Higher-Level Language: Developing Critical Listening and Self-Advocacy Skills Part 1

What Do You Mean You "Weren't Listening?!"

How many of you found yourself in a general education classroom watching your students and thinking to yourselves, "What are you doing??" You see them zone out, miss information, get on their phones, and write down only what's on the board and not what the teacher was saying. You think to yourself, "When I was in school, the teacher couldn't say two words without me analyzing their importance and writing down what was meaningful!"

But alas, our students are not us and there they sit… often feverishly copying the board or staring out the window. It drives me nuts to see students copy an entire PowerPoint word-for-word and devote so much mental energy to the task of copying that they miss the entire spoken lecture - especially when many of them have accommodations in their IEP to receive copies of PowerPoints or have note-taking assistance!!

But how many of our students are actually aware of their IEP accommodations? How many can self-advocate for their use? How many students miss assignments or turn them in half-complete because they failed to get all the instructions? And how many come to high school ill equipped to decipher what is important and what’s not over the course of their school day?

Join me for a two-part series as we look at students who fit this profile and how to help them make the most of their IEP accommodations, understand the concept of "critical listening," learn to become self-advocates, and change their note-taking habits.

Let's Try a Riddle!

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of lesson plans, let's examine the basis for why we want to cover critical listening and self-advocacy skills. Let's also examine how good we are at listening critically. As an activity, I ask my students to watch this riddle as I read along with it and ask them to take notes on what they find important. Try your hand by watching this YouTube video below...

Did you get the correct answer? Or had you forgotten the beginning of the riddle by the time you reached the end? If it stumped you, you’re in good company! Essentially none of my students write down the statement "you are a bus driver" and instead, they’re immediately drawn in to the “facts” of the numerals that follow. It mimics their classroom behavior of stressing to copy down the “facts” that could easily be located in their books instead of the instructions or analysis that the teacher is likely providing verbally.

Students have gotten defensive with me, saying things like, "You never told us the color of the bus driver's eye!!" Their emphatic frustrations remind me of the conversations they have with their teachers after failed tests... "You never told us why the Holocaust is meaningful to life in the 21st century! It wasn't in the notes!! Not fair!!" And you bet that throughout the unit on the Holocaust, the teacher was verbally making ties to life in the 21^st century that our students failed to write down (because they weren’t included with the “facts” in the PowerPoint).

Our students with auditory processing and language disorders generally struggle with taking in the auditory stimulus of the teacher talking. On the other hand, writing down notes off the board or PowerPoint (and in doing so, tuning out the teacher's lecture) is often something they can do easily. It may be scary and foreign to them to take a break from the rote copying and focus on what the teacher is actually saying.

Riddles like the example above help to highlight the fact that while solely copying down information may be the key to success in certain classes with certain teachers, it will hinder them in other classes where they are expected to take notes on the information the teacher is presenting verbally. These skills are also essential for college and can easily be incorporated into transition plan goals.

And now as high school students, they must be prepared to inform their teachers of their needs. Their teachers work with 120+ students a day and they need to understand what is expected of them. I've noticed that many teachers seem to respond more positively when the student themselves tells them "I need to re-take this test because I got less than a 60% and it's written in my IEP," instead of hearing it from a SpEd staff member and feeling as if a colleague is creating more work for them. 

So the take away this framework should be straightforward: As SLPs, it's our job to encourage the development of critical listening skills and encourage our students to stand up for their needs!

So how do we get started on that lofty task? Goals, of course!

Goal Ideas for Critical Listening

Goals are always my starting place for designing therapy units, activities and teacher consultation strategies, so writing authentic goals is something about which I’m deeply passionate. Here are some ideas for goals I might write that target critical listening activities and self-advocacy skills:

- Receptive Language Goal Ideas (Auditory Comprehension)
   By 10/17, given verbal directions and a prompt, Bobby will demonstrate understanding of 3- to 4–step classroom instructions by repeating and/or rephrasing them to his teacher with 80% accuracy in 4/5 opportunities as measured by SLP and/or teacher data.

- Expressive Language Goal Ideas (Self-Advocacy)
   By 10/17, Bobby will independently provide an IEP Accommodation Worksheet to his teacher, verbally provide 2 reasons why it must be followed, and provide explanations for 80% of his classroom IEP accommodations as measured by teacher report/SLP observation.

- Transition Goal Ideas (College Awareness)
   By 10/17, given minimal clinician assistance, Bobby will identify 3 note-taking and/or critical listening strategies that will lead to success in college-level courses as measured by student work samples.

As you can see, the development of critical listening skills and self-advocacy can be applied to a variety of student needs. I'm sure you all can think of some other awesome goals that target these skills as well!

Join me next week for a continuation of this series - including two lessons plans on engaging critical listening and self-advocacy skills! And as always, it doesn't have to be fancy, just keep it fun and functional!

• Jillian, the No-Frills SLP

General Use: First Day Goal Setting Activity

As many schools are heading back into the thick of it, I'm sure many of you are thinking about what you want to accomplish in your first session with your students.

Here are some goals I strive to accomplish with all my students in the first session:

1) Introduce all group members and establish some common interests or preferences,
2) Build relationships by learning new, personal information about both my returning and new students,
3) Build relationships by letting my students learn new information about me,
4) Discuss communication goals and why they are important,
5) Set personal goals for my students' academic and personal success,
6) Understand what my students are concerned about for the upcoming year.

That may seem like a lot to accomplish in one 20 to 30 minute session - especially when there are 3 or 4 students in a group! But in my opinion, there's nothing more important than starting the school year off on the right foot.

I start this process by beginning each year with a Communication Goal Setting Worksheet and Communication Contract, which you can find at my TPT store here:
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Communication-Goal-Setting-Worksheet-for-SLPs-2747406

Students are given an opportunity to discuss their communication goal - I read a student-friendly version of the IEP goal/s to them. I encourage them to tell me what they think of the goal/s; do they think it will help? Does it seem too hard? Too easy? Do they have something else they would like to work on?

Next, I elicit a personal goal the student wants to achieve this year. Some real goals I have encountered have included: getting better grades, getting a job, making new friends, making a sports team, getting more subscribers for their YouTube channel, getting a girlfriend, getting a driver's license, and getting no detentions. 

We then discuss how their communication and personal goals are related. Sometimes a lot of creativity has to be employed, but I always drive home the point of how working on their communication goal will help them attain their personal goal. For example...

  - Will learning to take the perspective of others help you make more friends?

  - Will developing your summarizing skills help you study for tests and get better grades?

  - Will developing your explanation skills help you when you get in an argument with your parents?

  - Will learning about stuttering reduce your anxiety and help you talk to the girl you like?

  - Will becoming more understandable help you when you interview for a job?

If the student's communication goal cannot (even creatively) be applied to their personal goal, I highly suggest thinking about why they are working on that goal in the first place. If the goal is not meaningful to the student, then they have no incentive to actually work towards improvement!! Student buy-in is EVERYTHING.

After discussing goals, I have a space on the worksheet to identify strengths and weaknesses. Strength identification obviously helps me get to know my student, but sometimes it can tell you even more than that. For example, just last Monday I was working with a sophomore and two freshman with language delays in our first session.All three were unable to generate a single thing they were good at. I had to do some modeling and extreme prompting to finally draw out a single positive trait from each of these students. Next, of course, they all identified 3 - 4 classes and modalities (e.g. math, writing, reading, and science) that they anticipated would be troublesome this year.

What did that experience tell me?

I learned that this group consists of the type of students who are used to failing, being confused, and labeled as under-achieving students. They don't see themselves as smart, creative, or even good at non-academic tasks like sports or games. This activity informed me that with this particular group, I would really need to employ the "Oreo" strategy of sandwiching a hard task between two easier tasks in order to build their confidence. In contrast, for other groups where the students could easily list 5 things at which they excelled, the "Oreo" strategy may not be as important.

My last question on the worksheet asks the students to write down why improving their communication is important. This is one last way I try to drive home the point that what we cover during "communication improvement" (I hate using the word "speech" for what we do with high schoolers!) matters to them for a real, tangible reason. They don't just come to me because they "have to." Maybe they don't particularly enjoy practicing their auditory memory strategies, but at least they know why they're doing it!

After learning a lot about my students, I also like to include some fun facts about me in order to grow our relationship. I have a PowerPoint I created that lists some facts about me with the answers hidden underneath. The students guess the answers and some of them are surprised to learn we have some things in common, such as favorite TV shows, music, and video games! I also include a picture of myself when I graduated from high school because the kids seem to LOVE seeing teachers when they were their age. I always get a "That was YOU?!?" from at least one student in every group, it's great.

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The last part of the session consists of a contract that both the students and I sign. It outlines the guidelines that I want them to partake of in my room - I want them to do their best, have an open mind, know their goals, and recognize the important of good communication skills in their lives. I think this contract sets the mood for the year as well; my students are all 14 or older and they are starting to see themselves as adults. It's only fair that I start treating them as adults, too.

I encourage you to check out the worksheet and the contract combo for free at my TPT store here and modify it to your needs and the needs of your students! I hope your first week/s of school are off to a great start!  

As always, it doesn't have to be fancy, just keep it fun and functional!

• Jillian, the No-Frills SLP

Functional Fluency: Going Beyond Fluency Shaping Part 1

Fluency is scary!

I remember reading a survey in the ASHA Leader years ago that stated something like 40% of school-based SLPs were comfortable treating fluency disorders. I was stunned! I love fluency disorders! I’m working towards my Board Certification in Fluency Disorders! It’s my favorite part of the field! I wondered - why did other school-based SLPs think it was so scary? I surveyed my SLP friends and came to one main conclusion:

• Graduate programs don’t properly prepare clinicians for “real world” cases. My friends from various graduate programs all seemed to report that they could teach fluency shaping strategies (e.g. easy onset, pull-outs, light contact, etc.); however, the emotional and cognitive aspects of fluency were foreign. They knew that teaching fluency shaping strategies alone wasn’t enough, but figuring out how to address the other aspects was a daunting prospect.

What about you? Does treating fluency disorders scare you? Let me know why or why not in the comments. For the next three weeks, I’ll be covering assessment and treatment of adolescent fluency disorders in a three part series I’ve named “Functional Fluency.” Hopefully this series of posts will give you some new ideas to test out, regardless of your comfort level with fluency disorders! Let’s get started.

Ms. Hall, Is Anyone Ever 100% Fluent?

How many of you have Adolescents Who Stutter (AWS) on your caseloads with goals that read a little something like this:

“By 10/16, given an initial cue, Bobby will use fluency shaping strategies (e.g. easy onset, light contact, pausing, etc.) to achieve 90% fluency in conversation in the structured speech therapy setting across three sessions as measured by clinician observation and data.”

Wow, 90% fluency in conversation! What an awesome goal! That’s what every anxious, embarrassed, “I-just-want-to-be-normal” stuttering teen desperately wants, right? Unfortunately for their desire to blend in, it’s our job as competent clinicians to NOT give them a goal like this.

“What!?” you may cry, “Why not? What’s wrong with a goal like that? Increased fluency is the ultimate goal, right? We’re only successful when our students stutter less!”

I’ll tell you why I find goals written like this to be problematic and why we need to distance ourselves from the idea that increased fluency is the ultimate goal for AWS.

How many of your AWS have amazing days where they are so wonderfully fluent that you feel like the most competent SLP in the world? How many of your AWS then come back the next week, a dysfluent, anxious mess and you wonder if they’ll ever be close to hitting that 90% target you set at their IEP a few months back?

This is the reality of fluency disorders: Your AWS will have good days and bad days. Unlike articulation and language, where we hope our interventions stick and their disorders remain manageable long after we’ve exited them from services, your AWS are likely going to be managing their views on stuttering and their strategies for attaining fluency forever. If we keep focusing solely on the narrow idea of increasing fluency, we miss the bigger picture.

So What’s the Big Idea?

Hopefully none of what I’m saying is brand new information to you. But I’ve even caught myself writing a % fluent goal for a student; I had to force myself to take a step back from the IEP and examine what exactly it was that this student needed. The main point I think we have to remember when designing a treatment plan for AWS is that our goals and treatment have to address the underlying concerns - not just the outward, fluent behaviors.

Case Study: One day out of the blue, a 17-year-old student came to me after school and said that he had never had speech therapy but that he stuttered and he wanted help. We sat down and started talking about the goals he wanted to accomplish. “I don’t want to stutter anymore,” he told me with perfect fluency. As we talked, it became painfully obvious that he was a textbook covert stutterer - he was obsessed with “how much” he stuttered; he had never spoken to his parents about his stutter; he circumlocuted, used many filler words, and often started sentences with the word “so” in order to get around a block. He knew absolutely nothing about stuttering.

So… did I write him a % fluent goal and hammer techniques until he’s an easy onset and light contact machine who never once stutters? He was already ~98% fluent, so would a 100% fluency goal been truly appropriate? Of course not. But if we’re not measuring an AWS’s success on % fluency, then how are we supposed to measure progress?

Short-Term and Long-Term Goals Ideas:

There’s no right way to answer the question of measuring progress. Below you’ll find some examples that I have used to move beyond the standard fluency % when writing goals. Again, all students are different and you may very well have AWS on your caseload who have needs that stretch far beyond these samples! Trust your clinical judgement; you know your students and their needs, even if it does take a little bit of mental effort to sort it all out.

“By 10/16, Bobby will independently label 5 parts of speech mechanism (i.e. tongue, palate, uvula, trachea, vocal folds) and write a short paragraph describing what happens to the speech mechanism during a stuttered moment as measured by clinician-created probes and student work samples.”

“By 10/16, given moderate clinician support, Bobby will create a short presentation about fluency (e.g. types of dysfluencies, the speech mechanism, famous people who stutter, etc.) and deliver it in a classroom presentation as measured by clinician observation.”

“By 10/16, Bobby will independently write a short essay (3 - 5 paragraphs) discussing (i) different types of dysfluencies (ii) why it is OK to stutter (iii) how it feels when stuttering “takes control” and (iv) how his perception of stuttering has changed since his previous IEP meeting as measured by student work samples.

“By 10/16, Bobby will independently tell three of his new 11th grade teachers that he is a Person Who Stutters as measured by observational data.”

“By 10/16, given minimal clinician assistance, Bobby will research at least 2 stuttering social media groups (e.g.  National Stuttering Association, Stuttering Foundation, etc.) and write a short essay on what he learned about the community of People Who Stutter as measured by student work samples.”

I hope discussing the need to abandon measuring % fluency as progress has helped you to better define the needs of the AWS on your caseload. Next week I’ll discuss my go-to ideas for activities and resources for use when conducting sessions with AWS.

As always, it doesn't have to be fancy, just keep it fun and functional!

• Jillian, the No-Frills SLP