Announcements

Let me introduce you to the speech & language programs at Woodside Avenue School. We have a great group of students in speech & language! Our program is very diverse, and we provide services to students in various ways: individually or in small groups in the speech room, integrated in the classroom where the speech specialist works alongside the students as they participate in their classroom curriculum, and through a consultation model.

Speech & language is comprised of many components. Articulation is the correction of speech sounds in words, sentences, and conversation, fluency is the flow or rhythm of speech, and voice involves pitch, quality, and loudness. Language comprises many things-it includes vocabulary, grammar, and content. Pragmatics, or the social skills of communication, such as eye contact, turn-taking, or the intent of the message, is another important aspect of our program. Speech & language also encompasses listening skills, such as word discrimination, memory, and reasoning abilities. How we process what we hear, and organize, analyze, and categorize this information is also a part of speech & language. So you see, there are many different aspects to speech & language, skills that are important for learning and communication, both inside the classroom and out!

A student may be referred for speech & language support services by a teacher, parent, principal, child study team member, or the speech language specialist. When a child is referred, an evaluation is conducted to determine if the child is eligible for services. If the student meets the criteria for eligibility, they are required to have an individualized educational plan (IEP) that includes specific goals and objectives for that student. Since no two IEP's are the same, no two speech classes will be exactly alike!

To explain the program, I'll tell a bit about each area of speech & language, and what a session may entail. Articulation, or the remediation of sounds, are those sounds that a child has difficulty producing. Some common ones are "l, r, s, th, ch, and sh." We usually begin with auditory discrimination, or teaching the student to hear the sound correctly. Next, the student works on oral-motor activities to increase the awareness of where the tongue, lips, teeth, and jaw need to be to produce the sounds. Students use mirrors to practice sticking out their tongues, licking their lips, or opening their jaw all the way. They also get to use fun things like bubbles, whistles, and kazoos to practice. Next time you take a peek in the speech window, you will know that all the funny faces we make serve a purpose!

The students also work on language skills, both understanding things, as well as expressing themselves. Processing language, another aspect of speech & language, may be taught by following directions, or putting a story into sequence. Listening skills, practicing raising or lowering our pitch, projecting our voices, and using good grammar are all part of the speech & language program. Pragmatics, the social skills of communication, are also taught. If you see us playing a board game, it is not what it appears to be! Turn-taking, requesting, commenting, making eye contact, and staying on task may all be targeted objectives during a simple game of "Go Fish!"

We do so many things in speech and language, the gamut goes from A to Z: Auditory skills, Breathing exercises, Categorization, Details, Expressions, Functions, Grammar, Homonyms, Idioms, Jaw exercises, Kinesthetic approaches, Listening, Multiple meanings, Nouns, Oral-motor, Pitch, Questions, Rate of speech, Synonyms, Tactile approaches, Usage, Visual approaches, Words, "X" marks-the-spot game, Your special sound, and Zany games of all shapes and sizes! That is what our speech & language program at Woodside is all about!