Models of Service Delivery to address articulation needs: Prairie South School Division

1. Models of Service Delivery to address articulation needs: Prairie South School Division Valerie Brennan & Barry Raymond

2. Guiding Questions: What is the prevailing service delivery model for articulation therapy in Prairie South School Division? • One-on-one speech sound intervention with either the SLP or the SLP-Assistant

3. Guiding Questions Does Prairie South School Division have a systematic approach to prioritize students' needs in regards to articulation? Articulation therapy is provided to any student with mild, moderate, or severe articulation that: • Cannot be managed by home program; • The errors will not resolve in a timely manner if left to maturation; • Has a positive prognosis for change  will benefit from treatment.

4. Guiding Questions: In Prairie South School Division, how do you engage families in your therapy? • Contact parents – by phone, email, and/or meetings; • Invite parents to attend therapy sessions with their child  to see a model of how to practice and work with their child at home; • Use home practice books; • Send home suggestions for practice and correction in homework books or written on communication notes. (Continued)

5. (Engaging families in therapy cont’d) • Child with very mild articulation difficulties or close to carryover- contact parents and encourage them to accept a home program to finish therapy themselves. • Kindergarten or pre-kindergarten classrooms - try to gain a connection with parents by introducing ourselves when they come to get their children after school. • Take advantage of providing updates when we see parents at the school. • In the past we have had monthly parent newsletters and monthly parent activity sheets, but not at this time.

6. Guiding Questions: What Tier 1 strategies have tried/used for articulation? • Child is able to correct her sound  picture cue on desk for the teacher to point to as a reminder. • Kindergarten classrooms - formal instruction in articulation has been provided by SLP and observed by the teacher: tongue placement & kinaesthetic cues. When this is used, the SLP is cautious about what speech sounds are taught and suggested uses in the classroom. (Continued)

7. Tier 1 Strategies (cont’d) • Jolly Phonics or Animated Literacy in the classroom: SLPs encourage teachers to add instruction about how to shape the sound correctly to their programs. • The following programs that include a focus on correct production while teaching sounds and letters seem to have been successful: Empowered Beginnings and Lindamood programs • Using mirrors to teach sound shapes. • Strategy in kindergarten for “th”: Emphasis on tongue position for “th” during calendar time (when producing Thursday).

8. Have these Tier 1 strategies been successful? • SLPs have reported success on acquisition of speech sounds when Empowered Beginnings or Lindamood was used. • The “th” strategy for calendar time: all kindergartens in that class had “th” by the end of the year. • No data has been taken for the remaining strategies mentioned. We suggest these strategies but at this point are unsure of the success.

9. Guiding Questions: What do you do if a child does not show improvement with articulation? • Re-evaluate – Have we tried everything that we have been able to think of? Have we changed the approach to try something new? • Defer treatment until the child is more mature. • In the event that the SLP truly does not believe that the speech sound error will change, we have a discussion about prognosis with the parents. This may result in discharge from the speech and language caseload.

10. Guiding Questions: How do you work with school staff (e.g. classroom teachers, Student Support Teachers) to increase capacity in schools? • When teachers are interested in learning sound-shaping information and kinaesthetic cues that can help with articulation, we provide them. • Leave materials for the SSTs to use during their support time. • Compile a “home program” with instructions for productions and practice for the school to carry out. • Request help from the classroom staff to promote carryover of sounds and provide ideas for them to use.

11. Guiding Questions: What strategies do you use to engage students with articulation needs? (We do not necessarily do all of these concurrently.) • Talk to the child about why he/she is there. Make sure (s)he knows what the goal is and try to get the student to buy in. • Keep therapy quick and efficient: work them hard and return them to class before they begin to “fade.” • Use of the ipad – articulation apps and short, age-appropriate games for a reward for good productions. • Use of the traditional method of a board game embedded into therapy for motivation and rewards.