SLPs Pushing In Linky

My friend 1sparklleslp has been doing a fantastic series on pushing in. She is currently running a link in addition to her series, so hop on over to her blog and take a look!

Here's my take. My district is not set up to go all push in. I do go into Functional Academics classrooms. Mostly, I supervise licensed assistants, but I am very reluctant to let all therapy go. The last time I did that, I spend the summer crafting everything in sight because my creative juices had been drowned by paperwork.

Our FA students are generally independent motor-wise. Most of the diagnoses I work with are autism and Down Syndrome. Language and articulation are the main goals.

I typically schedule 45 minutes twice a week for the class. When I go in, they are usually finishing up a song. That's perfect, since I can't sing on-key. Next comes a story and vocabulary and Wh- questions. The class then goes to centers, and I set up a speech/language center. During this time, I see students in groups of 2-3 to do a game or craftivity. This is the time when I get most of my data. The goals and objectives are addressed during group time, and I get to recheck and see if my instruction was successful during center time.

It works. My wish is that I go in with a true SLP role. To me, that means the teacher does the instruction, the parapros address the behavior, and I work with the students to address their language and articulation during that time. That would allow me to work on and model more AAC and to ensure that instruction is carried over the rest of the time.

Thanks to sparklleslp for the great series and linky!