Speech Therapy OOPS!

We've all been there.

Maybe you spent hours planning the "perfect" therapy idea, and it just blew up in your face.

Maybe one your students reminded you, in case you forgot, that you always need to stay on your toes.

Even the most experienced SLP has an "oops" moment from time to time. I'll start by sharing one of mine.

I was a new graduate and working my CFY position. I was working in an outpatient setting, and had a patient scheduled who had already had an eval completed. As is usually the case, instead of the evaluation being mailed in beforehand, I had a whole 30 seconds to read up on the patient while also doing a meet and greet.
I saw he had a target to produce /s/ words, so I thought, "Great! I actually have materials for this!" (This was in my pre-TPT days, when I barely knew how to do anything on my computer beyond online shopping.)
We sat down, I let him pick out a game, and I explained to him that he was to say three words before each turn. My plan was really to do my own informal assessment of his speech while we played and talked. His mom smiled.
The first target word I chose for him to repeat? Sit.
Never, never, never choose this word, with your child who has a lateral lisp.
That is the lesson I learned that day. Mom and I both turned beet red. I said, "Oh... here, let's try the next one!" He continued to lateralize each phoneme until it was game time.
Looking back, this incident may have been what prompted me to take continuing education in Orofacial Myology. But that's a whole different blog post.
Be sure to check back next week, because Tracy from Gold Country SLP is going to share her #SpeechTherapyOops with you.
If you are an SLP blogger/ TPT seller and you'd like to guest blog and share your "Speech Therapy Oops" story, please contact me!