I am a Speech-Language Pathologist in the Alpine School District. Every one of my students are special, and all of them come with special needs. I currently work with 55 students from kindergarten to 6th grade. I work with students who have learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, stuttering, apraxia, voice disorders, speech and language delays, and other disabilities that affect their ability to communicate both verbally and non-verbally.
All of my students have been negatively impacted by COVID-19.
Covid-19 has negatively impacted their ability and opportunity to communicate with peers and adults, and their ability to practice and put into use their social language and pragmatic skills. My students have missed out on so many opportunities to communicate due to Covid-19, from 2020 when schools were shut down, to last year when students were required to wear masks.
I feel so lucky to be able to work with my students to help them improve their communication skills! As a Speech-Language Pathologist, I want to ensure that my students have the foundations and the materials they need in order to succeed. With the right tools and proper guidance, I have no doubt that they will reach their goals.
My Project
My students' abilities range from severe speech sound disorders, auditory processing, verbal and non-verbal communicators, to high functioning autism. Finding appropriate materials to help my students with their specific communication skills can vary depending on the individual need of each child.
These materials will help facilitate and serve as an engaging way to teach communication skills, offer visual support, and motivation for my students.
Because my students have a diverse range of communication needs, the materials requested will be used to target those individual needs. The articulation and wordy wheel materials will help my students work on their articulation disorders in a fun and engaging way. The Emotions Posting game and conversation cards will be a wonderful way to improve student engagement for my students with autism and social-emotional disabilities. These materials will promote social awareness growth that will help my students be successful with their peer friendships and relationships. The verb cards and the ask and answer “wh” bingo will increase receptive and expressive language skills to my students who have difficulty with their understanding and use of spoken language. The additional materials will help with student engagement and motivation during therapy. The materials will be used in educational, structured activities that will support the students’ learning in the therapy room, and as they begin to generalize the skills learned in therapy to the classroom and outside of school.
Communication skills are so important for a child’s development. It is what enables us to clearly pass information to other people and to understand what is said to us.
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