Happy Friday, folks!
Today's post is brought to you by a question I've been asked as a tele-therapist. How do you conduct an IEP meeting online? Good question. Because I work with two different school formats, I conduct IEPs in two different ways. Both are very different from how IEPs worked when I was working in the school system in Florida. We'll start with my brick-and-mortars, AKA my "regular" schools where I am the outlier. Brick-and-Mortar IEP Meetings If you are a practicing SLP who has "speech-only" students on your case, you're typically responsible for scheduling the meetings, contacting parents, and rounding up the team members for each meeting. Not for me! I have a school liaison (IEP Coordinator) who does the contacting, scheduling, and printing. I simply accept or deny the invitation and attend. (Oh, and write the IEP ;) ) If I deny, the school has been asking me to call the parents ahead of time and explain my part, but this is not kosher. Alas, the bugs of working through a new service delivery model... Virtual School IEP Meetings My students in virtual school range from speech-only to moderately severe cognitive impairments, yet they all are assigned a special education teacher. Yes, even the speech-onlies. The teacher is responsible for emailing and organizing the meeting, and the SLP's responsibility is to write the IEP and accept or deny the invitation. Because it's an online meeting and we all attend via phone conference and Blackboard Connect, if I can't attend, it's my responsibility to round up another SLP and have them attend in my place. And that's basically it! Pretty simple, but it's a little kinky communication-wise when you can only connect by phone or email. Do you have any other burning questions? Let me know in the comments! XO, The Cyber Speechie
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That student. We've all had them. If you're not an SLP and don't know what I mean, it's your toughest student. The one who you feel like you need to pull out every trick in the (not just the book, but the whole) library, and yet, nothing works.
Let me clarify: these are my favorite students. As frustrating as it may be to feel like you can't connect, the intrinsic reward of FINALLY being able to functionally communicate is inspiring and unlike any other feeling. I have cried tears of joy on more than one occasion about how meaningful it is to finally be able to understand what my student is saying or communicating, and I know the parents feel similarly, especially because they deal with the frustration daily. Today, we had that moment. I saw a glimmer of it a few sessions back, and stupidly (stupid as in, pay more attention, Meghan!!!) missed it. My student signed "sheep" because the One Sheep, Blue Sheep is a favorite silly story of our's. When I get a student to functionally use signs or verbalize words, there is this joy where I think "you GET it!" Language comes so naturally for most children, but I have the pleasure of helping those children who don't, and that makes me so happy. XO, The Cyber Speechie |
AuthorHi! My name is Meghan, and I am a tele-practicing Speech-Language Pathologist. Join me along the ride into cyber speech therapy! Archives
August 2017
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