Stepping Out Beyond Our Four Walls {Beautiful Speech Life}

Today I’m continuing our series “Stepping Out Beyond Our Four Walls.” Earlier this year, Jenna from Speech Room News, Desiree from SLPTalk and I presented at OSLHA on ways we were getting out from our therapy walls and promoting our wonderful profession to our districts and communities. We received such a great response I thought I would ask a few of my friends to share ways they are also making a big difference in their districts. Today’s guest post is from Beautiful Speech Life. First off, if you haven’t checked out Anne’s website, you should! It is absolutely beautiful, just like it’s name :). Second, I loved how Anne stepped out of her comfort zone and did some presenting to her staff, which can honestly be the hardest audience! (Great suggestion of bribing with chocolate, by the way ;)) Read on to see how Anne is stepping out and also to grab a few freebies!

First of all, thanks to Nicole for the invite to share my experience with you on her lovely blog. This is such a great series of articles and I am thrilled to be part of it!

We’re all so busy it’s easy to put on blinders and just work, work, work. But by getting out and doing some extra “work” in the long run you lighten your load by building relationships and a greater understanding of what a school SLP does.

Are you thinking about doing this but aren’t quite sure where to start? Maybe you can get some ideas from some of the things I’ve tried.

This first idea came to me when I realized a lot of teachers and parents don’t really understand a lot of our SLP vocabulary. Something as simple as understanding the difference between “speech” and “language” can be really helpful for referrals and during the evaluation and IEP process. So I created a pair of simple handouts that can also be used as posters. As you can see, I tried to make it simple, concise and appealing.

I use this for parents and teachers alike as handouts or just to refer to during consultations and meetings. I also enlarged a copy to poster size (11 x 17), laminated it and put it in our IEP conference room.

My “What’s Speech got to do with Academics? or How an SLP can help a classroom Teacher?” handout started out as something for Better Hearing and Speech Month but I really use it all year. Made for teachers, it provides specific examples of how we help our students in the areas of reading, writing, math and classroom presentation skills.

Now for a little something that took me out of my comfort zone…I started speaking at district-wide professional development days. Let me tell you I was more than a little bit terrified. My first talk was on special education teachers and SLPs collaborating. I presented to a group of special education teachers. When I remembered to take the focus off of me and directed it toward providing ideas, examples, resources and links I wasn’t so nervous. Plus I didn’t talk “at them”, I talked with them and encouraged questions and feedback. (And I bribed them with Hershey candy bar minis for participation).

Apparently this went pretty well because I was asked to co-present a few months later on using visual communication aids in the special education classroom. This time was a little less scary(but I still gave out candy). Crazily enough, I was asked to present two more times. Once on the role of the school SLP and another time to SLPs on using Core Vocabulary for students with moderate to severe communication impairments.

Each time I was still nervous but those butterflies ARE slowly decreasing.

My point is, I was highly rewarded for stepping out of my comfort zone. I’m slowly becoming a more relaxed and confident speaker. Not only did I get to know many of my colleagues a little better, I was able to share some knowledge and collaborate. I love working as a team member to come up with creative solutions to help our students succeed. “It takes a village” might be cliche but it still rings true.

So my challenge to you is to choose one way that you can step outside of the four walls of your speech room this coming year. It doesn’t have to be big but I know your community will thank you for it.

SLP Like a Boss,

P.S. For your FREE copies of the handouts I mentioned click on the titles:

Difference Between Speech and Language

How an SLP Can Help a Classroom Teacher

Anne is a school based SLP and creator of the website Beautiful Speech Life. You can find her therapy materials at Beautiful Speech Life store on Teachers Pay Teachers.

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