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  • Foundational Language Skills Needed for Self-Advocacy

    Foundational Language Skills Needed for Self-Advocacy

    I talk about self-advocacy a lot here—why it’s important, how I teach it. As I’ve mentioned before, it can be difficult to figure out the intersection between working explicitly on self-advocacy scenarios and making sure students have the foundational skills needed to understand and respond to them.

    As I add to my knowledge base for how to effectively work with students on self-advocacy, I wanted to compile the foundational skills that I notice lacking and tend to target in sessions. These skills will take your student beyond “I need help,” or “Can you help me?” and help them learn to advocate through explanation and dialogue. Ultimately, these are the skills they’ll need to advocate with flair and use the “Tell Them, Ask Them” approach to its fullest effectiveness. I’ll continue to add to this list as I develop it more fully. And stay tuned for a bank of IEP goals targeting these skills!

    Semantic Skills Needed to Self-Advocate

    • Basic verbs that express wants and needs

    • A robust lexicon of other school-related action verbs

    • Recognition of tier 2 and tier 2 vocabulary words (nouns and verbs)

    Syntactic Skills Needed to Self-Advocate

    • Ability to form statements

    • Ability to form (and answer) questions

    • Ability to form complex sentences, especially ones that demonstrate causal, temporal, and conditional relationships

    • Ability to break down sentences, especially the compound and complex sentence structures that regularly form directions and questions

    Executive Functioning Skills Needed to Self-Advocate

    • Ability to ask self-monitoring questions to check for understanding

    • Inhibitory control to check initial understanding and answers

    • Strategies to remember details about the task and what they’ve already tried

    • Metacognitive strategies to analyze the situation or task and their judgments/responses to it

    Pragmatic Skills Needed to Self-Advocate

    • Knowledge of how to gain attention appropriately

    • Ability to have a back-and-forth of asking and answering questions

    • Awareness of their feelings/perspectives and others

  • A Two-Step Framework for Teaching Self Advocacy

    A Two-Step Framework for Teaching Self Advocacy

    Teaching students how to advocate for themselves is a huge part of being a middle and high school SLP. I would say that every other IEP meeting I attend, questions about communication concerns are met with responses like, “They’re not self-advocating,” “We need them to speak up more and tell us what they need,” or “I wish they’d advocate for themselves more often.” Almost every teacher I’ve ever met wants to help their students and meet their classroom needs, but they’re busy trying to teach class and manage everyone’s needs, alongside all of their other duties. And the same will be true in college, in a job, at the electric department, at the bank… Having the skills to effectively and efficiently self-advocate is vital for high school and beyond.

    Real talk: a few hours after I began this intro, I called a teacher who had asked to discuss a student with me. He’s not in speech, but told her that he wanted to be able to better communicate what he needed. She was asking for advice about how to write a goal for him. I’m now working on an email filled with different goal options for her. I’ll share it with you soon!

    One thing I’ve noticed when asking students to practice advocating for themselves is the tendency to either make a statement or ask a question, but rarely both. And sometimes, those are limited to “I need help,” or “Can you help me?” It’s a good start, and for some students, it’s the holy grail! But for the most part, I’ve realized that limiting their self-advocacy to one or the other comes with limitations, especially for students who are participating in grade-level coursework alongside other social and community activities. They need more in their toolbox!

    I call my method the “Tell them, Ask them” approach. Let’s talk about it.

    Put yourselves in a student’s shoes for a bit. This is how I approach it with them.

    What can you tell them?

    What is actually going on in this situation? We can’t assume that the person we’re talking to will know what’s troubling you, the backstory of a peer conflict, or whatever. We have to tell them, and we need to be as specific as possible. This gives the helper the context they need to move forward. We call this a statement.

    What can you ask them?

    What do you need in this situation? Just like we can’t assume the helper will know the context, we also can’t assume they’ll know the best solution to the problem, so if you have something in mind, ask them about it! Yes, they might say no, and that’s fine! But they’ll know that you put some thought into it and aren’t just coming to them with a problem and no solutions… or worse, just trying to get out of doing something.

    Genuinely don’t know what to ask? That’s cool, too! Try saying something like, “Do you have any ideas that can help me with this?”

    Either way, we call this a question.

    One, The Other, or Both

    Some situations call for a statement and a question. Some situations call for one or the other. Part of self-advocacy is using your critical thinking skills to reason through a situation first and determine what you need to do next. It might also require some self-regulation on your part if you’re angry or upset about something. Self-regulation and self-monitoring are important precursors to self-advocacy!

    An Example from a Therapy Session

    In the first therapy session addressing this skill with a student recently, this is how we worked through it. First, I talked them through our process similar to how I wrote it above!

    Then, we looked at a situation. I used this one from a document I downloaded from Arleta High School. (As a note, there are some grammatical errors in the document, so I’d advise retyping it somewhere else if you decide to use it. I also changed a little bit of the wording.)

    Jackie knows that she has a problem if she does not sit toward the front of the room. Her teacher has given her a seat in the back of the room and it is difficult for her to see.

    Me: Pretend you’re Jackie and I’m your teacher. What is one thing that you can tell me?

    Student: that she can’t see the board if she’s in the back of the room

    Me: Good! Now, what is one thing you can ask me?

    Student: if I can sit closer to the front

    Me: Perfect. Now, let’s act it out. I’m your teacher, and you’re Jackie. Use “I” in your statement and question.

    Me as teacher: Hey Jackie, what’s going on?

    Student as Jackie: I’m having a hard time seeing the board from the back of the room. Could I move to a seat closer to the front?

    Me as teacher: Of course, thank you for letting me know.

    Me: Great work, that was perfect! One more question for you: I started that conversation with Jackie by asking her a question first. What would you do if you had to get my attention before telling me your statement and asking me your question?

    Student: Raise my hand or go to the desk after class.

    Me: Yes, those are good options. Let’s try just the beginning again. Pretend you’re Jackie and I’m your teacher, and you need to get my attention. My name is Mrs. Smith.

    Student as Jackie: Hey, Mrs. Smith, can I ask you a question?

    Me: Perfect! Now I know that you’re about to talk to me about something. I know what problem you’re having, and I know that you have an idea of how to solve it. I’m ready to help you.

    Additional Resources from the Blog:

    Why Self-Advocacy is Important

    Coming soon: Foundational Language and Executive Functioning Skills for Self-Advocacy

    Coming soon: Self-Advocacy Goal Bank

  • How to Keep Speech Therapy Data for Teletherapy

    How to Keep Speech Therapy Data for Teletherapy

    I’ve been thinking about how I do my session notes and data collection—what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what I’ll change next year. I thought I’d share some of my thoughts with you today so you can implement what works for you… and I’ll remember next year what I was thinking!

    My Current Data Collection System

    I have a very simple two-step data collection and documentation system that I’ve used this year.

    1. I keep a spiral notebook at hand that I scribble notes on for each student. I date each page, write down each student’s initials in session order, and jot down the basics of what I need to remember for each session.

    2. At the end of each session or day (preferably), I go into our Medicaid documentation system and type up everything from my notebook in a more coherent form. I’ll admit I’ve been a bit lazy with it this year!

      I typically do a sentence about the student’s attention/participation as well as any schedule changes (arriving late, leaving early, etc…), a few sentences about what kind of task we did and the student’s accuracy, a sentence or two with any observations or analysis as needed, and a sentence with any changes to be made for next year. This makes it sound better than it actually is though! Here’s a typical example:

    Attended well. Arrived 5 minutes late. Frodo independently identified the irrelevant sentence from a field of 4 after reading a short paragraph during a game. SLP provided action points before game. Said it was mostly easy but some confused him. Continue next week.

    In addition to this, I have a Google doc for each school with the student’s goals (and other important information) listed. I began the year planning to fill in a table at the end of each session with percentages, but that never stuck. I do reference this doc during sessions when I need a quick reminder about the specifics of a goal.

    What Worked This Year

    There are several things that worked well this year!

    First, using my spiral notebook is just organized enough and just flexible enough for my ADHD brain! I can easily refer back to my notes if I go a few days without documenting. I won’t change how I keep track of data during the session next year other than organizing my notebook a little bit more—like tabs for each of the different schools.

    Second, I really love immediately documenting in one space rather than trying to keep data in a lot of different places like I have in the past. I only began Medicaid documentation last year and I found that I was spending a ton of time collating all of my different systems and documenting properly for reimbursement. I also won’t go back on my primary documentation space being my Medicaid notes.

    What Didn’t Work This Year

    There are really only a few logistical things that I would change this year!

    First, as I mentioned earlier, I would organize my notebook a little bit more. This year, I just wrote everything in the order I did it. There were a few times when that became confusing, such as when I was looking for notes on a specific evaluation or needed to quickly look at something for a specific school. Next year, I’ll use notebooks with tabs and organize by school first then by treatment or evaluation.

    Second, I’ll add one step to my Medicaid documentation process. Instead of filling in a chart like I intended to do this year, I’ll copy/paste my Medicaid documentation into my Google doc. I found myself getting annoyed by the arduous process of accessing my Medicaid documentation before and during sessions to check on things from the week before. I think just copying what I’ve already written into a doc that I already access most days will save myself a lot of headaches. Especially when it comes to progress reports!

    Lastly, I’ll streamline and organize my actual Medicaid notes a bit better. There are a few things I’ve found myself needing to refer to from my notes that I haven’t always been the best at actually keeping up with! So for next year, I want to create a template that I use in each and every Medicaid note. It’ll take me a little longer to document, but I think my future self will thank me.

    Which leads me to…

    My Speech Session Note Template for 2025

    • _____/_____ minutes attended. Notes on missed minutes:

    • Student’s participation and behavior:

    • Materials used/tasks implemented:

    • Student’s performance:

    • Intervention techniques, scaffolding/cues provided, feedback, etc…

    • Student’s response to techniques, cues, etc…

    • Plan’s for next week:

    Here’s how that would look in a note based on a session I had this morning:

    • 15/20 minutes attended. Frodo left 5 minutes early due to state testing.

    • Frodo appeared tired but participated well with no need for redirection.

    • Completed a Blooket game (Relevant Details)— read a short paragraph (up to 5 sentences) and identified the sentence from a field of 4 that was not relevant to the paragraph.

    • Frodo completed the task independently with 70% accuracy.

    • SLP did not provide any intervention strategies during the game but discussed the purpose of the game with action points before the game and discussed his score and perspective after the game was completed. Frodo stated that he thought it was mostly easy but said there were a few that confused him at first and he had to think about more.

    • Next week, complete a similar task together so the SLP can provide scaffolding as Frodo works.

    Compared to the “old version” of this note that I shared earlier, I think this will make it much easier for me to reference when planning the next session and when writing my progress reports.

    I’m excited about implementing my new system next year and enjoying the benefits I’m expecting it to generate!

    How do you keep data as a teletherapist? Do you have any tips and tricks you swear by? I’d love to hear!

    I’ve made the intentional choice to keep The Calm SLP ad-free. If you appreciate what I do here, there are a couple of ways to support me.

    1. You can check out the products I offer in my TpT store. This will hopefully help you also!

    2. You can also visit my Buy Me a Coffee link, though I’ll openly admit your donation will go to tea and books instead.

  • Let’s Wrap Things Up

    Let’s Wrap Things Up

    Hello, dear friends! Welcome to May! School-based SLPs, we’ve nearly made it!!!

    From My Desk

    I come to you from a whirlwind of birthdays and meetings and evaluations and thoughts and sleepy eyes. In my family, we jokingly refer to April/May as “birthday month,” as there are four in rapid succession (including mine and my husband’s). As I write this, we’ve only my husband’s left. I’m exceedingly sleepy and have reached the point in the year where I’m forgetting things left and right, relying even more heavily than ever on my calendar and check lists and praying to the gods of the end of the school year that I haven’t forgotten to add anything to them…

    Month’s Most Used Therapy Materials

    Does the CASL count?

    Seriously though, I feel like I’ve done more evaluating than treating this month. My schools have been completing end-of-year state testing, which means a lot of missed therapy sessions. Additionally, I’ve been helping some of the elementary SLPs in my company with end-of-year evaluations, so the CASL has been in a constant state of use this month.

    I have been delighting in the Kitty and Dragon book series on Epic! though! Even for my middle schoolers, it’s been such a great mid-level book for working on comprehension and retell at the end of the year. Long enough to be a bit of a challenge, very narrative in nature for story elements, but fun and sweet enough to not be overwhelming amid all of the other things going on at the end of the year.

    I’ve also been following up on my previously used semantic feature analysis grids with semantic questioning during therapy sessions. After

    >
    “Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.”
    — Quote Source

    Plans for Next Month

    Finish the school year! There are a few admin types of things that I’m doing here at the end of the year:

    • Reviewing my Medicaid documentation to make sure I’ve logged all therapy dates and making note of any students who may need make up sessions

    • Updating my caseload information and compiling a list of students who will receive speech next year with notes for the next SLP

    • Checking current goals to see if any need to be updated before the next school year

    • Checking for IEPs and eligibilities that will happen in the first 2-3 months of school

    • Reviewing my list of evaluations for the year and making sure I’ve uploaded all documents into our software

    • Looking at the list of upcoming middle schoolers so that I can spend some time over the summer researching any areas new to me

    What’s Giving Me Life

    • Honoring boundaries and taking a break. We’ve been hosting two weekly events every week for a while now and about halfway through April we decided to take a break for a few weeks. Some nights we’ve turned into complete hermits, other nights we’ve felt free to go to baseball games or movies or have random date nights. The freedom has been immensely beneficial!

    • My Ben’s Cookies copycat recipe. I’ve been missing England lately (as tends to happen when I’ve been away for more than a year or so), but being able to make something similar to a Ben’s Cookie has been helpful at keeping the despair (jk) at bay.

    • Having fun with clothes. Yes, in spite of my challenge, which I’ll update again soon. This month saw the spontaneous purchase of a couple pairs of pants from a local store that I love. They’re quite out of my normal comfort zone, but I’ve been absolutely loving them. It’s made me feel like I can have fun with my clothes again, while still having a small wardrobe and minimal decisions. And that was the whole goal of the jumpsuit challenge! I also got my ears repierced this weekend and I’m really loving having earrings again. I can’t wait to change them out and experiment with some fun ones!

    >
    “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”
    — Audre Lorde

    This will probably be my last “school-related” newsletter for the school year. For the next few months, I’ll continue writing monthly but things we’ll look a little bit different for summer. Stay tuned and finish strong!

    Christin

    I’ve made the intentional choice to keep The Calm SLP ad-free. If you appreciate what I do here, there are a couple of ways to support me.

    1. You can check out the products I offer in my TpT store. This will hopefully help you also!

    2. You can also visit my Buy Me a Coffee link, though I’ll openly admit your donation will go to tea and books instead.

  • The End of the Season

    The End of the Season

    Ah, spring has sprung! Though it doesn’t much feel it today—as I sit, the skies are overcast and the weather is chilly. If I’m being honest, I feel quite lethargic… not nearly as springy as I’d like to feel staring down the first of April tomorrow. This week is the closest I have to a Spring Break (I’m free Monday, Tuesday, and Friday and half of Wednesday and Thursday, so not too shabby!), and I think my mind and body have instructed me to rest a bit. Also, my birthday is Sunday and 36 feels quite different than 35 did! We’ve planned a relaxing weekend, which will be a lovely way to finish off a week of rest before the final sprint.

    From My Desk

    This month saw a little bit of change to my regular schedule, as I took over part of a caseload for a therapist who recently swapped positions. My regular caseload is 5th-8th grade, but this caseload ranged from K to 8th. It was a bit fun to delve back into the world of elementary school for a few weeks. My services were short-term, so I hardly had enough time to do much real work with them. But I did have to change my mindset a bit and refresh my memory on some skills that I don’t normally work with!

    It did make me think about specialization and expertise. I’ve spent most of my career working with middle and high school students, which is where I really find my stride, despite enjoying working with younger students from time to time. I’d love to think that I could truly specialize in language and executive functioning skills for upper grades; but, when you work in a school setting, you can never be sure what you’ll be assigned to!

    Month’s Most Used Therapy Materials

    In addition to some of the products I’ve been using all semester, I’ve thrown something of my own into the mix. I uploaded something new in my store this month, an inference unit, that I’ve been getting a decent amount of use out of. It’s been simple ones for me lately!

    Plans for Next Month

    We’re now headed into April, the fourth and final quarter of the year. April will see most of my IEP meetings for the year wrapped up. I’m planning to finalize all of the testing I have on my list, get all of my reports written, and do a lot of finalizing for the year. I’m prepping ahead this year because I’ll be covering a maternity leave in May. It means I’ll likely have no paperwork days through the end of the school year, so I have to be ready to wrap up without needing to work late into the night.

    What’s Giving Me Life

    • Reading more short stories instead of focusing on books

    I’ve decided to spend my year focusing less on finishing books and more on reading from a variety of writers and styles. To that end, my end table is littered with a plethora of short story collections. I’ll still be reading other books, of course, but I have no major goals.

    • Grapefruit spritzers

    I’m drinking less alcohol at the moment, especially mixed drinks and cocktails, but with the weather warming up, I like to have something fun and sparkly. A couple of weeks ago, I made what has turned out to be a wonderful alternative to one of my favorite drinks. It’s a simple mix of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and lime juice, a splash of simple syrup, and a sprinkle of coarse salt, and it’s utterly delicious!

    • Living Libations Best Skin Ever

    It was a little too light in the depths of winter, but now that the weather has changed, I’m back to using my seabuckthorn oil as a moisturizer and it’s lovely to be back! I just topped up during their spring sale and am experimenting with using it as an all-in-one cleanser and moisturizer solution.

    • Dreaming of a fairy garden

    One of our house goals for this year is to turn our backyard into a bit of an oasis, and one of my dreams is to make a fairy garden. I’m not sure yet what that will look like, but in a year where I’m trying to be more creative and frugal, I’m enjoying dreaming of it and hopefully will enjoy making it come to fruition.

    In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.

    — Mark Twain

    I must say, I hope your spring is feeling a little bit more lively than my own! Here’s to hoping the sun will shine tomorrow and April will bring about a bit more cheeriness!

    Cheers,

    Christin 🪻🌺

    I’ve made the intentional choice to keep The Calm SLP ad-free. If you appreciate what I do here, there are a couple of ways to support me.

    1. You can check out the products I offer in my TpT store. This will hopefully help you also!

    2. You can also visit my Buy Me a Coffee link, though I’ll openly admit your donation will go to tea and books instead.

  • Why You Should Use Semantic Feature Analysis

    Why You Should Use Semantic Feature Analysis

    Semantic feature analysis is one of the few vocabulary strategies I remember learning about during my undergraduate studies. It fell off my radar for a while, replaced by loads of flashcards and context clues galore. Then, it started easing back on the scene through Dr. Karen and her work on semantic features. I was already obsessed with language processing hierarchy and over time I started to realize how the two were related. As I’ve continued to build my instructional skills for vocabulary growth, using semantic features has helped me structure my speech therapy sessions. I thought today we could chat about why semantic feature analysis works and how you can use it in sessions.

    What is semantic feature analysis?

    Semantic features are the concepts or characteristics that define a word. If you think about the concepts in the language processing hierarchy, you can use them to generate semantic features for nouns: category, function, synonyms, associations. Things are slightly different for verbs and adjectives. For verbs, we’re looking at synonyms and antonyms, where, when, and why questions, and associated nouns. For adjectives, you’re looking at synonyms and antonyms and associated nouns and verbs.

    Typically, when we complete a semantic feature analysis, we complete a grid. The far left column is filled with words that share a category and the top row is filled with a variety of other features. Students fill the corresponding squares with either a plus or minus depending on whether the item has that feature.

    https://sniderreadingincontentarea.weebly.com/uploads/5/5/4/7/55478491/5753963_orig.gif
    https://sniderreadingincontentarea.weebly.com/uploads/5/5/4/7/55478491/5753963_orig.gif

    While this is what I remember of semantic feature analysis, used for nouns, there are other methods too. These are similar to the Expanding Expression Tool and can be used for nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

    https://tactustherapy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/SFAmap.jpeg
    https://tactustherapy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/SFAmap.jpeg
    https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Verb-Semantic-Feature-Analysis-VSFA-9525278
    https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Verb-Semantic-Feature-Analysis-VSFA-9525278

    Why semantic feature analysis works

    Semantic feature analysis seems to get a lot of his research for aphasia, but what about our students with language impairments? There is research on vocabulary strategies that include semantic reasoning. Semantic reasoning, of course, includes the different components of semantic feature analysis. This type of reasoning has two big plusses in its column as far as I can tell.

    1. It helps students engage in a deep understanding of vocabulary words. A lot of students have surface-level understandings of words. They might be able to match a target word to a definition or a synonym or explain a vaguely related concept that lets you know they at least have a familiarity with the term. And that’s great! I love it! But, we need to go deeper, especially if we’re working on academic resilience. Semantic reasoning and analysis are gateways for that.

    2. It provides a meaningful strategy for word finding and verbal expression in students with word finding deficits. As I work with more and more neurodivergent students, I realize that word retrieval is often very difficult for them. It’s not always a question of knowledge—it’s a question of being able to organize the information in your brain and pull it out when you need it. Circumlocution strategies are important for these students too and semantic reasoning can help them with that.

    How I’m using semantic feature analysis

    After years of struggling to add some structure to my use of the language processing hierarchy, semantic feature analysis grids came to the rescue! I’ve been following a tiered approach to building my students’s vocabulary skills

    1. Traditional Semantic Feature Analysis Grids

    The first thing I do with students is introduce them to the traditional grids. Although I’ve primarily worked with nouns so far, you could also make your own grids for adjectives and verbs! I’ve found that starting with the grids (almost regardless of their vocabulary skill level) has several benefits.

    First, the kids think it’s fun! I’m always impressed by the simple things that are really enjoyable for students. As a teletherapist, my students enjoy picking their stamp (using the annotate feature on Zoom) or the color of their pen. For in-person SLPs, students can pick a dauber, a sticker, colors, etc… Things that give them some autonomy tend to be really engaging!

    Second, it’s an easy way to introduce features to students without a lot of instruction or faff. Even though the grids themselves typically have only a single word or short phrase, I use it as an opportunity to model semantic questioning. “Does the bee have 6 legs?” Does the bee have 3 body parts?” I trial going across each row and going down each column with each student to see what clicks best for them, modeling questions for each feature. Once they get the hang of it, I let them go about it independently, providing scaffolding as needed. And I go through a lot of charts. My goal is to get them familiar and comfortable with asking questions about different words.

    Lastly, it does build confidence! Filling out a grid feels like something that most students can do, either independently or with minimal scaffolding. Anything that builds confidence is a win in my book!

    2. Clarifying Parts of Speech

    I came back and added this point in after I’d written all the rest because I realized it’s actually quite key to our work! The semantic features we discuss differ depending on what part of speech we’re talking about, and the whole point of working on this is for them to be able to do this independently! Knowing how to determine part of speech, then, is an important skill. I focus on the function of words and how they relate to the part of speech. This involves delving into the sentence, looking at the context, and deconstructing things. Really, it’s just another form of semantic questioning! “What is happening in this sentence? Where is the action? Who is doing it?” As long as students have some knowledge of parts of speech we don’t spend a ton of time here, but it’s definitely a helpful step!

    3. Describing Graphic Organizers with Answer Choices

    Once we’ve worked our way through a lot of grids, I move on to describing graphic organizers. There are so many options for these types of organizers, but I’ve particularly enjoyed ones that have answer choices. Some students have a difficult time coming up with category names, functions, etc…, so easing them into this work with answer choices has been a wonderful option!

    Students can carry on with their stamps and stickers and daubers of choice as they make selections about different features. I continue modeling semantic questioning at the beginning as they expand their knowledge of vocabulary features. As they get the hang of it, they can start working independently with scaffolding as needed. Just like the grids, I like to go through a lot of organizers so that they get exposed to a lot of words.

    After we answer all of the questions on the chart, I like to model a description or definition of the target word and sometimes ask the student to imitate me or generate their own. This also gives me a little bit of input into how comfortable and proficient they are with using their knowledge. If they don’t feel super comfortable or still have trouble using the information, I know to keep going with this step a little bit longer.

    4. Describing Graphic Organizers without Answer Choices

    Our next step is graphic organizers without answer choices. I think we all know what to do here! But, I like that I’ve preceded this with the answer choice option because students are able to learn the features without having to activate word finding skills. Once they’ve gotten the hang of the answer choice version, including using the information to describe and define, I move on to a version without answer choices. I’ll often need to start with more scaffolding to move them from one level to the next but eventually they’re able to fill everything in independently. Then we carry on with creating descriptions and definitions again! They should feel more comfortable with the process by now!

    5. Use all of the above in context!

    Once my students have mastered these steps with common (mostly tier 1) nouns, verbs, and describing words, we move on to contextualized vocabulary. Depending on what we’re working on, I like to have blank charts (all kinds!) to use with vocabulary from whatever we’re reading or listening to.

    For example, last week two of my kids listened to Red Cat Blue Cat on Epic. I chose a selection of the words (which were all tier 1 or tier 2) and made a semantic feature analysis grid. Yesterday, one of my students was obsessed with the idea of playing an online claw game. So, we added the objects she won to a semantic feature analysis grid.

    Amping it up, after we’ve read a book or watched a video on an academic topic, we often discuss the part of speech and then answer the semantic feature questions and/or write a definition or sentence using the word in context. Or, we’ll pick out target vocabulary before we begin working on a task or reading and complete those steps beforehand—it just depends on what we’re working on! So yesterday, we read a book about mummies and then worked through semantic questioning afterward because he already knew what a mummy was (he picked the book!), but it was a good opportunity to talk about words like “artifact” and broaden what we know about functions. Every session is different but semantic feature analysis helps a lot in many of them!

    I hope you’ve found these ideas helpful for your language sessions! I’d love to hear whether you use semantic features in your vocabulary sessions or if you use another framework to structure your sessions.

    Research

    https://www.theinformedslp.com/review/calming-the-chaaos-in-language-literacy-therapy

    https://pubs.asha.org/doi/pdf/10.1044/cicsd_32_F_85

    https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2021_PERSP-21-00067

    https://www.theinformedslp.com/review/name-that-strategy

    I’ve made the intentional choice to keep The Calm SLP ad-free. If you appreciate what I do here, there are a couple of ways to support me.

    1. You can check out the products I offer in my TpT store. This will hopefully help you also!

    2. You can also visit my Buy Me a Coffee link, though I’ll openly admit your donation will go to tea and books instead.

  • A Short Letter for a Short Month

    A Short Letter for a Short Month

    Hello everyone, from the depths of midwinter! This February has felt impossibly long. Here in the south we’re vacillating between weather that teases of spring and cold so deep it goes straight to the bone. I keep hoping that the permanent return of spring is on its way, but March has frequently decided to throw snow and ice into the mix, so we shall see! At any rate, the winter wreath has been taken down not to be replaced because the birds will soon be looking for places to nest and they always chose our door! I’m dreaming of flowers and will be headed to the garden center this evening after work. So, let’s get to it!

    From My Desk

    This month has been full speed ahead with assessments, baselines, and meetings. The other day, as I sat messaging a parent after dinner, my husband commented on the fact that I seemed to be working later than usual.

    “IEP season has started,” I replied.

    “Ah. I get it.”

    Month’s Most Used Therapy Materials

    I just checked back on January’s newsletter because as I thought about what I’d been using most this month, I felt like I’d already written about it. And I have! February has been a continuation of January in more ways than one.

    I’m still using Spiffy Speech’s Semantic Feature Analysis Charts. My students really enjoy getting to pick their stamp and completing these grids. When I’m working with groups, they’ve been a great way to encourage students to discuss the words together. I love watching them ask each other questions about the different features and work to come up with an answer.

    I’m also still getting a lot of use out of Kristine Nannini’s Context Clues Stories. Having the option to choose between different lexile levels has been perfect for my kiddos and the vocabulary has been just the right mix of challenging and familiar for most of my students.

    Teletherapy tip: take a screenshot of the question page so that you can display the text and questions at the same time!

    And since it’s baseline time, I’m still using the heck out of my informal Comprehensive Language Assessment. If I have enough time, I’ll be adding my Language Sample into the mix, as well!

    One other thing I’ve used and enjoyed is this Executive Function Assessment from Life Skills Advocate. You have to sign up for the newsletter to get the free dowload, but I found this really helpful for an older Autistic student who wasn’t sure what he needed to work on. Once we started going through the questions, he had a lot to say!

    Plans for Next Month

    March is when IEP season goes into full effect and when most of us get Spring Break, so ease is the name of the game! When I start planning for March, I start to shift more towards a structure of baselines/discrete trials and games. Attention is starting to wane as we creep toward the end of the year, but there’s still a lot going on—we can’t slump just yet!

    I highly recommend having a few baseline materials and quick and easy options for discrete trials for the broad skills on your caseload. Data becomes a little more important as we’re writing IEP goals and working toward one of our final progress reports of the year. Yes, there’s a 4th quarter but…. I find that 4th quarter is often so disrupted by end of the year activities that I do my last big push for data during 3rd quarter.

    But to keep up with those antsy, pre-Spring Break moods? Sprinkle in games! As long as I’ve hit some good practice at the beginning of the session, I start lettings students choose more games that are just plain fun to keep them engaged for the next time.

    P.S. Want something seasonal and discrete for context clues? My Irish Slang Context Clues unit is fun!

    What’s Giving Me Life

    Something you can’t buy: the slow return of birdsong and warmer weather. There’s something about those days when the weather creeps above 60 after months of cold. And I know, here in the south “months of cold’ means like 3… but still!

    Side note: I opened my front door yesterday to let in some fresh air and a bird flew in, landed on my Lego Whomping Willow, and flew back out.

    Something else you can’t buy: working on routines. They’re still in process, but I’m getting a little bit better at developing some rhythms that are working for me.

    >
    “Everyone likes birds. What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird?”
    — David Attenborough

    I hope this short letter for a short month has found you well! Take a breath and make sure you’re making time for yourself before we enter this crazy time of year.

    I’ve made the intentional choice to keep The Calm SLP ad-free. If you appreciate what I do here, there are a couple of ways to support me.

    1. You can check out the products I offer in my TpT store. This will hopefully help you also!

    2. You can also visit my Buy Me a Coffee link, though I’ll openly admit your donation will go to tea and books instead.

  • Welcome to 2025.

    Welcome to 2025.

    Man, January is such an interesting time of year! Somehow, 2025 feels like it should be the conclusion to the “COVID years.” Is it just me? It feels like a turning point, somehow.

    Welcome to 2025!

    From My Desk

    I have to admit, I’m a little concerned right now. If you’d like to avoid anything nearing a political discussion, just skip ahead now. My political feelings only come to the surface here when I’m worried about their impact on my job and my students. And right now, I’m worried about my students.

    My most pressing concerns relate to my students whose families may be immigrants (I work with a relatively high number of Hispanic students) and my students who are LGBTQ+. Even if there are no tangible ramifications from this week’s executive orders, I know the worry about what could happen can be devastating to students. And with the current administration’s seeming focus on marginalized communities, I’m preemptively worried about things that might be coming down the pipe that could impact students with disabilities and/or mental health concerns.

    It all feels extremely heavy and I feel disheartened. Regardless of your political affiliation and who you voted for, I hope you’ll find space for compassion. Particularly if you’re actively working with students or clients: please remember that the people we work with come from all different backgrounds and situations. When I was more religious, I tried my best to keep this in mind:

    There but for the grace of God go I.

    Whatever your religious beliefs, I think it’s important to remember that we could also have found ourselves in similar circumstances if not for God/fate/privilege/etc…

    Just food for thought.

    Month’s Most Used Therapy Materials

    This month has been dedicated to getting back into the swing of things. Without a doubt, my most used material for January has been one of my own: Comprehensive Language Assessment. Every year, I’m reminded why I designed this. It’s such a convenient way to start gathering data on progress, future needs, dismissals, etc…

    If you work with students who are in upper elementary school or higher, I’d love for you to check this one out!

    I’ve also been enjoying these Semantic Feature Analysis Charts from Spiffy Speech and Context Clues Stories from Kristine Nannini.

    Plans for Next Month

    February is kind of the beginning of the end of the year in a lot of ways. February is when many of my IEPs start becoming due and reevaluations are creeping in. Because the majority of my students are nearing the end of their current IEPs and the beginning of the next, February is the time for mega organization!

    I’ve spent time in January going through my deadlines so I’m set on knowing what’s coming. Now it’s time to start making my way down the list. As mentioned above, I’ve already pulled out my informal language assessment and started doing baselines and that’s what will continue throughout February.

    In addition to a ton of baselining, this is also the time to look at which IEPs are ending so that I can ensure we’ve adequately addressed those goals.

    So basically, where January is for getting back into the swing of things and getting everything organized, February is for transitioning toward the end of the year.

    What’s Giving Me Life

    • I’m completely obsessed with Moving Out on my Switch right now. I’ve been playing 1 and 2 since around Christmas and they’re just the right amount of “here’s exactly what to do” and freedom.

    • I’m really enjoying the idea of creativity right now, so I just started an art journal as well as a list of other creative hobbies that I want to make more of a habit. I’ll probably write more on this later!

    • I bought three of these jumpsuits in black right before they went away and have started a personal challenge (which you can read about here). So far, I’m loving how easy it is to get dressed in the morning.

    >
    “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”
    — Leonard Bernstein

    I hope your school semester is getting off to a lovely start, my friends.

    I’ve made the intentional choice to keep The Calm SLP ad-free. If you appreciate what I do here, there are a couple of ways to support me.

    1. You can check out the products I offer in my TpT store. This will hopefully help you also!

    2. You can also visit my Buy Me a Coffee link, though I’ll openly admit your donation will go to tea and books instead.

  • Why Self-Advocacy Matters

    Why Self-Advocacy Matters

    In early November, I went with my brother, sister, and one of our friends to see I Dont Know How But They Found Me (iDKHOW) in concert. iDKHOW was formed and is fronted by Dallon Weekes, former bassist for Panic! at the Disco. It was one of the best shows I’ve ever been to—and I’ve seen Paul McCartney three times!—but that’s beside the point.

    Weekes was diagnosed with Autism and ADHD during/after the pandemic and reflected that it was like turning the light bulb on in a dark room and you can see it now. I knew this going into the concert and it shaped some of the ways I experienced the show as a fellow ADHDer.

    There was one particular moment that has stuck with me. During one of the last songs, Weekes did what many artists do and made his way into the crowd. He did it a little bit differently though.

    As the music faded into the background, Weekes used gestures to ask the crowd to part down the middle. Then he had a chat with his fans. Half talking, half singing, Weekes intoned:

    “If you were me and I were you, and you went walkin’ through a crowded room, would you want strangers touchin’ you? Would you want them pullin’ on your hair? Would you want them tuggin’ at your clothes? Or invadin’ your personal space? Well, how ‘bout that? We’re exactly the same.”

    He then proceeded to walk into the divide he’d asked the crowd to create and lead a call and response. As far as we could tell, everyone was respectful and had a great time. Back on stage, he thanked the crowd for their trustworthiness. (You can see this part of the show here at the 5:00 mark until about 7:30).

    A day or so later, I was excitedly chatting about the show and described this part. I described how it was lighthearted and a bit flamboyant but taken seriously and goodnaturedly. My communication partner, with curiosity, not judgment, asked: “Why did he go into the crowd then?”

    I fumbled my answer at the time and the exchange has bubbled around in my mind since then, until a few days ago.

    Perhaps Weekes wants the experience of being surrounded by people who love and appreciate his art even though he obviously does not want to be touched and groped by those same people. The two are not mutually exclusive.

    Perhaps he wants his fans to have the experience of him walking alongside them and singing with them and has created boundaries so that he can give them that experience without compromising his own comfort.

    Perhaps it’s both. Perhaps he has his own entirely different reasons. The specifics don’t matter.

    What matters is that we are not bound by what other people think about a situation. My communication partner didn’t understand the point of his going into a crowd if he didn’t want to be touched. “That’s just part of it,” was the implication, “If he doesn’t want to be touched, he shouldn’t go into a crowd.”

    Except that’s not just it. And that’s why self-advocacy matters.

    Weekes has found a way to advocate for what he wants— to both go into a crowd and not be touched while doing so. He’s able to do it in a way that seems true to his personality and his on-stage persona, and that is amusing and endearing for his fans.

    (Side note: His wish to not be touched might have absolutely nothing to do with him being neurodivergent. It’s possible, of course, since we tend to be a bit more averse to touch and sensory input than others but definitely not the only possibility.).

    It’s one of the best examples of self-advocacy I’ve seen.

    On New Year’s Day, my husband and I went to Starbucks with our planners and journals and talked about our intentions and plans for the year. One of those plans was to set aside blackout dates every month. We’ve noticed a recurring trend of having our weekends fill up with back-to-back bigger events, and it was creating tension. We’re both introverts, and I’m neurodivergent. He struggles to say no to people. We would find ourselves becoming frustrated when people initiated a weekend plan or something unexpected popped up.

    And then we had the realization: we weren’t advocating for our own time but were instead expecting people to think about and/or know our schedules and our limitations without us telling them. And we were becoming offended when they didn’t get it right.

    As we penciled in upcoming events and designated blackout dates, we chatted about the need to advocate for those blackout dates with others. We discussed the fact that people don’t know if we don’t tell them and that it might be more selfish of us to not tell them and then become frustrated with them behind their backs.

    Self-advocacy matters for everyone, neurodivergent and neurotypical alike.

    Our students have a lot of specific things they might need to advocate for, ranging from their speech intelligibility to their ability to comprehend in a classroom setting to meeting their sensory needs. Even though helping them improve skills is important, giving them the power and the confidence to advocate for themselves may be even more important.

    And helping them do that with some flair that fits their personality? Icing on the cake.

    P.S. Showing your students the clip from above as an example of self-advocacy could be a great idea! Limit it to the designated 5:00-7:30 timeframe though—there might be some language before and after.

    The Importance of Having a Why

    I believe students need to know why they’re working on a skill, especially as they get older. With self-advocacy, the why is often obvious—and students are more likely to have expressed a desire to work on it themselves! Still, some students don’t understand the big deal, or they associate self-advocacy only with asking for help in the classroom. Getting help is an important part of self-advocating, for sure, but it’s not the only reason it’s important. If you’re looking for reasons to share with your students, try these on:

    1. Society has certain expectations that won’t always fit with your preferences and/or capabilities. People who don’t think or feel like you may not realize that your preferences or needs even exist. Even if your preferences and needs are different from most other people, you deserve to have them respected. (This post shares a fun example!)

    2. Assumptions are never a good thing! People shouldn’t assume things about you, but equally, you can’t assume that people will know what you prefer or need unless you tell them.

    3. In many settings—the classroom, practice, work, etc—the people who can help you are juggling a variety of different tasks. They won’t always have the time to check on you, so sometimes you need to go to them first. Don’t feel like you have to wait around for someone to ask if you need anything. In fact, you shouldn’t! (see one and two)

    4. At the end of the day, how you think and feel and operate in the world matters. If you’re not being met where you are, you deserve to use your voice and work with others to get as close as you can to your ideal situation. It won’t always be perfect, but if you can speak what you need, you’re one step closer to working with others and figuring it out as best you can.

    Above everything else, make sure they know that they should never be ashamed of who they are and what they need to thrive in the world!

    I’ve made the intentional choice to keep The Calm SLP ad-free. If you appreciate what I do here, there are a couple of ways to support me.

    1. You can check out the products I offer in my TpT store. This will hopefully help you also!

    2. You can also visit my Buy Me a Coffee link, though I’ll openly admit your donation will go to tea and books instead.

  • Honest Thoughts

    Honest Thoughts

    Hello and Happy Holidays! Let’s get the cliche out of the way—can you believe it’s the holiday season already?

    I have to admit, I’ve been feeling distinctly disconnected from the holiday season so far this year. People were decorating for Christmas quickly after Halloween ended and while I never decorate before Thanksgiving but don’t begrudge people who do, this year it’s really messing with my sense of time. I’m hoping that as December starts swinging, I’ll feel a little more festive. But if not… I’m determined not to fret.

    From My Desk

    This past month, I faced the same question from at least two of my middle school students: “Why am I in speech?” One of these students doesn’t really need services anymore, which I had already planned to express at our next meeting. The other student does need support but doesn’t want it. I had very candid conversations with both of them, explaining why they were still receiving speech, giving my opinion on whether or not they still needed it, and, most importantly, asking them how they felt about that. The student who doesn’t need services still enjoys speech—they just want to miss less class. The student who doesn’t want speech agrees that he has needs but the things he’s done in speech aren’t meeting them.

    These conversations have brought to mind some questions to ask (yourself, students, and others) about when services are and are not the best option.

    • What do you (the student) need help with?

    • How do you (the student) feel about coming to speech?

    • What am I doing with the student and why?

    • Is there any research I need to do to better address these needs?

    • Is my materials toolbox running low or been overused?

    • Can you (the teachers) address these needs with my help?

    • Can I address these needs effectively in less time?

    • Did I build a relationship with the student first?

    • Have I explained what we’re working on and why?

    • Is it time for an assessment and/or a meeting?

    While I was writing this, I received an email from the parents of the second student. In it, she thanked me for being willing to admit things weren’t working. I think we need to remember that more often. SLPs tend to have a, “I can save the world!” complex, when the truth is… we can’t. We can certainly make a huge difference in people’s lives, but it is dependent on so, so many different factors of which we are only one.

    Month’s Most Used Therapy Materials

    Pink Cat Games

    I would not have thought this website would go over with my middle schoolers, but it’s amazing how something as simple as spinning a wheel for points can motivate a student! I haven’t done this yet, but I love that you can create your own question sets. I’m planning to spend some time soon creating sets that are more middle school appropriate.

    Creature Campers and Cat Ninja on Epic! Books

    I’ve been doing a lot of book reading this month. I can’t lie, my energy is significantly lower this school year for a host of reasons, so I’m taking advantage of things that can take a little bit off of me! Epic! is great for that because of its Read to Me section of books. I can’t read aloud quite as much as usual, so Creature Campers and Cat Ninja have been godsends!

    Plans for Next Month

    ✨My Halloween and Thanksgiving Boom decks have been well received the last couple of months, and I was thinking of making another version for December but… I really didn’t want to only release something that was strictly Christmas. I decided that, ideally, I would have a Christmas deck and a winter deck. I didn’t have time to create both this year, so I plan to have two versions next year!

    ✨ After a big holiday, I like to do a big ole therapy reset. For me, that looks like:

    • Spending the first couple weeks progress monitoring the exact goals on the IEP

    • Triple checking upcoming IEP and eligibility dates and making sure they’re on my calendar

    • Doing a bulk therapy buy to restock my therapy materials for spring

    What’s Giving Me Life

    Cozy mysteries a la Myrtlewood Mysteries

    My Kindle stand and remote set up. I can’t vouch for their longevity as I just got them a week or so ago but boy, am I in my cozy era with it.

    My traveler’s notebook set up. This one I can vouch for—it’s amazing! I have the leather cover, weekly planner, blank notebooks, extra connecting bands, and zipper pouch. My notebook consists of a pouch of pens, a weekly planner, a collections notebook (Bullet Journal style), and a long form journal.

    And also, I started journaling using different color pens for my cycle recently (one for menstruation, one for follicular stage/ovulation, and one for the luteal phase). I love getting to look through my journals and easily catch patterns based on where I am in my cycle. I adapted this idea from Claire Baker.

    Rooibos tea. I’m three months into my caffeine-free life, subbing rooibos for my Yorkshire and I’ve officially reached the point where I really want it in the morning. The ritual feels restored.

    >
    “Wisdom comes with winters.”
    — Oscar Wilde

    I hope you all have such a warm and festive holiday season.

    Christin

    I’ve made the intentional choice to keep The Calm SLP ad-free. If you appreciate what I do here, there are a couple of ways to support me.

    1. You can check out the products I offer in my TpT store. This will hopefully help you also!

    2. You can also visit my Buy Me a Coffee link, though I’ll openly admit your donation will go to tea and books instead.

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