Levels of Support for Students – MTSS and RtI
Educational programs and supports are constantly evolving to support more individualized needs of students. One of the more recent initiatives within schools are MTSS and RtI. Responsiveness to Intervention (RtI) was developed as part of the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) in 2004. The model was developed as educators recognized that some struggling students might respond to some short-term intensive supports or services without the need for long-term special education services and accommodations. Under RtI, teachers and other support staff could modify instruction to support students who were identified as struggling or at risk of failing. It aligns with the concept of Least …
May is Better Hearing and Speech Month!
A Spotlight on Hearing Health and Hearing Loss Many speech pathologists know that May is Better Hearing and Speech Month. BHSM was started by ASHA in 1927 to raise awareness of hearing health as well as communication disorders. So, what exactly is hearing health? First, a brief review of the anatomy and physiology of hearing: the inner ear is filled with tiny hair cells that detect sounds and transmit signals to the brain. The body has a fixed number of these hair cells (around 16,000). When the hair cells are exposed to a loud noise for short periods of time, they become fatigued, which …
English Language Learners (ELLs) in Schools (Part 2): Evaluating ELL students
*If you missed it, you can read “English Language Learners (ELLs) in a School Environment (Part 1)” here: https://anthromed.education/2020/12/13/english-language-learners-ells-in-a-school-environment-part-1/ There are many facets of working with an ELL population in school. So many that this could easily turn into a three or four or five part series! The part I’d like to focus on today is assessment of ELL students. There are some standardized tests for bilingual and ESL students, as well as modifications to other existing testing materials. What I’d like to discuss is some of the informal/qualitative information we can gather during the assessment process. One of the most crucial aspects …
English Language Learners (ELLs) in a School Environment (Part 1)
Its no secret that there is an increasing diversity in the population of the US. The most recent data available from 2013 indicates that over 61 million people in the United States spoke a language other than English in their home, and approximately 40% of those people were considered Limited English Proficient (LEP). In fact, only about 8% of that 61 million people felt that they spoke English “with no difficulty”. How does this relate to schools and special education? Language is a huge part of how we determine a student’s knowledge, their understanding of concepts, how they interact with their peers, …
Creating a Language Rich Environment
How do children learn language? This is truly a complex answer, but we can easily rule out some ways they do *not* learn language. Generally speaking, infants and toddlers don’t learn words by looking at flashcards or by hearing the word in isolation. Children learn words and their meanings by hearing them over multiple exposures, in a natural context, and within their environment. “Look at that dog! Oh, he’s such a cute doggy. Do you want to pet the dog?” Each time a child sees a new or different dog and hears the vocabulary, they are able to build from what they already know to enrich their …
Keeping Students Engaged in a Remote Classroom
In many ways, we can and should approach teaching and therapy/intervention the same whether it is in-person or virtual. We are still the same professionals with the same training. However, there is at least one obvious difference between face-to-face and remote school – when teachers and students are remote, attention and engagement become much more crucial to success. If a student is remote learning and not engaged in their learning, many of them know the technology well enough to hang up, shut down, and walk away. So how can we keep students engaged? I’ve provided a few ideas from my experience as well as …
The Importance of Collaboration and Treating the “Whole Child”
Each of us, as special education professionals, are considered experts in our field. Speech pathologists (SLP) know communication, occupational therapists (OT) understand fine motor control, social workers (SW) treat social emotional challenges, and so on. However, there are so many aspects of development and academic skill building that require multiple systems; rarely is a skill isolated to only speech or only cognition. For example, the skill of reading aloud in class requires knowledge of the content (teacher), language comprehension and reading fluency (SLP), visual motor integration (OT), and confidence to speak in front of one’s peers (SW). As another example, research has found that …
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