Speech Therapy Oops! {Talkin' with Twang}


Hi everyone!  I'm Kristin from Talkin' with Twang. I have absolutely loved reading the speech therapy...oops posts here at The Pedi Speechie.  There's just something comforting about knowing that I'm not the only one who has had those oops moments during speech.  Even some seasoned SLPs have had a moment where they said, "Oops!" Today, I get to share one of my speech therapy "oops" moments with you.

Now, let me preface by saying that I am far from being a seasoned SLP.  I just completed my graduate program this past August and I am about twelve weeks into my CFY as I write this.  Needless to say, I have had quite a few "oops" moments so far, and I expect to have many more over the coming years.  But I do try to learn from my "oops" moments and try not to repeat them!

After thinking back on the past 2 years, I decided to share the "oops" session that went all wrong on a day I was being observed by my grad school professor.  It all started with my lesson planning...

It was the spring of my second year of grad school and I had been eagerly awaiting my site visit from my practicum professor.  Overall, things were going great in my speech sessions, my paperwork was organized and I had thorough lesson plans and awesome reviews from my mentor SLP.  I was ready for my site visit, so I could show my professor how awesome things were going.  I prepped for the day like I usually do...by planning out a fun activity with very detailed lesson plans.  The problem started when I decided to use a brand new activity that day.  Rookie mistake #1: Don't plan an activity you have never done before on a day you are getting evaluated!

I was working with a mixed group of language and artic kiddos and I thought this activity would be a great way to incorporate all the goals at once.  The problem was, it took forever to explain to the students how the game would go and we did not get very many trials into our 30 minutes at all!  It completely bombed!  The kids thought it was boring, I wasted valuable time explaining how to play the game, and it did not allow for many trials of each target.  This all went down with my grad school professor and my supervising SLP sitting right there watching the entire session.  Oops!

To top it all off, one of the artic kids in the group had been working on /th/ words and was previously hovering just under mastery level for accuracy.  During this session, every /th/ he said was perfect, but I was not prepared to collect data on his productions this session.  Rookie mistake #2: Always be ready to collect some form of data.  I could have done a quick baseline before the activity and then moved him up a level for the session.  Instead, I continued to drill him at the word level, which he was performing 100% at this session!  Oops!

When the session was over and the students had returned to class, I was able to spend some time discussing the session with my professor.  She was very understanding and my supervisor was kind enough to let her know that my sessions normally went much better than this one did.  I was able to get some constructive feedback to help me during future sessions and it ended up being a great learning moment for me.  Lesson learned:  Do not plan brand new activities for evaluation days!

Thanks for reading about my Speech Therapy...Oops moment and thank you to Karen here at The Pedi Speechie for allowing me to share.  :-) Kristin


Can't get enough OOPS? Read more here.

Be sure to check back next week! Another #speechtherapyoops is on the way!

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