Start With the finish in Mind.

There are BIG international sports competitions that are starting this month and while I am not watching all the events, I do love the moving highlights of the athletes’ personal stories.  The details differ a bit here and there, but what strikes me is the theme that their journey to reaching their goal usually started with the end, not the beginning.  Visualizing themselves winning an event, standing on the podium and receiving a medal were all part of the training process for these elite athletes way before they qualified for the first event.  This wasn’t daydreaming, it was purposefully envisioning what they wanted to see in their futures.

This idea isn’t just for athletes, it applies to our students too.  SLP Sarah Ward , of Cognitive Connections,  presented at our GOSSLP conference I attended earlier this year. Her focus was  on beginning with the end in mind when developing executive function skills, an “a-ha” moment for me as a SLP!  She shared a fun therapy technique of putting on our “future glasses” (any funky sunglasses you could find in a dollar store or even making and decorating your own paper versions) to visualize ourselves walking through a plan successfully. If you start with the finish in mind, it’s easier to visualize the steps you need to take to get there.  If you don’t know where you are headed, it’s easy to get lost.

It’s the beginning of a brand new school year for me and this visualizing technique is something I want to try for myself and my students!  Why not think about where you want your therapy sessions to lead ?  How do you see yourself developing new skills this year? What about teaching your students to “see” themselves in the future with clear articulation, strong social skills or participating in a class discussion successfully?  For my students with social language impairments, it is hard to put themselves in someone else’s shoes, including their own in the future! This visualization may help motivate us through the difficult times when we don’t see progress, have a set back, or we are just plain tired. This would be a great way to start your first few sessions this year when you are setting your goals with your students!

Would you use visualizing with your students or yourself in speech therapy this year?  Why or why not?  Share here!

Deconstructing the Franken-goal.

I read a lot of IEPs during the school year as I supervise CFs and mentor new hires in my large county of almost 200 SLPs.  I support all areas of communication with my speechies, but social language is the area near and dear to my heart.  Because of this, I see a lot of goals written regarding conversation and turn taking.  Turn taking in and of itself is an important skill, both verbally and non-verbally.  We can’t function as a “me first/all about me” community…unless you have a show on the E! network.  However, I cringe a bit when I come across a goal that looks like this:

“The student will participate in 4-6 turn taking cycles, maintaining the topic of conversation and appropriate body orientation, with appropriate greeting/farewell, on three trials each session with no more than one cue.”

To be fair, most of these Franken-goals come with the student from another county or state.  The poor SLP usually looks at me with terror in their eyes when they realize that they will have to take data on this goal (in addition to the many other goals that are also in the IEP).  I suspect an advocate may have been involved in the construction of this mash-up of many different goals into one.  I try to reassure the SLP that we are going to dismantle the goal piece by piece and we will build it back into more functional, measurable and understandable goals. I also include the parent in this conversation so that they are reassured that we are still going to address the areas of concern, and that they are part of our team.  Michelle Garcia Winner’s Think Social materials have a wealth of well written goal suggestions if you need some ideas.

Most of the pieces of this goal are not wrong or bad,  in fact they may be necessary for the student to progress not only socially but academically as well in class discussions. Keep in mind that for our kids with social language impairments, we are measuring their progress against themselves, not necessarily what their neurotypical peers are doing. Let’s start to deconstruct and take a look at the separate areas embedded in the goal:

4-6  conversational turn taking cycles:   Do most adults continue a topic through 4-6 turns?  Not often, but a first grader?  Nope.  Maybe 2-3 at most before the topic changes in natural conversation and definitely not 4-6 cycles, three times in a thirty minute session. We need to break down the steps to having a conversation, practice often, start small and build from there! I have a free conversation football game that includes these steps in my TPT store HERE .

Topic maintenance:  is it a topic of the student’s choosing or a random topic assigned?  I don’t know about you, but I am willing to talk a lot more about something I am interested in.  Are they able to transition to related topics or change the topic completely?  Do they only talk about one topic all the time?

Body orientation can mean a lot of things.  Is the goal to turn your body towards the person you are speaking with?  Turning your face towards the person and engaging in eye contact? Adjusting personal space with other people in the conversation? Whole body listening skills are critical to participating successfully in a conversation.

Greeting/Farewell, ugh.  I really don’t like this as a goal at all and would much rather use peer models and reinforce natural ways to walk into and out of a room.  Very few of us always say “hello” when we walk into a room of our peers and “good-bye” every time we leave.  My teens tip their chin up and give a short, “s’up?” and my fellow SLPS in the building give me a little wave as they walk by me in the halls. We tap into a lot of social skills during therapy naturally, without having to write a goal for each and every one.

Cues:  what kind of cues?  Verbal, visual, tactile?  The goal is independence, so why write in a generic “no more than one cue”?  Note how you are cueing, modeling or prompting your students in your data as you scaffold towards independence.  Don’t forget to share what works for your kids with the adults in their world for carryover.

I really think focusing on 3-5 clear goals is PLENTY, just make them understandable, measurable and functional for your student. An IEP is a fluid document, so I would rather set a few, reachable goals and then meet to add more within the year rather than try to collect data on a bunch of huge goals that may not help our students progress outside of the therapy setting.  No more Franken-goals, they are much too scary!

Why IEPs don’t have to make you cry…

A friend of mine posted on facebook a few weeks ago that she was dreading her son’s IEP.  I have heard this from many moms (and a few dads), and it always frustrates me.  While I am a speech language pathologist and a creator of said IEPs, I have also been on the other side of the table as a parent.  It is an interesting experience to have the perspective of both sides of the coin.  Why is the very document that is supposed to be an individualized road map for everyone working together, often an anxiety producing fear-fest?

The SLP side of me really tries to engage my families in creating goals that are meaningful, will move their child forward in functional and academic ways, and most importantly, are realistic and achievable.   I cringe when I see a list of 59+ goals for one kiddo; I am exhausted just reading it!!  All of them may be great goals, but when you have so many at one time, you dilute the efficacy of what you are trying to achieve and end up over-therapizing the child, leaving everyone frustrated.  What happens to teachable moments that occur throughout the day? You can’t tap into them because you are so data driven (don’t even get me started on the “rigor” of the core that is moving at the speed of light).  Yes you have data which is important, but therapy is sooo much more.  It’s also about building trust and relationships that lead to growth.

Switching to my mom hat, I felt a lot more supported and engaged when I was included in the process, not just handed the draft with the goals already done.  I know my child the best, just like most parents, and I had important input that was appreciated and considered.  I also had a realistic view of what he could achieve and was okay with taking baby steps in the right direction.  If he made leaps and bounds, fantastic, but I understood that language and learning is a complex road that takes time.  As long as the teachers and therapists were communicating the good, bad and ugly with me,  I could trust that we were moving in the right direction.  When my son got older (heading to middle school), a smart special education teacher suggested that he become part of his IEP team.  It was wonderful medicine for him to hear positives from his teachers and it added a level of personal accountability when he realized the adults in his life would be partnering with him with his progress.

I have made checklists here for parents and therapists to use in the IEP process.

Hopefully it will help make the process a more positive experience for everyone!  What are some great tips for IEPs that you have?