The Heartbeat of Speech-Language Pathology Episode 2

You're listening to the SLP Book Club, where your hosts, Adrienne Frost and Laura Geyser, this month we're reading The Heartbeat of Speech Language Pathology by Fong Palifox. Let's get into it! Hi Laura! Hi Adrienne! Welcome back everybody to the SLP Book Club. Today we will be discussing chapters 3 and 4 from The Heartbeat of Speech Language Pathology, but first we will play a little game of, would you rather? But first I want to talk about how Laura and I are in full fall mode. Fall is here, autumn equinox happened, now we're moving forward and I want to just show off my mug that I got at Target. Oh my gosh, it's so cute. It's a little original. It's a little ghost, right? He's holding a little treat bag, it's a little pumpkin. I also completed the set, well not a full completion, but I also have a little pumpkin holding a ghost treat bag, very cute best friends. I have a black cat and there's a Frankenstein, oh no there's a vampire, he's a vampire, like a purple one that I did not purchase. So cute. But anyway, it's making me feel so festive. Well you sent me pictures of your home and you went a little crazy at Target, right? Well, a lot of my decor spans the past, you know, however many years. Oh, okay. In a past house I had a really big banister, like stairway, and so I have a lot of fake leaves because I would like wrap them around the banisters, so that's not really how my new house is set up, so I have a lot of fake leaves, I was just putting them everywhere. I know. So these pictures you sent, it's like, every area had like a little bit of fall foliage. A foliage moment, yeah and my daughter went crazy, so. So I saw yours, I got inspired, I went to Target myself because, well, I have to let you and our listeners know what type of person I am. I am now the person who has the giant spider web coming down from the roof onto the front lawn with the huge furry spider in it, and I had ordered it from Amazon, but my order got delayed and it was one of those situations where it was like, you can still just cancel this, it's like not really even on the way, so I was like, cancel going to Target, but I didn't even go to the cute section, like the threshold section, because I knew that I was going to get roped into like. A velvet pumpkin. Yeah, a little velvet pumpkin, a little wicker pumpkin, the candle, I got a blanket, I didn't need a blanket, yet I bought one, anyway. Yeah, so I stayed in like the more tacky outdoor plastic that section, and I feel like I came away with some great stuff. I mean, I'm loving the skull garland behind you. My skull garland. Yes, I mean, White House doesn't need a little skull action, you know? I'm loving it, I'm embracing it. Oh, I know, I had a Halloween question I wanted to ask you. Oh, sure. Do you dress up? Okay, yes. I do a light dressing up every year. I'm always a witch, it's such an easy and fun costume for me, and so, you know, I have the same like purple and black striped tights that I wear, I'll wear any black dress or like a skirt and a top, and then I have a couple witch hats that just pop on the witch hat. I also have a fantastic pair of witch boots that have like a pointy toe, they're kind of Victorian-esque, so they have like a pointy toe, a weird little kitten heel, and then, you know, they kind of lace up like midway up the ankle, and I love those, they really add the witch flair, so. Yeah. If I trick or treat with my daughter, I wear that. I hope that our listeners caught on that you just said, "I have a couple of witch hats." Yeah. I also have, I have cloaks, but I also dress up for the renaissance pair, so sometimes I just overlap. That's true. Okay. Okay. Well, I was going to say, one year I did dress up as a witch, but I think I went too scary because my caseload was so many preschoolers, and I want to say that I went full green face with like the scary long black wig. I remember going into one preschool class, and one of my like favorite students, she still asks about me now, years after I've left the school. She was so scared she would not go near me. You went too hard. I did. That's okay. I went too hard. Years I went light. I will be a unicorn. I'll just clip in a rainbow ponytail thing and put on a horn. You know what? That's what I was going to say. I think for the school setting, if you don't want to go like full out, just a little hat is great. Some cat ears. Right. A little hat ears and a tail. You even can do like a little cat nose and some whispers or whatever, but uh-huh. Wow. You scared the children. I really love that. I did. Oh my gosh. I have one more. Play-doh one year. Oh. Play-doh. I was wearing- Philosopher or the children's modeling clay. Play-doh. I wore a red trashcan lid on my head and a yellow apron and like printed out the Play-doh logo and was a jar of red Play-doh. Oh my gosh. And the kids loved it. Yeah. That's fun. Wow. Yeah. The kids out there, if anybody has any great pictures of them and dressed up at school, send them our way. Yeah. Perfect. Oh, okay. I love it. All right. Should we do one or two? Yeah. We'll just do a couple. This just made me laugh because the question is hilarious. Okay, Laura, would you rather be five, two or six, nine as if five, two is like a viable like, oh, six, nine. Like no one is six, nine. Right? But like so many people are five. I'm very close to five, two. I know we have a big height discrepancy between you and I, but like, come on, being five, two is not so bad. Okay. As a woman, I would rather be five, two. No shade to any six, nine women. I do think it's challenging to find clothes, find a romantic partner, fit in airplanes, seats, things like that, just as a six, nine woman. Just everyday life. Yeah. Like shoes, finding shoes is probably a nightmare, you know? You know, yeah. I mean, I watched the Olympics this summer. I watched women's volleyball. I know they're out there. These tall women. Oh yeah. Laura, but you're pretty tall. How tall are you? Five, 10? Five, nine? I'm five, 10. Isn't that like pretty tall for a woman? Is that hard or no? I mean, yeah, there are challenges, for sure. Dated some guys that were shorter than me. Sometimes you feel like a giraffe and I love being tall, but I would not want to be any taller than I am. I would like to be in the five, eight to five, 10 range. Sure. So which would you choose? Okay. Obviously I would choose to be five, two. I've known no other way my whole life. I'm five, three. So you do have some short person problems. I'm a counter climber and so is my sister because we're both pretty short. So we have been known to be, we call it counter gremlins. So I mean, you have to climb up on the counter to get whatever is up there. Like there's no, I mean, yeah, I've heard like get a step ladder. Okay. Step stool. Sure. Why would you do that when you could just boost yourself on up and get whatever you need? When you said I'm a counter climber, I was like, this is a term I'm not familiar with. I thought it had to do with climbing the social ladder or something. I was like, what, what does this mean? Literally you just climb onto your counters to get things from spots that I could reach. Yes. I mean, my mother is shorter than me. I'm the tallest female in my family and I'm five, three. And so my mom, she was the original. She would get up there. She made it happen. She taught you guys. Yeah. She taught us. I mean, young age. So anyway, whatever, that's like, that can be a little tricky. Sometimes I have to really stretch for things in stores. And you know what's rude is people don't always offer to help and I'm like, hello. Okay. I was going to say, I never know if it's better to, I do, I always offer to help. If I see a woman trying to get some like jar off of a really high or they're trying to reach back, like because one isn't facing like it's not all the way there, then I always offer to help and then I go, is it infantilizing for me to offer to help? Oh, right. I don't know. No. I always appreciate it. Okay. Sometimes I'll ask, but you know, I recently, so I was at Trader Joe's and there was a man and he was in a wheelchair and he was like by the cheese section and he was like struggling trying to get some because imagine you're at the grocery store in a wheelchair. Yeah. That must make everything so hard. And so I saw him reaching for like the Borson and it was kind of like right out of his reach. And I was also having that same debate. Do I offer to help him and is that going to like insult him because maybe he wants to be independent? But so eventually I was just like, oh, can I get that for you? And he was like, yeah, thank you so much. Like he'd been waiting for somebody to ask. Yeah. So I thought I did, but I've had the exact same struggle and done the exact same thing with a man, an older man that was in a wheelchair, don't want to like make them feel like they need your help, but also they're sitting there having a hard time and got the same reaction where he was just really appreciative. And then I think we ended up chatting for a while. I know it's like, that's hard. You know, obviously five, three, five, three to like six foot, even five feet to six feet for a woman, you can be a little shorter, a little taller and that's still probably within like the bell curve of average, but at some point the world is not built. This is built for people within a certain height range and then you're just kind of like screwed and that sucks, you know? Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, I can stay as shorty. I think my daughter's going to be pretty tall, like five, nine, in that five, eight to five, 10 range. So that's weird. I'm like going to be asking her like, what's the top of my head look like? Can you get that high up thing? Oh, I know. That's cute though. All right. Well, we hope you enjoyed our little chat. Stay tuned and we will get into the heartbeat of speech language pathology. Hi guys. I'm happy to announce that I've just launched my new app called Say Hello. It's a speech sound practice app designed for parents of children who are receiving speech therapy for articulation and intelligibility impairments. Think of this app as a quick and engaging way for parents to complete speech homework without the fuss of those practice packets that we photocopy and they just are never seen again. It makes practice sessions easy and accessible while also helping parents to be natural coaches and know exactly how to cue their child to make their speech sounds correctly. So we all know that children who practice their speech sounds daily are more likely to make progress. This means the more they practice with the child, the less time will be spent in speech therapy and more confidence for their child. Say Hello provides parents with quick guided practice sessions that they can do anywhere. Working in conjunction with their speech therapist, they pick the sound the child needs to work on and follow the provided prompts. Parents select the time that works best for them to receive notifications and they can complete a practice session in three to five minutes. So we offer a free seven day trial and after that it's just $4.95 a month. Check it out wherever you get your apps. I want to tell you about Tiny Talkers Group Curriculum. If you're an SLP looking for more work-life balance and a fresh way to do things in your private practice, then the Tiny Talkers Group Curriculum might be just what you're looking for. Tiny Talkers Groups are set up as a way to provide accessible speech and language support to young children in a small group setting. Our friend Megan Samuels, creator of Tiny Talkers, has done all the planning for you. When you sign up for the curriculum, you get a full 36-week program divided into summer, fall, winter, and spring semesters. The plans are easy to implement and adjust as needed to meet the needs of your clients. They include material checklists and parent handouts for each session. And the best part is, Megan designed each week so that all the materials you'll need can fit into one sensory bin. So once you get your group set up, you're done. In the years that follow, you'll pull out that bin and go. No planning, no stress, just fun. If you want to learn more about Tiny Talkers, go to tinytalkersgroupcurriculum.com to check it out. Make sure to use our code, Book Club 10, at checkout to get 10% off your order. We love Tiny Talkers Group Curriculum, and we know you'll love it too. Have you checked out Laura's speech materials yet on Teachers Pay Teachers or Boom Learning under Laura GSLP? I am such a huge fan, and I'm here to sing her praises. Since I'm a teletherapist, I use boom cards almost exclusively during my sessions. As with all things in speech, sometimes the most unexpected materials are a hit with the kiddos. My students love Laura's What-Did-You-Find activities that feature a fun flashlight to look for different items, and her lid comb handouts for parents on TPT are also amazing, and I love to use them with private clients. She also has some great game-type reinforcers like the Picture Reveal activities and a Connect 4 donut game that I've been playing on repeat with one student for months. The best part is that I can use almost all of her materials with a range of kids who have different levels of needs. This helps you get the most bang for your buck. Her materials are well thought-out, evidence-based, and fun and engaging for the kids. We can't all be creative geniuses, so we might as well support and benefit from those who are. Thanks for sharing your genius with us, Laura! Go check them out today at Laura GSLP on Boom Learning and TPT. Sofong opens up Chapter 3 by describing what it was like caring for her mom who was dealing with cancer while she was also working her CF year in the schools. So she was in a doctorate program like we had talked about, but she left the program to care for her mom. Her mom, she shared these sweet stories about her mom helping her set up her new speech room, and I guess her mom was a seamstress, so she would sew things for her, like this rainbow grab bag that she used for a while. But sadly, she passed away in December of her CF year, so not even really halfway through. Butfong is really happy that her mom got to see her working as a speech-language pathologist. Sofong shares that 12 years later, she was supervising a CF intern whose mother passed away halfway through her CF year due to ALS. So it was kind of this full circle moment, and Sofong was able to support her in this really unique way because she had been through this experience herself with her own mom. Sofong's message here is that life continues to roll on throughout your entire career, which I know you and I can attest to at this point, Laura. So grief can affect us at any time, and it's not always possible to keep your SLP self and your human self separated. Sometimes we have to acknowledge that those are entwined. So to engage more in taking care of your personal needs, you should remember it's okay to ask for help, and you should accept help with open arms because there's probably going to be a time in the future where you will be asked to help others. You should also be okay with taking time off, which I know is so hard because we have so many deadlines and things. It's really hard to leave work, but you will need to take care of things if you're dealing with something and just process trauma. So definitely take some time. Remember that grief is not linear, and you may need to set some time aside each day to address it. I think Sofong said that she would take like 30 minutes before work to just like cry or after work. You can also share something about that person in a session if it feels appropriate. So maybe in the beginning while you guys are chatting, you and your students, you could say like, "I'm just like really missing my mom today." And you might be surprised at how the students connect with that or how they step up to support you, which is really sweet. Remember that you will find joy again and be able to respond to other feelings besides just sadness. Sofong wasn't able to understand the gifts of her CF year until 18 years later. At that point, she wrote a letter to her younger self explaining five lessons that she had learned. So we're going to go over those. With time and experience, you'll begin to feel like you know what you're doing. But in the beginning, you might not know it all. So you're just going to continue throughout your career to encounter new things, which are going to put you right back in that like early SLP feeling. But even if you feel unskilled, one thing we're really great at is research. So you will always find the answers, don't worry. She says mistakes are also expected. And the most important thing is how you learn from those mistakes and move forward with your new knowledge. So how you recover from the mistake and treat others during it is the most important part. She says you should be student or client centered. So the research and data part of things is only half of the story. And you need to address the whole person to make the biggest impact. So look around you for other professionals who are respected and really try to emulate how they treat others. You should seek help, as we already talked about, allow other people to offer to help and revel in the feeling of being supported. You do you. Instead of thinking that you should do something like someone else, remember that you are the only person who can do exactly what you do. So think about what you love and see how you can use it in your sessions. Everything will align when you're comfortable being the best and most authentic version of yourself. And I think Fong talks about how she loves rap music. And so she would use chance and stuff like that in her speech sessions, which we'll talk about later too. Fong shares that in 2017, she was supposed to work together with five other SLPs to present a big message at the end of the ASHA convention. She was super excited, but they only had five minutes and 20 slides. So she was like really feeling the pressure. The rest of the panel was all doctorate holders. And so Fong was like feeling some imposter syndrome like, oh no, I don't have my dog grid. I dropped out. But she just shared, you know, her message was the core of our profession is connecting with others through stories. And then she listened to everyone else and they were saying, you know, believe in yourself, lead with your heart and compassion, connect with others through stories, be nice and have fun. So lean into your human connection and you will become the best SLP that you can be. So moving on to chapter four, Fong says that a great speech therapy session boils down to relationship and rapport, knowing your goals, brain-based interventions, literacy-based interventions, and honoring brain, heart, effort and fun. So to make a difference in the brain, the SLP needs to go through the heart. And Fong says, win the heart to win the head, which I'm loving because you text me about this, Laura. I think our next book is going to be more about learning, which is all about the head. So right now we're covering the heart aspect. So did we plan it that way? No. Oh no. But we love it. That's not what I was talking about. Oh, what are you talking about? I was talking about Lisa Murphy. Every time we start a book, there will be a quote that's almost exactly the same as from the last book. I see. Because Lisa Murphy says to get in their heads, you have to get in their hearts. What did Lisa Murphy say? She said something great. I cannot remember. It was like three parts, but it was almost the exact same thing. So I was like, oh my gosh, that's it. Well, I guess I didn't get it, so I'm glad we talked about it. And I do love when those things happen. So for a long time, Fong thought that she was just an emotional person because she cries so much. But she started to research it and she discovered that maybe it's actually her SLP superpower. So she learned about Dr. Jeffrey Duncan Andrade, who believes that students need their basic needs met before they can learn anything. So he felt that once students feel safe with him, they would open up and be ready to learn. We can translate this to speech sessions by first supporting the student or client's heart needs. Then you can work on speech and language skills. So how do we do this? You can check in. Fong takes a couple of minutes in the beginning of the session for students to share three to four sentences about something that's happened that day and allows that to set the tone for the session. So that's really not a hard thing to do. I think most of us do that intuitively anyway. So love that. She says use books to honor backgrounds and life experiences, which can help a child to feel relevant and valued. Know the child's superpower. So figure out exactly what the child loves and then you should tell them, like, that's your superpower and try to incorporate it into their sessions because it's a good way to speak to their heart. Fong strongly believes in gratitude. So she wrote a letter to Dr. Duncan Andrade. She thanked him for his work and awareness he has brought to her working with vulnerable and underserved children. She felt that for the first time when she saw his work, someone else understood about equality, the brain's social emotional needs, social justice components, hope and celebrating what she calls the damaged pedals, which are special stories that we bring to us and to whatever environment that we're in. He sent her back like a really sweet response and mentioned he was honored to have his work impact her sacred path. So she shares a picture of a visual that she put near her desk that says this is your sacred path, dear, which is really sweet. She mentions that when she asks students what they're working on in speech, about 80% say they don't know, which is like so common. She says the most important thing is defining your goals so that you can make sure to start every session by reviewing the students goals with them. So she created a chant and I believe, okay, let's say we're working on regular past tense verbs. We would say, "I work, I work, I work on past tense verbs." I interpreted, I thought it was, "I work, I work, I work on past tense verbs." Okay, maybe it's too fast. Whatever. I was on the treadmill and I was doing every action like when she describes the ending for the session. I was doing it. Yeah. I work. I work, I work, I work on past tense verbs. I think she includes a link to a video if you need to see it. Yes. And if you're interested, that is on page 47, so go check out the link. We also need to utilize brain-based learning when teaching. So lecturing people is the least engaging mode that you could possibly use. What we need to do is something really memorable to help the student remember whatever it is. Also remember that the brain's purpose is to serve three functions, which are survival, emotional needs, and cognitive learning. So stress and fear can impact learning, so it's important to make sure that the child is feeling safe and like their emotional needs are taken care of first. The brain is social, so it's important that you connect emotionally with your students and create an empathetic, safe space. Learn about things your students like to build rapport. Mental movement can also help brains to be engaged and energized. You can incorporate this through the use of gestures, which I did have kind of like questions about that. I'm like, okay, I understand like, I love when I use like a hand motion when I'm describing like a speech sound. If I'm working on S, I'm like, oh, you know, the air needs to come out and then the kids start doing it. Yeah. But other kinds of gestures, I wasn't sure how that could maybe trickle down to other kinds of goals. Did you have any ideas about that? I mean, I think that sometimes teachers use them when they're teaching certain concepts related to grammar or I can't picture exactly, but sometimes teachers that are really good like have a little system of gestures that they have the kids do and you're like, oh, this is great. All the kids know it. Yeah. It's a fun idea. So yeah, make personal connections because that's when our brains work the best. If you're reading a book, you can ask the child about a similar situation they or someone they know have been in and then help them transition from the narrative of the story to a personal narrative. And I will just put a little asterisk at the end of that point and say, this might not work so well if you have middle schoolers. It has not been working for me. We'll be like reading a story or even doing social skills like scenarios. I'm like, oh my gosh, has that ever happened to you guys? Like has there ever been a time where you felt frustrated or like disappointed? And they're all like, I don't know. I don't know. Not really. No. And I'm like, okay. Okay. Do you feel, do you feel that with smartphones and social media and like all this stuff that now middle school to like early high school, those kids are getting more like that? More like. Yes. Whatever. I don't know. I'm just interested in talking 100,000% because I have really been working without a lesson since the beginning of my career because I was at a K through eight middle school and at a high school and now I'm back at a middle school. So I've had a lot of experience like kind of pre COVID and obviously now post COVID. Yeah. And it's crazy. I just, I don't remember and I always am like trying to reason it out in my mind. Like maybe because these kids have language difficulties, you know, they are not as quick to talk because it's like tricky for them. Okay. I get it. But a lot of times it just comes across as they are just like limp noodles. I'm like, what did you do this weekend? And they're all like, nothing, nothing. I'm like, okay, nothing. So you sat and you stared at a wall all weekend long. Yeah. Oh, I don't know. I'm like, okay. All right. Yeah. And I feel the only time I worked with middle schoolers was during my internship. So I was still in grad school, we're talking about the year 2015. And while I was reading some of thong stories, it was reminding me of some of those kids and how much we connected. That's when a kid told me, when I was working on his S and his jaw instability, he told me my jaw slides and he also brought me my favorite chips on the last day of school. Chester's hot fries, of course, you know, the connection you could build with some of those kids. Yeah. I was scared of middle school before that. I'm still scared of middle school, but the connections I built with a few of the kids were like the strongest connections I've ever had with any kids I've worked with. Of course, there were a few, a handful that were like that. I don't know. No. Yeah. It feels like more and I don't know. I have a speech para who's like, I think she's 22 or 23. And so we'll talk about it and she'll be like, I was not, it's not like been that long for her since she was in middle school and she was just like, I feel like it's different now. Yeah. So I don't know. It's very sad, but you do have, there are still chatty kids out there. There are still kids who love to share. And of course our elementary kiddos are like, so precious. Perfect. Yes. But anyway, that's just my little aside I had to mention. Yeah. Okay. So you can also make a visual, visuals, we know, help students remember details and how to organize information. It can help students integrate new knowledge and also think critically. So an example of this is you can use a graphic organizer or a story map. And actually that made me think about SLP now because I, I think it automatically renewed over the summer, which is upsetting a little because it's expensive. Oh, it renewed for the full year. That's, I think, I don't know if SLP now has an option for a monthly payment. It's just like, I thought I used to do monthly, but I don't know. I pay for the year, but it's like complicated because I, there is like one aspect of it that I love that I always use as a tele therapist. I love her like WH questions that align with stories because you can find on YouTube, like a read a lot of the story, you watch it, you can pause and do like comprehension checks throughout. And then at the end you do the WH questions and she has like some good multiple choice visuals. So I love that, but she does a lot of story maps and graphic organizers. So yeah, I was really thinking about her and she lanes in a lot towards literacy based therapy also. So yeah, I don't know if you don't have SLP now, you can check it out. I'm not necessarily saying you should use it, but I did remember. I remember that there's, there's a free trial when you start, right? Does she still allow that? I'm not sure. You can download like a certain number of resources. Yeah. But I do, I do feel like she does that pretty well. Yeah. I'm going to start really talking to the kids about their speech goals. Most of the kids that I'm talking to, I'm going to be talking to them about their speech goals. I'm going to be talking to the kids about their speech goals, and I'm going to be talking to the kids about their speech goals. I'm going to be talking to the kids about my speech goals, and I'm going to be talking to the kids about my speech goals, and I'm going to be talking to the kids about my speech goals. I'm going to be talking to the kids about their speech goals. Most of the kids who have sound disorders, I'm just like, okay, you're working on your S, you're working on T, you're working on L, and I have them like do it in isolation in the beginning. Everyone's on the same page. But sometimes with like language goals and social goals, I sometimes just get into it without really like talking about it. And so lately I've been going over it more, and I'm feeling great about that. So thanks, Pong, I appreciate you. I know Laura, your sessions are a little different because you specialize and you're not working with a full huge school case load, but I'm sure you do a great job about that. But even like, I was thinking I'm seeing a kid today later that we're working on his S, and you know, maybe we should go over what we work on at the beginning. I just, I don't know, I'd just like to be like, okay, remember, we're working on our snake sound. Yeah. Give me a good S. Where's your tongue? Like, I just review like the basic anatomy, and then we get into it, but it's easy to just, you know, be in like just a certain mode where you're just like, go, go, go knocking down the kids in the sessions. Gotta get these trials in now, now, now, now. Yeah. Exactly. No time for talking. Definitely not. Okay. Pong has a recount of one of her sessions that you can read on page 53 that shows exactly how she incorporates everything she's discussed into an effective speech session. So I'm not going to go over that in detail, but go check it out. She talks now about literacy-based interventions, which can support cognitive, social emotional, and social justice needs in our clients. So for SLPs, the cognitive portion is the actual speech and language goal that we're working on. Social emotional needs are addressed through the relationship that we build with the student. So social justice is impacted by factors like skin color, socioeconomic status, language use, experience, and perspective. According to Dr. Duncan Andrade, when we attend to cognitive and social justice needs, we're honoring, valuing, and giving meaning to that student's life path, which is probably unique. So Phong recounts her own experience with this as an Asian American girl growing up in a rural Texas town. She was loved. She had a really good family life, but she also witnessed racial discrimination and communication breakdowns because her parents were not native English speakers. She had teachers who honored her personal story by asking her to share about it in class. She even shared a story about how on Valentine's Day, she brought handmade Valentine's, but she didn't really understand the concept of Valentine's Day. So she only brought six, not enough for the whole class. And instead of pointing that out, her teacher was like, oh, they're so beautiful, you know, is really emphasizing the work she put into it. So Phong recaps that of everything we've talked about, remember that the brain learns best when information is repeated, applied to background experience, connected to us emotionally, and presented thematically. So now she talks about six things to remember when you're using literacy in your speech sessions. Number one is remember to connect to experience. So students learn better and gain more knowledge when they already know something about the information they're being taught, which we definitely know from our book, the knowledge gap. So that is check, check, check, fact, fact, fact. In order to connect the material to our lives, you can show them the front cover. You can ask questions like, oh, have you ever been to an Apple orchard? You can show a video on YouTube with a walk through an Apple orchard. There's so much stuff out there, but that's one good way to do it. You can also try to choose books that represent a variety of narratives. I will take this moment to talk about Phong's new children's book that she published called Buoy. I think that would be a great book to have in your SLP library because it really explains a situation that probably many of our students have not been through, but still is somebody 's perspective on life and somebody's experience. And I think you could have such a rich conversation about that. So that's a great example. Another way is to value home language, even though parents are often worried that learning multiple languages at home is what's delaying their child's speech and language development. We know this could not be further from the truth. Complexity of language is most important. So we should encourage parents to be good language models for their children by speaking their most fluent language. Phong and a colleague wrote a book about using books in speech sessions called Literacy-Based Speech and Language Therapy Activities. I love it. I mean, I don't have it, but I want it. I'm not endorsing it, but I was like, how much is it? Maybe $23. Okay. Does it look like a manual or is it more like a... I can't tell. Perhaps I'll see if I can find it used. Okay. So if you're interested, Phong also recommends leading your first session with a personal story. So she says this is because when somebody listens to a story, a lot of their brain is activated, which encourages engagement. So when we use stories, we're activating the brain. And because stories are a series of cause and effect, it ties into an evolutionary perspective, which has helped us all survive so far as a species. Stories also give us an opportunity to connect to our own personal narratives. So no matter what story you're telling, your clients and students will find a way to connect to your story. Stories can also help us to build trust. So as more stories are exchanged, more trust is earned. This can lead to more communication. Phong says that at the end of her sessions, they all engage in a chant to honor their cumulative efforts. I am going to read exactly what she wrote because I feel like you just have to hear it. But also I do want to say, haven't you had that experience, Laura, where you're like reading a book or you ask the kids, especially elementary school kids, like, have you ever been in a situation like this? And they're just like, blurting out, they're so excited to tell you, even if it's not really related. Yeah. And you're just like, yeah, I love that their little enthusiasm, they want to share about their lives so much. And I think that's like, yeah, it's so sweet. I'm jealous of the people who can kind of stay on when she described her one session where she's walking with the kids and they're talking about their speech goals. I would pick up kids from classrooms and get such an earful. It's like they're sitting in class, just holding in all this stuff they want to talk about, like trying to be good at their desk. And then they would see me in the hallway and be like, "Guess what, this weekend!" My little, I would say like second, first to third graders just word vomit as soon as they see me. And there was no time to talk about speech goals on the way to speech. They let it out. They do. They love to tell. Oh my God. Tell you stuff about themselves. And it's so sweet. Yeah, their own personal narratives, you know. Okay, so here is what Fong says happens at the end of her session. She says, "Put your hands on your head." Everyone does it. She says, "Now say I'm smart." I'm smart. "Put your hands over your heart. Now say I've got a kind heart." I've got a kind heart. "Now raise one fist in the air and now say I worked hard." I worked hard. "Raise your other fist into the air." I would, but I have a book in that hand. "Now say I had fun." I had fun. "Now clap your hands together." Two times. Yep. And she says, "I can't wait to see you next time, scholars." That is nice, Fong. So cute. It is really cute. All right. I love it. Okay, so Fong shares that she received an email from a student who is in an introductory communication disorders class who was asking her some questions about what it was like to be an SLP. In response to him, she shared a story about a student named Nicholas. He's 10 years old. He likes to tell stories about odd and sneaky characters. I love that. She sees him in a social skills group one to two times a week to work on expressive language and pragmatic skills. When he came in for his session, she was ready to have a conversation with him about exiting speech. And when he came into the room, he was just like, "Today, I'm feeling silly." And he was like, "Oh, everyone in my class has been so crazy today." And then when he was like, "How are you, Fong?" She lied to him and told him she was doing good, but the truth was that she was having really mixed feelings about graduating him from speech as we all do about graduating kids from speech. She said she loves her job, but she definitely misses the students that she spends years working with and building relationships with. And I have definitely had that moment where I've had an IEP where I'm exiting a student and I've totally welled up or been like, "I wish I could hold on to him forever, but this is really a celebratory moment." Right? Yeah. Yeah, that's always so, I know, so heart-wrenching. So she asked Nicholas to write on a piece of paper the goals that he had been working on, which were telling a story and having a conversation. She asked him to rate himself on a scale of zero to 10 when he first began speech, when he was six years old, and then today, at 10. And for narrative skills, he gave himself a four originally and an eight now. And then for his conversational skills, he gave himself a three for when he started and a nine for his current skills. So he had self-awareness of his own growth and her data supported that too. Long explained that now that his ratings were in the eight to 10 area of the scale, it was time for him to leave speech. And he just like looked at her and was like, "No." So she took the time to honor his efforts and share how proud she was of him for all of his growth and share with him that he would still come to speech for a couple more sessions and maybe like a little party, graduation party. And she watched as he used all the skills they had been working on for the past four years to make this case for why he should stay in speech. So he was like, "Bobby's in speech and he's 10, or you know, he's 12 and I'm only 10. Like, shouldn't I be until I'm 12? You can just teach me harder things." And then he like crossed out where he wrote himself as a nine on the scale, he like put a seven. So she said her heart ached and swelled at the same time. And I totally get that feeling. So she said she wanted to tell this story to emphasize that relationships are the most important part of our work. And he was advocating to continue their relationship together as SLP and student, despite the fact that he didn't really need to work on his goals anymore. So in her reply to the student, this college student who had emailed her, she said that despite her technical knowledge, over time, she's realized that the relationship and rapport and connection was what really made a difference. Her knowledge that she learned in school was only half of her work. Now she puts more of her energy into investing in people. And as SLPs, you know, we get into this profession to be near people who need support with their communication, but the gains are not only made by our students. Our students also change us forever, and we are the ones who end up learning so much from them. Yeah. So making me a little over clumped in the chest. I'm thinking about, you know, all those sweet students. I know. That are just so cute. I mean, I do think we have such a unique job. Teachers get a lot of time with students, but only over a year. We get once or twice a week, but sometimes over seven or eight years, you know, depending how long. I don't know if you ever do this. I've pictured what it would be like to run into a student that you had that strong connection with. And I don't think I'm ever going to run into one of my kids. I live too far away now. It's never going to happen, but they changed me. There are kids that I think about regularly still eight years later, and you're just like, do you ever think of me? I know. That's true. I think of you. Do you think of me? Oh my gosh. What a job. What a job. So anyway, yeah, I mean, I love what Phong's saying. I'm on the same page with her, and I do think as we all move further into our careers, you do start to realize that like that relationship is so paramount. And actually, I know that we're in pediatrics, but that was one of my favorite things about working with adults is you can really develop and also teens like high schoolers. You can have great conversations. You can kind of connect more on a little bit of like a different level than with little kids. You can talk about more serious topics. You can support them better because there's so many things happening in a high schooler's life, and I really enjoyed being like a confidant and helping. I don't know. The high school I was at, we had a lot of social skills kids, so it was great to like really work through more complex social issues, but yeah, ultimately it makes me too sad working with adults. I love those relationships, but it's just, I don't know, I'm way too empathetic for that. Yeah, it was tough on me emotionally, but also the same thing where some of my fondest memories as an SLP, we're working with adults, but then also it's pretty heavy sometimes. It is. It takes a really special people to do that work, so certainly. We see you if you're listening to this, which I don't know why an adult SLP would. If you do, we appreciate you. So next week, we're going to be starting out our episode with a discussion of the Netflix documentary, Tell Them You Love Me. So if you want to understand what we're talking about and join us on this journey, you can watch that documentary. It's about facilitated communication and ethics and the importance of respecting family dynamics and perspectives, and it's a little heavy, just a warning, but we wanted to discuss it because we both watched it and it had a big impact on us. So that will be next week before we discuss chapter five of this book. All right. We'll see everybody next time. Bye, Laura. Bye, Adrienne. Thanks for listening to this episode of the SLP Book Club. If you love what we're doing, the best way to show your support is by leaving a five-star review and rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. 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