Yeled v’Yalda speech-language pathologists help students maximize their communication skills to support their success in learning. The goal of services is to remediate, ameliorate, or alleviate student communication problems within the educational environment. Yeled v’Yalda Speech-language services are for students with speech, language, or communication disorders as defined by the evaluation and eligibility criteria established within federal mandates, state guidelines, and local policies and procedures for special education and related services. Established IEP goals and objectives are implemented to facilitate the achievement of the stated objective criteria. Intervention is aimed at achieving functional communication outcomes and is provided through various methods and techniques.
Language is the foundation for learning within all academic subjects. Yeled v’Yalda providers actively involved in the general and special education settings with the goal to support and promote and increased awareness of communication skills which basis of most teaching, learning, and social relationships. Children’s reading and writing skills have been found to reflect their oral language competence. Yeled v’Yalda Speech-language pathologists increasingly expand their contributions in the areas of reading and writing skills. The importance of recognizing the complex interplay between spoken and written language and the need to go beyond listening and speaking to reading and writing.
Role of a Yeled v’Yalda Speech Therapist
Yeled v’Yalda school-based speech-language pathologists serve students who have complex communication disorders, many of which require intensive, long-term interventions. Our speech-language pathologists keep current with best practices in assessment and intervention. Yeled v’Yalda Speech-language pathologists are professionally trained to prevent, screen, identify, assess, diagnose, refer, provide intervention for, and counsel articulation, fluency, voice, language, communication, swallowing, and related disabilities. The goals address communication and related disorders which effect functional and measurable change(s) in a student’s communication ensuring student’s ability to participate as fully as possible in all aspects of education and social life. In addition to engaging in activities to reduce or prevent communication disabilities, Yeled V’Yalda speech language pathologists counsel and educate families or professionals about these disorders and their management. A student-centered focus drives each decision. Communication is an important tool in creating a secure and safe school environment that fosters learning for all students. Speech, language, and listening skills addressed by speech therapists provide the communication foundation for the development and enhancement of confidence and self-esteem in learners.
Screening is the process of identifying candidates for formal evaluation. Any procedure that separates those students in need of further evaluation from those not needing evaluation fulfills the purpose of screening. Screening may be accomplished by using published or informal screening measures administered by the speech-language pathologist
Evaluation are conducted by the NYC DOE and designated agencies such as Yeled v’Yalda. Evaluations includes gathering a full profile of the individual’s communication strengths, challenges and goals. Evaluation includes standardized and non-standardized tests, observations, conversations, and information from the family.
The goal of service is to help improve how well a child is learning and performing in the classroom. To do this, the focus is on a child’s ability to understand and use language. Speech therapists work with classroom resources, such as the books your child is reading, as part of the therapy or use other materials at the child’s level. Yeled V’Yalda provides direct services in intense, frequent intervention for a period of time with the location and group size determined by the student’s IEP. Yeled v’Yalda are enhanced by ongoing communication with parents, families, educators, and other community professionals to reinforce IEP/ IFSP goals at home and in the classroom, facilitate generalization of communication abilities, and monitor the student’s progress. IEP include specific goals (such as “understanding and using longer sentences” or “using speech sounds correctly so that others can understand the child”). IEP also detail the number of sessions a child will have each week, month, quarter, or semester; how long these sessions are; and where they will occur.
IEP goals are designed to be met within one school year; a new IEP is required each year. If necessary, an IEP can be revised during the year. A child with an IEP is required to be educated in the “least restrictive environment.” This principle of service provision means that a child should be learning with their peers as much as possible.
Difficulty with communication may lead to underachievement at school. Childhood education is centered around the ability to negotiate spoken and written language. If a child cannot process the lesson content being delivered by a teacher, he or she will struggle to take notes, and may do poorly on homework assignments. A child then will be reluctant to participate in classroom discussions, or have contributions rejected because of irrelevant responses or unclear answers. Having to stand up and provide oral reports can be near impossible. Moreover, a limited vocabulary due to poor receptive abilities can impact on a student’s ability to understand and learn new words in reading, and to construct complex sentences in writing.
- Late talker
- Below expectations in classroom
- Difficulty learning to read and write
- Unable to express thoughts and ideas
- Problems understanding others and following directions
- Doesn’t get along with others
- Problems taking tests
Intervention addressed the explicit awareness of the speech sound system as it is related to early reading development. Intervention helps child’s use of beginning reading and decoding skills for early age students starting with rhyming and identifying the beginning sounds in words and progressing the using language to express more complex ideas. Intervention teaches the child to speak in longer sentences and to share more details by helping kids combine their ideas in sentences.
Receptive Language skills have to do with the ability to understand words, sentences, and speech acts, and expressive language skills are about producing speech. Children with receptive language disorders have difficulty organizing their thoughts while trying to understand others, which creates problems in communicating verbally or organizing their thoughts on paper. They have difficulty with language processing and the connection between words and the ideas they represent. Intervention addresses confusion and a lack of understanding in a classroom setting. Child may also fail to follow verbal instructions at home, has a hard time getting along with peers, or simply struggles to process speech in direct conversation. They may overly rely on reading facial expressions and have particular trouble with complex sentences.
A child with receptive language disorder may have trouble:
- Understanding what people say
- Understanding gestures
- Understanding concepts and ideas
- Understanding what he or she reads
- Learning new words
- Answering questions
- Following directions
- Identifying objects
Children with a developmental expressive language disorder commonly experience difficulties expressing themselves. They may produce incoherent utterances with incorrect grammar or inappropriate vocabulary. Their speech acts can contain false starts, lack cohesiveness, or trail off, and they may rely on simplified messaging strategies that prevent them from translating more complex levels of thought and reasoning into language.
A child with expressive language disorder may have trouble:
- Using words correctly
- Expressing thoughts and ideas
- Telling stories
- Using gestures
- Asking questions
- Singing songs or reciting poems
- Naming objects
It’s also not uncommon for mixed expressive and receptive language disorders to co-present with attention based difficulties such as ADHD and ADD, or with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
They may be present in the absence of or in addition to hearing impairment, muscle weakness, as seen in dysarthria, and motor skills problems that affect coordination and speech act planning, such as in apraxia of speech. What differentiates them is that dysarthria and apraxia of speech on their own do not typically affect an individual’s ability to understand speech.
Children’s reading and writing skills reflect on their oral language competence. Schools are increasingly aware of the need for expanding child’s development in the areas of reading and writing skills. Speech therapists work on addressing the complexities of the interplay between spoken and written language and the need to go beyond listening and speaking to reading and writing by overcoming failures to transfer the comprehension skills of spoken language to reading. Understanding Inferences and ideas that are stated in text is crucial. Intervention helps students to develop the needed understanding and meaning of what is being read. Improving reading comprehension helps the child to recall what he knows about a topic before he reads, helps finding words or pictures in the reading that are clues to help with understanding.
Language skills are an important ingredient in establishing social relationships. Typically developing children employ their language skills to share information, express feelings, direct behavior, and negotiate misunderstandings as they interact with others. Intervention helps the child with the back-and-forth of communication. This involves learning to pay attention to the other person’s tone of voice, body language and emotions.
Classroom behavior management systems encouraging students to communicate with their teachers and peers are important. Students with speech and language impairments have been shown to exhibit poorer social skills and fewer peer relationships than their normally developing peers. Students with a range of disabilities involving language deficits experience significant social difficulties. The speech language pathologist, as a team professional in the school setting, contributes to solutions that may result in positive change.
The speech language pathologist creates the protocol for the management of the child’s central auditory processing disorder (CAPD). The speech-language pathologist monitors the student’s speech and language capabilities during the CAPD intervention process. Intervention leads to improvement in listening, spoken language processing, and the overall communication process. Intervention for students with CAPD includes auditory training or stimulation, communication and/or educational strategies, metalinguistic and metacognitive skills and strategies, the use of assistive listening devices as recommended. As the part of treatment, use of the acoustic enhancement and environmental modification of the listening environment is recommended. Speech therapist also collaborate with professionals and families to increase the likelihood of successfully implementing intervention strategies and counseling regarding their role in the management process.
Accurate production of speech sounds relies on the interplay of phonemic, phonological, and oral-motor systems. Children with phonological disorders exhibit error patterns in the application of phonological rules for speech. Intervention is conducted to achieve improved, altered, augmented or compensated speech.
A fluency disorder is an interruption in the flow of speaking characterized by atypical rate, rhythm, and repetitions in sounds, syllables, words, and phrases. This may be accompanied by excessive tension, struggle behavior, and secondary mannerisms. Intervention includes planning and implementing intervention to reduce the frequency of stuttering, reduce severity, duration, and abnormality of stuttering behaviors, reduce defensive behaviors, remove or reduce factors that create, exacerbate, or maintain stuttering behaviors, reduce emotional reactions to specific stimuli when they increase stuttering behavior and the transfer of these and other fluency producing processes.
Physical, functional, and emotional factors are integrated to produce vocal competence. An adequate voice is one that is appropriate for the student’s age and sex and does not create vocal abuse. Intervention for students with voice disorders is conducted to achieve improved voice production, coordination of respiration and laryngeal valving to allow for functional oral communication. All students with voice disorders must be examined by a physician. Providing appropriate voice care and conservation guidelines, including strategies that promote healthy laryngeal tissues and voice production and reduce laryngeal trauma or strain, instructing in the proper use of respiratory, phonatory, and resonatory processes to achieve improved voice production
Safe swallowing and eating are essential activities of daily living and are needed to ensure effective communication. The school-based speech language pathologist may facilitate the student’s ability to efficiently chew and swallow more safely and more efficiently. School-based speech-language pathologists may integrate swallowing function intervention with communication function intervention.
Social communication disorder (SCD) is a condition that makes it hard to talk with other people. It’s not a problem with speech or with the mechanics of language, like using grammar. But it does impact other areas of language. Sings of SCD consistent with ongoing trouble communicating in ways that are socially appropriate. Children and adults with SCD may not follow the rules of spoken communication. They don’t always understand the give-and-take of conversation. And they often don’t “get” sarcasm or language that isn’t literal. These challenges make it hard to connect, whether it’s at school, on social settings. SCD isn’t related to intelligence. People who have it are as smart as anyone else. But it can impact learning and create challenges at work. SCD is a lifelong condition that makes conversation difficult. It’s been an official diagnosis since 2013. SCD does not present difficulties with the mechanics of speaking — pronouncing words and constructing sentences. The struggle is with pragmatics. These are the unspoken, subtle rules of spoken language that allow people to connect. Children and adults challenged by SCD may monopolize conversations and interrupt a lot. Some say things that are off topic. Others hesitate to talk at all. It’s not clear what causes these difficulties. But SCD often occurs with other conditions and challenges. These include autism, ADHD, language disorders, and trouble with reading.
Yeled v’Yalda bilingual speech-language pathologists have thorough knowledge of the linguistic rules of a student’s dialect can assist the classroom teacher in taking the child’s dialect into account in instruction. Assisting the classroom teacher in taking the student’s language skills into account for instruction, assisting the classroom teacher in understanding communication style differences in limited English-proficient populations. The goals of services is helping students who are eligible for services to develop a command of the structure, meaning, and use of English. Services assist parents with appropriate modeling and use of language stimulation activities and may also refer students for additional services or programs, as appropriate.
Speech-language pathologists participate and assist students in successful transition. Transition may entail a change from special education to general education; between such levels as early intervention (infant and toddler), preschool, elementary, and secondary school programs; or from high school to post-secondary destinations.
Dismissal occurs when a student no longer needs special education or related services to take advantage of educational opportunities. Reasons for dismissal and the interdisciplinary team’s recommendation for dismissal are documented.