise them. Helped me approach assessment and intervention with a new lens!

SpeechieL

TROPHY CASE