Many of our referral students are supported by teams of professionals including intervention specialists, occupational therapists, counselors, paraprofessionals, physical therapists, and speech and language pathologists. Sometimes we meet a related service provider who truly goes above and beyond for the students they support. Emily Beck at Bradford Exempted Village Schools is a perfect example of a Speech and Language Pathologist who goes the extra mile for her students. Emily is skilled at collaborating with other team members, individualizing supports, and always being willing to help. In addition to communication skills, Emily works with her students on social skills, emotional regulation, and executive functioning. This is essential to student success! Keep reading below to learn more about Emily and the fantastic supports she has for students in today's ALIST Spotlight.
I graduated with my Masters degree from The Ohio State University in 2015. I started my career in the Reynoldsburg City School District where I was fortunate enough to gain a wealth of knowledge and experiences, not only in the many areas under the “speech and language umbrella”, but also in all of the “other” areas that affect our students’ daily lives.
This is my fourth year working for the Darke County ESC, and my fourth year in the Bradford School District. I believe in using a collaborative team approach by working closely with my team of intervention specialists, related service providers, and school staff to provide our students with a safe learning environment where they can feel successful and confident in their learning. My favorite saying is “Teamwork makes the dream work” because in the educational setting all of what we do as individual educators carries over to all aspects of a student’s life. When you work as a team, it’s so exciting to see all of the “wheels” turn on a student’s ride to success. One way, and maybe my most favorite way, that I collaborate with my colleagues is by pushing into our special education rooms anytime they are doing functional activities (i.e. cooking, having parties, etc.) This allows me to target speech and language skills that are natural but skills that we don’t always have an opportunity to target in the speech therapy room; such as making invitations including key information, greeting guests, giving a presentation using clear speech, listening to a speaker using our whole body…...the list goes on and on.
Another way I like to give my students real-life opportunities to apply their skills is through school fundraisers (i.e. FFA fruit sales, school-wide item collections, etc.) Doing these things can be taxing on your daily schedule and does require collaboration with others, but students want you to see them succeed in all that they do and to me that’s makes it all worth it.
I also believe that parents/caregivers play an important role in the success of our students. I strive to keep the “lines of communication” open with our parents with the goal of not only providing our parents with resources but also allowing them to feel comfortable with asking questions. To keep the lines of communication open, I provide each of my students with a “speech folder”, which contains information about me, therapy, and their current IEP goals. I use this to send home work from our therapy together, parent handouts, etc.
As our world becomes more and more digital, I’ve tried to adapt by making informational bitmoji classrooms where parents can go to for resources in the different areas of speech and language.
It’s been a goal of mine to find a way to incorporate vocabulary into my therapy room. This year I’ve made it a point to make a monthly newsletter, outlining different vocabulary terms related to what is going on that month and promoting reading by providing a list of books relevant to the month.
Interventions:
Executive Functioning Supports
To promote confidence and independence in the classroom, our academic teams have brainstormed many ways to implement visual schedules, checklist, organization strategies, etc. to meet the needs of each of our students.
Binder for student organization
Social Stories
Social stories have been helpful for a number of my students who need that visual reinforcement when learning a new skill. I am a huge fan of “Autism Little Learner’s” blog and have learned so many great things about making social stories for my students from her.
Data Collection
In order to maintain that team collaboration, I am a big fan of using rubrics to collect data on these types of skills that are not always “black and white”. The great thing about rubrics is that we can tweak them to match the uniqueness of each of our students, all team members involved know exactly what we’re looking for, and are able to measure student success in a uniform way. Rubrics can also be made to meet the needs of our staff, as we can make them digital or paper/pencil!
Zones of Regulation
I first learned about this curriculum in my first years as an SLP, and was excited to bring my knowledge to Bradford. The ZOR has helped so many of our students here, and helping students apply what they’ve learned about this curriculum in their classrooms has become a big part of my job.
Sensory Breaks
Many of our students here benefit from sensory breaks. Facilitating scheduled sensory breaks for a number of our students has become another big part of my role; however the “collaborative team approach” is huge in working together to find something that will not only be beneficial for the student, but also is feasible for school staff. This year, our team has had to be extra creative in finding “socially distant” ways to provide our students with their scheduled breaks.
One of the many reasons that I love my job is that I am always learning. In college, I was told to take as many educational opportunities that I could. That has been some of the best advice that I feel still applies to my life today as a professional; advice that I would pass on to any educator. Learning from other professionals is so powerful, and I’m so lucky to have a great team to learn things from each and every day.
Thank you, Emily, for sharing all of these wonderful supports and for all of your hard work each and every day for your students. They are so fortunate to have you!
