Molly

Grad school is hard.  Being a real live grown up speech language pathologist is even harder.  My first two years I have had the full gamut of disability identifications (deaf/hard of hearing, all levels of autism, emotionally disturbed, multiple disability) and age range (three to twenty two) that a speech language pathologist can have in the school setting.  It's not unusual to have that kind of variety.  It's just unusual to have it your first eighteen months.  My current placement has a significant number of students whose primary language is not English.

If you want to gripe about immigration...move along.  This post isn't for you.  Still with me?  Oh, good!

Let me tell you what a speech language pathologist does.  We diagnose and treat individuals with speech (rabbit vs. wabbit) and language (I not good talker) disorders.  We also work on pragmatics (see how Ms. Nesbitt's face is red?  That's how we know she is mad.)  We are not the reading teacher.  We do not tutor students on content.  We do not teach English.

Language development follows a fairly predictable pattern.  Many patterns demonstrated by young children learning a primary language will be demonstrated by individuals of any age learning a second language.  When a child exposed to two languages demonstrates a "delay" in speech or language, a speech language therapist has to determine if the delay is because they are learning a new language or if they have a speech language disorder.

If you want to gripe about standardized testing...follow your friends who are complaining about immigration out the door please.  Still here?  Whew!

Standardized tests are standardized on middle class America.  These are children who, regardless of ethnicity, live in a literacy rich home, take classes like "tumble bunnies" at age two, and are immersed in American culture.  So what does a speech path do when she needs to test a student who in no way resembles that description?  She goes authentic assessment instead.  But only after she calls a really smart classmate who is bilingual and knows her stuff.  Molly is that classmate.

She gave me documents, questionnaires, references and rubrics.  All the things that make an SLP's little heart go pitter patter with joy.  Putting that together took time.  Molly was not paid to do this for me.  She did it because she very much cares about our Spanish speaking population.  She also did it because she is just a very sweet young girl, who totally knows how to rock a sequined mini-skirt!

Molly, thank you so much for the e-mail.  I am printing it out and using it this year as well as passing the information on to those who may need it.  Muchas gracias, chica!