Stay informed as a
speech–language
pathologist

If you’ve ever walked into a meeting with a family, beautifully written evaluation report in hand, and thought, “Now what?” this one’s for you! In this tutorial, Tighe & Namazi walk us through the SPICES framework for disclosing a diagnosis of developmental language disorder (DLD) to caregivers. BUT WAIT, school-based SLPs, don’t go! Although we don’t provide diagnoses in the school setting but rather determinations of educational eligibility, this info still applies! As we’ve discussed before, it’s possible to walk the line by providing an eligibility determination, then describing what we see that is consistent with DLD without stating a medical diagnosis. Plus, we owe it to parents to be clear about what we are seeing in their child, and to connect them to resources and information that can help. Before we get SPICY, let’s step back and discuss DLD for a moment…

We know it’s best practice to use a specific study protocol and analysis reporting tool for VFSS. It provides guidelines to ensure we’re doing the same thing each time we conduct a swallow study and holds us to a higher standard in our analysis and report writing. This benefits everyone, from the patient, to the physician reading your report, to the SLP getting your patient at the next level of care. But do you ever feel stuck in selecting a VFSS analysis tool?  You’ve probably heard of a few, but it can be hard to choose when there are so many options, plus funding and productivity concerns to balance. You just want to select… 

Speech sound disorders. It’s one of those things our relatives who don’t really understand what we do assume is the only thing we do. It’s one of the areas of practice our field was founded on, and one where we’re fortunate to have an array of treatment approaches (like, dozens) backed up by decades of research. All these evidence-based options can be a challenge to navigate, though, and choosing the right approach could mean the difference between a child meeting their goals and “graduating” from speech and that same child staying on the caseload for years. That’s exactly why we’ve put together this Ask TISLP: to give you a starting point for making informed treatment decisions. To narrow things down, we’ll be focusing only on idiopathic (traditionally called “functional”) SSDs—those rooted in articulation and/or phonology and without a known cause. That means that we’re not talking CAS, dysarthria, or speech disorders related to cleft/craniofacial conditions or to hearing differences. But never fear! You can search all of those topics using the filters here to find reviews on supporting speech for those kiddos.  Here’s what to expect…

If you’re in the cognitive screening business, you’ve heard of the MOCA. And if you’ve heard of the MOCA, you know it used to be free to administer, but now requires a $125.00 certification fee. This has caused quite a bit of confusion for SLPs, as it seems our training should exempt us from this requirement (which was put in place to ensure quality administration).  Some SLPs still use the MOCA without certification while others work in facilities that require them to become certified, sometimes even having to pay out of pocket...

or, by its more formal title: Grammatical concepts of English: Suggested order of interventionHave you ever asked the following? “I know that I still need to work on grammar with older kids with DLD to ensure academic success, but what rationale should I have for selecting targets?”  “How do I decide what order to tackle the many areas of grammar that need support?” “Is there any evidence to help me decide whether I should work on passives or relative clauses or adverbial clauses first? They all seem important—and hard!”​We're (finally!) ready with some answers.

Gestalt language processing (GLP): it is *everywhere* right now, and everyone is talking about it.  Why’s it so hot? We’ll get to that. What even is this? We’ll get to that too, no worries. But the big question that’s been blowing up our email, DMs, and search engine— Is there research behind GLP? Is it EBP?  Quick answer—yes, partly…it’s complicated! So while we wish we could pull this off in a quick soundbite, you’re going to need to grab a chair or an earbud and settle in for the ride. Let’s go!