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The Joy of Collaboration by Vicki Frank and Lib Terry As speech-language pathologists (SLPs), our ultimate goal is to promote generalization of communication skills learned in therapy over to the client's everyday life. To increase the chance of this happening, all those in contact with the client need to have not only an understanding of the goals, but also the purposes and strategies to promote these goals. Collaboration between teachers/staff, SLPs, families, volunteers, and parents/caregivers tend to improve treatment outcomes (Crais, 1991). The key to ensure collaboration is knowledge. For example, all of those involved with the child may understand that the preschooler is working on the /f/ sound but may not have a good grasp of exactly how this sound is made. They concentrate on the usual modality of "what do you hear?" versus the other modalities that SLPs use such as "what do you feel?" or "what do you see?" Parents/caregivers, teachers/staff, and volunteers will have different concerns and questions. Any inservice the SLP chooses to present should be driven by the needs of her audience. "The most important communication skill in any collaborative relationship is empathic listening, listening that acknowledges and validates another's feelings." (Chermak,1993) The SLP will need to decide between an individual "one-on-one" training or a "whole group" inservice depending on the needs of her client(s) and audience. This presentation includes tips for both types of training. The "general" tips will be provided first, with examples of "specific" tips in the boxes at the bottom of each page. For this presentation, the disorder of "Developmental Dysfluency" was chosen.
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