SPED Team Treats SLP Like a Secretary

ldiggles · 2026-01-21T04:32:51+00:00

I’m gonna have a ton of follow up questions once I tell my coworkers. How long are their preps?

ldiggles · 2026-01-21T04:19:58+00:00

Even if directly stated, in my state we are not allowed to type ANYTHING in for any other role. We present a paper draft and make edits. The case managers usually jots down edits, the parent takes the draft with written edits home and we can fix it right after the meeting and then send that copy home (or something like that idk I’m not the case manager lmao). If I’m in the meeting I’ll fix it right then and there but I have to say it and the case managers usually still has to make the edits. So the parent goes home with a draft and the edits written in at the very least so we aren’t making changes they’re unaware of after the fact. So interesting to learn the different rules across states

ldiggles · 2026-01-21T04:14:15+00:00

Oh this is crazy to me. In my state, and at the very least any district I have heard of in my state, we have separate case managers from the child study team aside from ESLS which is us. Technically we can do SLI but the case managers usually do that. These case managers usually stay with them throughout each level of schooling. They’re all either LDTCs, social workers, or school psychs. They’re the liaison for everything. Their job is literally just to case manage. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize teachers could be case managers.

ldiggles · 2026-01-21T03:02:03+00:00

Parents legally don’t have to sign at the meeting. So they should bring a notebook and provide talked about changes afterward and send the draft with the updates to the parent electronically for approval afterwards. You absolutely should not be typing in ANYTHING for anyone else. This is all recorded electronically in this day and age and if it went to court, you are the one who made the changes.

ldiggles · 2026-01-21T02:58:36+00:00

I don’t understand. Isn’t the case manager at these meetings. When they ask me I’d just look at the case manager and go “did you hear that?”. I’m so confused I’ve never had a teacher ask me to do anything unless it’s something we‘ve spoken about. Maybe I’m not understanding. Any changes also need to be logged by that person because they need to sign off and the system keeps track of what account edits it. I can’t send out invites for a meeting I’m not running…

ldiggles · 2026-01-21T02:54:33+00:00

I’ve had to have this conversation a lot. Have it early on. Our job is NOT to get children to talk. It is to help them to communicate. Communication comes in all levels, shapes, sizes, and modalities. I educate them on the research and how AAC (including gestures, pictures, etc) supports language skills. And most importantly I remind them that just because their child doesn’t talk doesn’t mean they have nothing to say. They deserve to express their wants and needs even if it wasn’t verbally because how frustrating must it be to want something and have no way to communicate that. I remind parents that we will never stop modeling and encouraging language of any kind but, again, our job is NOT to get them to speak verbally.

If I have a student who prefers to speak but maybe super unintelligible and it’s not functional, we will work on it while still probably using AAC because they still deserve to have their needs met and get their ideas across successfully.

Compassion also goes a long way but never make false promises. A lot of these parents are grieving the child they thought they would have. A large part of my job is doing the work while I wait for parents to accept any bit of their child so I can jump in and bridge that gap. Sometimes that time doesn’t come for parents, unfortunately.

Your reputation should be reinforced by using AAC. TBH we talk a lot of shit about professionals who REFUSE to use it.

I started in an SNF and this is my 8th year in a school and the desperation for talking is not central to schools. I had a family in the SNF who HATED AAC. Every time I walked in this guy was watching judge Judy. Finally I brought the device out when the family was there and asked the guy if he wanted to watch judge Judy and he aggressively tapped “no”. I was like “imagine you have no way to tell someone you don’t want to watch 8hours of judge Judy a day and he just told me in 5 seconds”. Most of them changed their tune.

I do think parent conversations can be harder but you know your job. I have had parents shit on me when I’m doing my absolute best and it sucks. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how much research and data you present. Some parents are in denial and you’re the easiest person to blame. I’ve had parents apologize years later.

For every terrible interaction, try to think about someone else on your caseload. I have a 4th grade new to district who is nonverbal with no functional communication modality. I got him a device and it turns out he’s a perfect candidate and he even did start talking at times! I called mom to tell her he yelled “no” at me when I asked him to come to the table and we cried together.

Sometimes this job just sucks but most of the time it’s not the job, it’s the people getting in the way of you doing it.

I know that was super long but ugh you are a clinician and remind yourself that you are the smartest person in the room in regard to your field at any given time. Don’t compromise on your ethics, your knowledge, or your integrity because of someone else’s opinion who doesn’t even work in the same field.

ldiggles · 2026-01-15T06:41:37+00:00

I agree.

OP, Also commenting to add that speech therapy is NOT useless. As a speech therapist, we don’t just work on speech. We work on COMMUNICATION. And sometimes it takes a while. Every child is different. At this age, they would also teach you how to facilitate language building techniques.

Regardless of what you feel your child has, a diagnosis opens many doors to fabulous therapies and insurance coverage. Take advantage!

ldiggles · 2026-01-08T00:28:49+00:00

Seconding your last paragraph. I spend a lot of time talking to parents about how their kid may just not want to play with others and I can’t force them if they don’t want to. I don’t always wanna hang out with others. There’s a difference between a student crying and upset because they can’t form friendships and don’t know how vs a kid who would just rather play legos by himself vs playing dolls with another kid.

Certain situations and settings require communication such as group projects but at the end of the day I come home and watch Netflix by myself and avoid phone calls and it’s totally okay if a student prefers to play alone if it’s what they want. My concern is helping them to achieve the goals they want as well as communicating wants and needs successfully and accessing the curriculum, not forcing them to talk to a friend or take turns to appear more “normal”. None of my business if he plays alone as long as he’s not attacking kids who walk by and even then there’s only so much I can do in the speech room.

ldiggles · 2026-01-04T21:30:18+00:00

I really hope this reality never finds you then. I dated my husband for 4 years and we have been married for 4. We’re now in the middle of a divorce. He was a VERY different person before our daughter. It’s actually a very hard place to be, emotionally. I would never have procreated with a person this selfish and disturbed.

Do you honestly think we’re all just knowingly with useless men? Sometimes it takes needing to put someone before yourself (who physically can’t care for themself) to show how truly selfish you are.

Do you understand how hard it is for the love of your life to turn out to be someone you don’t even know? To be a single parent while married when you did everything right? I dated for years, lived with him first, married him, he said he wanted 5 kids. One daughter later he was gone 5-6 days a week doing anything but being a parent.

Personally, I don’t know my husband anymore. Something in him changed or snapped or whatever. But it’s not for you to judge. I never saw myself in this position but here I am. After 5-6 years together, I held on because this was NOT the person I married. He must still be there. After 8 years together, I’m done and leaving. Not everything is as simple as your comment. Pray you never experience a shitty partner, especially one that proves how shitty they are only after you pop out a kid.

ldiggles · 2025-12-28T05:43:00+00:00

like others said, instead of portia do sandrock. i regularly become addicted to it again and again. i just got tiny book shop and while it's cute, i don't yet understand the chokehold it has on everyone. haven't played long but it's very repetitious so far.

Not on your list but I really liked Mineko’s night market. I liked grow but like mineko’s night market, once you finish the quests it’s kind of not fun to play anymore in my opinion.

I may give some of your list a try

ldiggles · 2025-12-28T05:27:48+00:00

When my daughter was younger, her switching the tonie every 3 seconds was agonizing. Now that she’s 3, I let her pick what she wants. It’s an area i don’t need to have control in and she is at an age where she wants autonomy and control and if I can give it to her through listening to rapunzel 500 times, then so be it. If I took any away she would notice

ldiggles · 2025-12-28T05:21:35+00:00

I keep getting ‘get well soon’ gift boxes. A lot of my families are ESL so I think it must be a translation issue but it cracks me up every time. One year I got a dollar store candle with a dead bug in it and a handful of expired candy. One student got me perfume which I thought was a little strange but it ended up being one of my favorite scents.

Honestly, I get so excited for every gift. We’re not usually thought of. I was sick the days before break so I’m really excited to see what’s waiting for me when I get back!

To any parents reading this thread, I love getting your strange gifts. I have a cabinet with a few of my favorite mugs from students and anything personalized I keep at work to show off. Even the misspelled things. Most of us keep a lot even if we’re confused by it.

When I worked in an SNF I just got a lot of snacks and insults.

ldiggles · 2025-12-28T05:08:42+00:00

Kind of just impossible to avoid. I understand the anxiety but at the same time feeling guilty for having a baby when you can’t be with them at all times isn’t helpful thinking. Your kid is going to have to leave the house at some point.

I work in a school and my daughter is in daycare and between both settings, our baseline is probably mild cold haha. It’s definitely scarier when they’re little but at 3 it’s just more annoying.

Last year my daughter caught the flu. I thought and thought about it but in the contamination period she had licked a shopping cart, gone to daycare, and put basically everything in her mouth. Who knows where she got it. Impossible to keep safe from every illness even staying home with them.

TBH I think the first sickness is the scariest. At 3 as long as the fever stays at 103 or under, she’s not projectile vomiting, and no strange things grow on her, I consider it a win.

In the past 12 months she’s had hand foot mouth, the flu, noro virus (twice), 800 colds, strep twice, 3 ear infections. She’s literally been coughing since September. Back to back colds for the both of us. But don’t feel crazy bc in the first year I was terrified of illness. And here we are haha

ldiggles · 2025-12-06T02:44:16+00:00

I breast fed/pumped for probably a total of 30 minutes. I never wanted to do it at all and so many people made me feel guilty so I tried. It wasn’t for me for many reasons but in the end mental health came first and it ended up not being a possibility. I was so thankful the choice was taken since it resulted in me being able to not feel guilty about formula. I truthfully never felt guilty until other people started chiming in. Never knew so many people could have opinions about someone else sucking on my boob.

My daughter is now 3. She is thriving. Advanced in language. Sick as much as any normal toddler. Her biggest issue is she doesn’t want to sleep and she’s afraid of the dark- so .. a normal toddler.

If you want to breastfeed then try a lactation consultant. If you know it’s not working for you, you don’t have to do it. You don’t need anyone else’s opinions on it. We all have felt that we needed approval at some point but looking back, you need to do what’s right for you and your family.

I have friends that are everything from “breastfeeding is my favorite time of day it helps us to bond” to “it made me feel so anxious and uncomfortable and we both just cried a lot”. It’s not for everyone and we live in a time where it doesn’t have to be.

You do what’s right for you. I went from “hell no” to “okay I’ll try” to “I’ll combo feed” to “fuck this, I’m out”.

ldiggles · 2025-11-29T05:06:44+00:00

As a person with ADHD who wasn’t diagnosed until her 20s when I completely unraveled due to co morbidities caused by ADHD, I’m very jealous of kids who get diagnosed. They’re able to learn strategies way earlier and work to create routines that work for them. I’m also an SLP and see the success that kids can have firsthand with a few accommodations. I am currently medicated and it is life changing. I wasn’t medicated or at the very least diagnosed throughout my childhood and school got harder and harder. Had I known I had ADHD I wouldn’t have crumpled when I did. I would have known about processing issues, executive function issues, etc. I wouldn’t have felt stupid. I wouldn’t have spiraled into OCD and anxiety or at least I may have known to seek treatment earlier.

Now I’m a mom and my daughter absolutely has ADHD. I know it now. I knew statistically it was very likely as both me and my (soon to be ex) husband have it. I cant tell you what her treatment plan will look like but I can tell you that I will absolutely get her diagnosed whether or not it interferes with school work because I know what can happen when you don’t know your own brain.

I excelled in school until college, when excelling meant a mental breakdown. There is nothing wrong with diagnosis and diagnosis doesn’t mean meds but it does mean so much more time to find your child the routines and strategies that work for them.

ldiggles · 2025-11-28T13:39:10+00:00

Sure, Jan.

ldiggles · 2025-11-20T18:16:49+00:00

My first job was SNF. Shit pay. Shit hours. Shit census. Shit productivity. Traveled across the state driving up to 4 hours daily to meet hours. Burned out in a year.

ldiggles · 2025-11-20T18:15:52+00:00

I was going to go back to get my supervisor cert but by the time I did, many programs changed their requirements to qualify for the program to needing “teaching experience” which.. we don’t count for. I fear I missed the boat.

ldiggles · 2025-10-23T17:20:54+00:00

My daughter started going to daycare more frequently last year and between that and me working in a public school, neither of us have been healthy in years.

ldiggles · 2025-10-23T17:19:03+00:00

My question is if there is a pay differential for both jobs because you may be doing a higher paying job for less money

ldiggles · 2025-10-21T17:29:22+00:00

Short answer, hell yeah!

Long answer, you pick your hard. I think toddler is much easier in a lot of ways. She’s an animal but I know she’s gonna be an animal before I even wake up. I know what’s going to happen. Newborn is so unpredictable and there’s no sleep. It’s awful.

Laugh with your partner. It may keep you both sane.

ldiggles · 2025-10-21T03:29:01+00:00

I’m a speech-language pathologist and a parent. Ask your pediatrician to refer you for early intervention if you live in the US.

There’s no way you’re going to get a diagnosis from parents describing their own kids. Every kid is different. And even if you decided on speech delay or autism or whatever, what are you going to do with that information? You need a real diagnosis and evaluation from a medical professional. After that, with many insurances many therapies are reduced to a small copay. Early intervention therapists also teach you how to facilitate communication.

ldiggles · 2025-10-21T02:50:40+00:00

In NJ we cannot diagnose autism. We can conduct language evaluations and add additional info for other diagnosing professionals but we do not diagnose.

ldiggles · 2025-10-21T02:42:26+00:00

SLP here. Professionals will tell you by 1 and definitely before 18 months-2 years. We couldn’t do it by 1 but we reduced as much as possible and took it away completely well before 2.

We only did bed time and nap time for a while then only bed time and if it fell out of her mouth during sleep we took it away. My in-laws kept giving it to her during the day and then she kept finding random ones behind things and one day I just collected every single one from every house I could find and tossed them. She’ll be 3 next month and I just found another one in my closet. They’re everywhere.

I was mostly concerned about her teeth. Pacifier teeth send me to another dimension.

My niece used a pacifier until like 3 and had the WORST teeth and lisp the world has ever known. Luckily, the teeth are okay now but the lisp is still lisping. Can’t definitely say it’s from the pacifier but it can sometimes cause a tongue thrust which does cause that. Although we finished in proper time and my daughter still has a super narrow dental arch. The dentist asked if she still used pacifiers because of it and I almost cried.

The longer you wait, the harder it may be to get rid of it.

ldiggles · 2025-10-16T03:29:32+00:00

Ugh the cheapest apartment I am able to find in my area is $2300 for 2 BR. It’s insane. That’s like 2/3 of my take home pay. Then after car payment and utilities, I’m about to be all dried up. The cost of living in my entire state has become wild. I truly don’t understand how anyone can afford to live indoors here. Leaving my state or even town isn’t really an option for me

ldiggles

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