Power of Speech

Mrs. Elena Martinez gives children the power of speech each day. She takes great pride in her job and cares for each and everyone of her students. She is a speech therapist at Slade Elementary in her second year at the school. I first met Mrs. Martinez a year ago and my son is one of her students. We are very blessed and grateful to have her at Slade Elementary for a second year.

Mrs. Martinez is a Laramie native and attended Laramie High School. At first, she was not sure what her career path would be, but she was influenced by someone special to her in high school. She then begun her education path by attending the University of Wyoming. At the beginning of her sophomore year, she knew she wanted to become a speech therapist. She obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in Speech, Language, and Hearing Services at the University of Wyoming and moved to California. She continued to follow her dream and earned her Master’s Degree in Communicative Disorders in California in 2004. After a while, she returned to her hometown of Laramie, Wyoming. I sure am glad she did come home to be the one to teach my son to speak clearly like every other student in his class.

I have seen my son have (since he was two years old) five speech therapists before Mrs. Martinez. I can not say enough how amazing her ability is to teach her students and my son has never learned so much in such a little amount of time. She has grace, patience, knowledge, and a huge caring heart for each and everyone of them. Mrs. Martinez works hard everyday to listen to her students, work with them on their speech, and send additional worksheets home for the parents to practice with their children. She rewards her students with prizes for their hard work and makes learning fun for them. She can take a hard learning experience for her students and turn it into a fun study group.

Mrs. Martinez uses different forms of technology to help her students learn such as an iPad. She uses an iPad for articulation and pragmatic therapy due to the fact there are so many apps for learning. The students are also allowed to play games on the iPad as a reward or reinforcement for all their hard work. During my interview, Mrs. Martinez shared with me a link that I would like to share with you. https://www,asha.org/public/speech/disorders/aac/ She uses this application to assist one of her students that uses it to communicate with others. He is limited when it comes to others understanding him and the application makes it easier for him and his learning. It is so amazing to me how technology can help others learn and progress each year at school.

I hope Mrs. Martinez knows how proud the students and community are to have her at Slade Elementary. She is a miracle worker and each day gives the power of speech to others. I hope one day I can be an inspiration to my students as she is to me.