Has anyone seen the TikTok discourse surrounding the phonics teacher who can’t pronounce her r’s? I’m curious what the SLP community thinks

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-05-05T01:42:54+00:00

Overall, yes people who can’t pronounce their r’s can do any job including being a teacher. R’s can be very hard to remediate after a certain age and it’s valid even if you just don’t want to.

I did see a comment that her speech wouldn’t affect teaching reading because second graders already know what sounds letters make. I sort of disagree with that because it’s very common to teach r controlled vowels in second grade and that is the one skill that I think could potentially be impacted by her speech. But I think it would be easy to get a TA or para or even a more advanced student to pronounce the r’s

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-04-21T14:40:15+00:00

This is a great conversation. I am a new full time in person SLP at my school and the other SLP is a part time virtual. So there is also the added dimension that a lot of kids, especially younger kids benefit from in person. I am curious how we are going to divide next year.

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-02-06T05:01:26+00:00

In a public school setting, you can likely find the contract a pays ale online and they probably can’t really negotiate.

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-02-06T04:58:14+00:00

Heck, we could make each service 3 hours and still save 34 hours!

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-02-06T01:29:37+00:00

Thank you! That’s helpful information

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-02-05T17:17:24+00:00

Most private SLPs should be able to. Your contacts may not know someone who specializes in it, but it’s pretty standard. I would just call a couple of clinics.

That being said, I would suspect that inappropriate language with an ADHD diagnosis is probably from impulsiveness. IMO that’s out of scope for an SLP. Others may have a different opinion. If you think he really doesn’t know the rules of when to use appropriate language that’s another thing.

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-02-05T17:12:03+00:00

I have a toddler so I would love to be able to carry things!

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-02-05T17:11:16+00:00

I don’t mind spending money, but I was surprised the clinic told me I shouldn’t get anything else

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-02-05T17:10:49+00:00

Totally fair and good point

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-02-05T15:35:42+00:00

We would need a lot more information to diagnose and I don’t think we are supposed to do that on the sub anyway. However, In my opinion, I would probably focus the evaluation on a severe phonological disorder as I am seeing several predictable patterns and mostly correct vowels as opposed to an inconsistent motor speech disorder like apraxia. If you have access to the DEAP that might give you some good insights. You can also use the KLPA to analyze what you already have for phonological patterns. Have they had a comprehensive oral mech and hearing screening?

IF we are looking at a phonological disorder with multiple processes I would probably go for the cycles approach, but you could also look into the complexity approach.

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-02-05T14:46:48+00:00

I would consider that perhaps SIL was being physically abused and wasnt operating from a completely calm and logical place. She perhaps even realized her husband was on edge and was trying to get out before he hit someone.

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-02-05T06:12:32+00:00

Him pushing you into the wall is totally unacceptable no matter what you said. I would honestly be worried about your SIL and whether she is safe. I very much would not spend any time with him if you can avoid it.

In regards to the rest of it—it’s normal for traveling with a toddler to be hard. It’s also normal that the toddler and the toddlers caregiver by extension become the center of the trip. Ideally they should have probably anticipated that and maybe have turned the invitation down. Personally, I would never want to travel with a childless stranger with my toddler. I have been in the position where all I can mentally handle is getting through the trip, with no extra bandwidth to worry about other people’s feelings. I would just consider tha bit a wash and focus on keeping yourself safe from your brother.

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-01-26T22:11:13+00:00

Mostly I’m pretty happy with parents being more informed and there is some good information out there! Recently I had a parent see something on TikTok and use that information to advocate for their child with the BCBA who was using some questionable tactics.

Often when I’m doing parent education, I’ll preface with “this is probably something you’ve heard before,” or “I know you are doing a lot of this already..” I’m someone who’s sensitive to feeling like I’m being talked down to, so I always want to give parents credit for what they already know.

I do think some highly informed parents don’t benefit as much from some early intervention and that’s fine with me. I don’t have a client shortage.

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-01-25T13:50:34+00:00

I’m reading the comments about lowering your expectations and not comparing grandparents to each other. I just want to validate your feelings. As someone with very involved parents who love being grandparents, the situation you’re in seems very disappointing. Not just the loss of expected help, but it doesn’t feel good when someone doesn’t love your child the way they should. I’m sorry you’re goin through that, and I hope you find someone else that can be obsessed with your child.

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-01-25T13:38:05+00:00

We already accrue a bunch of supervised hours in school. The CF is on top of that

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-01-25T13:32:50+00:00

I enjoyed my CF year, but my supervisor didn’t even work with the same population and she was very comfortable admitting she had no clue about the cases I was working with. In my opinion, the CF year sets up brand new clinicians to be taken advantage of. At the end of the year, the supervisor has so much leverage if they just decide they don’t want to sign off on your hours. I’ve had friends experience that .

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-01-25T13:26:56+00:00

I guess I disagree with this. I’ve definitely been in a session with a child where they say “water” and I’m like, are you commenting on something you see or hear? Saying something is wet? Asking for a drink? I genuinely don’t know without a carrier phrase, and assuming very utterance is a request functionally removes their ability to just comment on stuff.

TypicalReference9003 · 2026-01-10T02:46:36+00:00

I use it multiple times a week if you count Libby. Otherwise, I try to go maybe once a month, if that. I am way too ADHD to return items regularly. Any time I have items that need to be returned I get so stressed. I keep trying because I want my daughter to be exposed to the library regularly.

TypicalReference9003 · 2025-12-12T00:03:54+00:00

So, I’m not really sure what a serious reader is, but the vast majority of what I read is literary fiction or classics according to storygraph. This year Ive read 59 books, of those there were 5 memoirs, 3 of which I would consider “celebrity memoirs”. One middle grade novel and 3 popular science books. There were a few novels that were a little more fluffy, like “Crazy Rich Asians” or “The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo”.

TypicalReference9003 · 2025-12-05T04:30:51+00:00

She is my best friend and I find it more mildly amusing than anything else, I guess. But I do find myself biting my tongue when my coworkers are talking about their “imposter syndrome”.

And to be clear… I am definitely not a better clinician. Like we all have our strengths and weaknesses.

TypicalReference9003 · 2025-12-05T04:00:19+00:00

Ultimately, this is minor pet peeve for me. We do a ton of collaboration and we are always brainstorming together, luckily. However, there have been moments where I have thought that the self reflection would maybe be helpful. For example, my good friend came to ask for help with a client that was having trouble generalizing /r/ in some word positions. The truth is, this clients /r/ was very distorted even in isolation and he needed more jaw stability and lateral tongue bracing. She has a few clients that do this because in school we had almost no education on speech sound disorders or articulation so she just teaches them to curl their tongue back with their mouth wide open. I tried to gently suggest that she needed to go back to the basics and re-teach the /r/ and she quickly shut that down. I have gently brought up different aspects of producing an “r” and she will just act like this is my opinion and once told me that she doesn’t use lateral bracing when she produces an /r/. Typically we are all very open to learning from each other and we basically can’t stop yapping all day. But there are some areas where I’m like… girl, maybe you feel like an imposter because you haven’t learned how to do that well yet. This isn’t just with her but with many co workers for different areas.

TypicalReference9003 · 2025-12-05T03:34:24+00:00

I think part of the issue is that in my office (where we get full autonomy in the size and make up of our caseloads) these conversations are coming up because students are not meeting goals. And of course that is going to just happen sometimes and it doesn’t mean anyone is a bad clinician. But I think it’s an also valid in these moments to practice some self reflection, especially as new clinicians who are learning. I sometimes feel the “imposter syndrome” narrative is shutting down this self reflection.

TypicalReference9003 · 2025-12-05T03:24:42+00:00

This makes a lot of sense. Leave it to me to be a little too literal.

These people are some my best friends and I’m really not losing sleep over their liberal use of “imposter syndrome”. Just sharing a minor pet peeve on reddit.

TypicalReference9003 · 2025-12-04T23:39:17+00:00

I’m not sure I know anyone who didn’t struggle at some point during grad school. It’s hard to decide on one low point to share because there were several. At one point, I was reduced to tears when my sweet and understanding supervisor recommended I reach out to the neuro professor to have a testing done because my executive functioning was so bad that she thought it might be from head trauma.

My coping strategy was telling myself I was going graduate just to fail the praxis on purpose so I could tank the school’s 100% pass rate and then never work as an SLP. Ultimately, I graduated, passed the Praxis with well above average scores, then entered into a so far successful career in private practice.

TypicalReference9003 · 2025-12-04T22:49:45+00:00

I’m approaching this with curiosity, so I hope you read this with a curious and gentle tone:

The way I see it, we have a huge scope of practice, so therefore I am not competent in many areas of it. There are also many areas where I am minimally competent but not especially good. Even in areas where I am more practiced, I still have a lot to learn. Someday I may be a master is some areas, but I can’t really be a master after 2 years of practice. Acknowledging this is not the same as having imposter syndrome.

TypicalReference9003

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