Black History Month starts this Thursday! I'm curious to know how you incorporate Black History into your treatment plans?

Black History Month begins next week! Here are some things to keep in mind for therapy materials:

1. Do your research! Make sure the information you are educating your students/clients on is accurate and based on historical facts.

2. Keep your intentions in mind - consider WHY it's important to teach students about Black history.

3. Release the struggle - not all Black history is about slavery or the Civil Rights Movement. There's a lot to celebrate! Remind students about the celebratory aspects of Black culture.

4. Support Black businesses! There's plenty of Black businesses on TPT and Boom Cards (such as myself) who sell treatment materials. Support them this month and year round.

If you work with African-American kiddos, Kwanzaa-themed activities are great ways to help them feel included during the holiday season. You can check out affordable resources on the Pediatric Speech Sister TPT store! HERE: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Sellers-Im-Following/Add/Pediatric-Speech-Sister-Tpt-Store

What have been some of your favorite speech therapy goals to target with the help of AI? I've been using Chat GPT to help me define vocabulary in layman's terms!

Check out this article: "How to Tell Kids the Real Story Behind Thanksgiving" by Today (2020) - https://www.today.com/parents/how-tell-thanksgiving-story-your-kids-t200911

Hello! What are your favorite resources and techniques to learn about gestalt processor students?

Have you heard of the Expanding Expressive Tool (EET)?

The Expanding Expressive Tool is a great resource for achieving various language goals! As EET Resources explain, can help students with the following language skills:

Verbal expression
Written expression
Comprehension of vocabulary
Defining and depicting
Establishing connections
Describing the functions of objects
Sorting into categories
Identifying similarities and disparities

I encourage you to use EET with your language kiddos!

Learn more about EET here:
ARTICLE: What is EET (Columbus Speech Center, 2023)
RESEARCH ARTICLE: The Expanding Expression Tool's Impact on Expressive Language in Preschool (Owens, 2022)

I interviewed with a social worker last Wednesday who told me she has to educate her SLP colleagues on the nuances of African-American English. This shocked me because we should be the language experts! However, I understand a lot of graduate programs do not take the time to truly teach this concept.

If you relate to this, I encourage you to take 5 minutes today to research the dialectal features of AAE! You can start here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227605544_Phonological_and_phonetic_characteristics_of_AAVE

Closing academic achievement gaps as speech pathologists should be a collaborative effort. As language experts, we're required to advocate for cultural linguistic diversity. I wrote an article with Dr. Valencia Perry about specific steps we can take to support the communicative behaviors of Black and Latinx children. You can check out our articles on ASHA Leader here: https://leader.pubs.asha.org/do/10.1044/2021-0223-cultural-responsiveness/full/

I am a new SLP about to work at a high school for the first time. Can someone offer different kinds of language activities for this population? Anything helps! Thank you