TinyEYE Blog

Guest Post: Carol K, M.A./CCC-SLP/L

Allow me to let you in on a secret, from one Speech-Language Pathologist to another. I’ve often thought that being an SLP can be difficult, because you can’t pull the words out of a person’s mouth. Speech therapists cannot force sounds, words, or phrases from a student. Our job is to help someone do something that they find challenging or impossible. When a skill is particularly challenging, students may not want to even attempt it, for fear of failure or a sense of hopelessness. In addition, they are missing class time, lectures, or recess. Sometimes they miss their favorite subject. Sometimes they attend sessions after school and miss out on playtime, their favorite cartoon, or time with their family and friends after a long day at school.  To a student, attending speech sessions can be frustrating and have little point.

As Speech-Language Pathologists, it is our job to make this experience as pain free as possible. We need to ask ourselves how to make speech therapy fun and relatable, and keep students engaged.

Millions of students around the world are NOT receiving the Speech and Occupational Therapy services they need and deserve. What can be done to help? It is TinyEYE’s dream that students everywhere have access to quality SLP and OT services.

In the words of Jesse Owens, “We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.”

It’s that time of year again. The floors are shined, the desks are in neat, clean rows, and the halls are buzzing with students reunited with their friends after a long summer away. For teachers, therapists, and students alike the first week back to school is exciting and invigorating. You can almost picture the shiny new red apple on your desk.

Then, as stealthily as summer turns to fall, the stressors of new staff and students, program planning, and a growing pile of paperwork quickly surmount. 

We all know what kind of time pressure can be put on our day-to-day lives. Between shuffling kids between school, sports and other activities, homework, feeding their families and getting them to bed at a decent hour, many parents believe their is no time left in the day to practice speech sounds! However, communication is happening every day, every moment, everywhere. Here are some tips to help encourage your students' parents to work on speech activities with their children every day: