School of Speech Ep 14
[00:00:00] Speaker 3: Welcome to the School of Speech podcast presented by SpeechTherapyPD. com. School of Speech is designed specifically for the school based SLP to come together to discuss current topics, tackle difficult situations, and share our insights. Our goal is to bolster confidence, celebrate our triumphs, and foster a community that's Dedicated to the excellence in the school setting.
[00:00:52] Carolyn Dolby: Hello everyone! Welcome! I'm Carolyn Dolby and I am your Speech Therapy PD podcast host for School of Speech. School of Speech is designed for the school based SLP to come together to explore current trends, share insights, and champion our expertise. Our goal is to bolster confidence, celebrate our triumphs, and really foster a, community dedicated to the excellence in the school setting.
[00:01:21] I am so excited about today's episode. It is titled Leading the Way: School Based SLPs as the agents of Change. I love this. And we have Dr. Laura Mansfield here. And she will be leading our exploration of this, of the dynamic role of the school based SLP as we are leaders and agents of change. We'll be discovering how SLPs are at the forefront.
[00:01:46] forefront of fostering inclusive, communicative, and supportive educational settings. We're really going to learn what it takes to be transformative leaders in the field of speech language pathology. Before we get started, we have a little bit of housekeeping. Each episode is 60 minutes and will be offered for 0. 1 ASHA CEUs. 
[00:02:09] Financial disclosures for Laura, she is the owner of the Joyful SLP. She is an SLP coach and district trainer. She is also receiving an honorarium from speech therapy PD for her participation in today's episode. Keep them coming. I see you're in there. I'm going to start getting to you in a minute. Laura has no non financial disclosures.
[00:02:30] For me, financially, I do receive a salary as the, at the district level as the dysphagia support clinician for Cypher Independent School District. I'm also compensated for my graduate courses I teach at the University of Houston, and I'm a consultant for school districts across the nation supporting their program development and staff training.
[00:02:49] I also receive compensation from Speech Therapy PD for hosting School of Speech. Non financial, I am a member of the Texas Speech and Hearing, Feeding and Swallowing Task Force. I volunteer for Feeding Matters, and I'm a member of ASHA Special Interest Groups 13, Swallowing and Swallowing Disorders, and SIG 16, school based.
[00:03:11] Now, without any further ado, I am so excited to welcome Dr. Laura Mansfield. Hi, Laura! 
[00:03:19] Laura Mansfield: Thank you so much for having me. 
[00:03:21] Carolyn Dolby: Absolutely. Let me tell you guys a little bit about Laura. I'm so amazed she's coming. I love this. Okay. After she completed her bachelor's in healthcare administration, Laura realized that her true passion was serving children with disabilities.
[00:03:36] So she returned to school and received her master's in speech language pathology in 2001. After working 12 years as an SLP in public, private, and clinical settings, she moved To special ed administration, Laura worked as a spedit admin for a private out of district school district for students with moderate to severe disabilities for three years.
[00:04:00] And then in various administrative roles in the public school setting for another seven, she completed a dissertation on mobile technology as augmentative and alternative communication on her journey to achieving a doctoral degree in educational leadership. Now, reflecting on her goals, passions, and her career path, and during COVID 19, it really caused her to take a step back, and she came back to her SLP roots.
[00:04:28] She currently works as an SLP in an elementary school. Servicing students grades one through five. She's passionate about her administrative, legal, and leadership experiences to empower SLPs across settings to really see themselves as leaders that that they are. So welcome, Laura. We are blessed.
[00:04:50] So excited. I want you to just, I want to start with a feel good Let's start with your passion. I love that. And I'm going to take a look in the chat and let's see where actually, like, oh, wow. No, we've got lots of people here today. I'm going in Joyce. Hi, Joyce. 10 years in. She says collabs are frustration.
[00:05:09] Joanne. 10 years in, paperwork, Jackie, three years in, oh, I like this one, teachers not getting any idea of RTI Abigail, nice to see you, three years in her biggest frustration has been keeping, ah, keeping older students engaged in settings. Hi Lori, 20 plus years, she has no frustration. Hmm, she might turn back.
[00:05:32] Haha, Mata, oh, she's only worked in clinics and she, oh, you're switching to schools next month. No frustrations yet. She has a feeling that waking up super early and the amount of paperwork will be frustration frustrating. Yeah, Kelsey She's been school based teletherapist for two years Oh being a teletherapist.
[00:05:54] I think the frustration between herself and the brick and mortar school Because whoa, you live 12 1700 miles from your school? That's crazy. Yeah, I could see there would be a disconnect there. Hi Lisa, 25 years in, paperwork. Elaine, 30 years, you veteran. But now she's in telepractice but it used to be caseload.
[00:06:18] Here's another two years. It's keeping, keeping them engaged during teletherapy. Amy, 12, 11 to 12, paperwork and scheduling. Justine currently inactive, but taking courses. Well, I am so glad you're here. Elaine, she just returned too. She was a SPED admin. Oh, you guys have something in common. Hi, Olivia.
[00:06:38] Two weeks in. Two years in and paperwork and laura laurie frustration. Ah, oh listen Inappropriate referrals, right? This is my teacher training All right. Thank you for that. So we've got we know you you're in it to win it. We've got some frustration So we're gonna We're going to talk about that. Dr.
[00:06:59] Mansfield is here to, to help us out, but she's going to start feel good with her passion. 
[00:07:06] Laura Mansfield: Yeah. I thank you so much to everyone for commenting. It's great to see where everyone's at. I having been an SLP Right out of school, having the admin experience and then seeing my fellow colleagues in schools, you know, online and in the groups that I'm on talking about feeling so much burnout, 
[00:07:28] I think COVID and the pressure that was put on us as therapists to pivot so quickly, meet all the needs of our students.
[00:07:36] Despite trying to figure out teletherapy, if we've maybe never even done that before, I think added to the burnout. And I think everyone in schools is very overwhelmed right now. And I'm just really passionate about helping SLP simplify what they do and having a simple framework of understanding of what their role is in the school so that they can have joy.
[00:07:58] I think we've invested so much money, so much time. We're caring, compassionate human beings who want to help our students, and I think we feel like everything else gets in the way of our ability to do that, and then we don't feel effective, and then we get burned out even more, and we just want to leave.
[00:08:15] We want something else. And so my goal is to help SLPs empower them to be. As effective as possible with as simple systems as possible so they can feel effective again. And if they decide to leave the profession, at least they they're not leaving because they feel like they just can't do it anymore.
[00:08:33] That's just a horrible feeling. No matter where you're at. 
[00:08:36] Carolyn Dolby: Agreed. And you, you kind of touched on when you said SLPs to know the role in the educational setting. Do you want to get us going talking about the difference between clinical and educational settings? 
[00:08:48] Laura Mansfield: I would love to, I think one of the most powerful things that we can kind of wrap our brains around is that we are healthcare professionals in an educational setting.
[00:08:59] And because of that, we have to really fully understand what that educational model is and our role in the educational setting as a clinician. So that framework, I think, we think we know. But I think we miss it a lot of times where sometimes we're not as focused on what specific skill does that student, is that student missing that we need to bridge as a therapist, that child's access to that skill in their educational setting.
[00:09:31] And are we the one that needs to provide that service? And I think in schools, it's especially hard, like I remember when I was a young clinician thinking, Oh, I should have been an OT, it's so much easier, right? 
[00:09:43] Like the lines are pretty clear for an occupational therapist of what they do and what they don't.
[00:09:47] But in a school, what's not language? And I felt really confused by that initially, like, what am I supposed to work on? And what's the special education teacher supposed to do? What's the gen ed teacher's role? What's my role? And I think having been an administrator and having the time that I've had. And now coming back into the role, I have much more clarity on, you know, what is that federal law?
[00:10:11] What is that framework? And I think sometimes, too, as a clinician and someone who wants to do what you're being told to do, you have administrators or other people telling you, this is the rig. And I know as an SLP, I didn't really understand my state regs. I didn't really understand the federal law. It wasn't until it was an administrator and I needed to run the meeting and know the law that I read the law.
[00:10:34] So I think like that's one thing that we can do is, you know, clear is kind. I love I think Brene Brown says that, and I think we have to have clarity for ourselves. So that we can also provide that clarity to the staff that we work with, to sometimes our administrators, you know, and the other people at the district.
[00:10:55] I know it can be hard in schools because you have a special ed administrator and you have a principal, you know, and you sometimes have multiple different levels of teachers that you're working with. And sometimes you're the only one that does what you do. 
[00:11:07] And so that can also be isolating. So having that clarity I think is really important.
[00:11:13] Carolyn Dolby: I love it. I, I think that's important when you, you're saying no, the law. And I think that might be one of those missing pieces that we, that we might have, but more clear is kind. 
[00:11:25] Laura Mansfield: Clear is kind. Clear is kind for us and clear is kind for our students, our families, and the teachers that we work with.
[00:11:32] Carolyn Dolby: Absolutely. 
[00:11:34] So I think maybe Let's clear up our role. When we talk about being a related service provider. 
[00:11:44] Laura Mansfield: Yes. Yeah. Related service. That means my, my service is related to. So if I can't answer the question, what am I doing, what, how is this service related to, either, and again, so sometimes we will qualify in isolation, but we just look at the self score, we just look at the TILS score, we just look at.
[00:12:08] You know, AVT, we have our standard battery, and we look at that battery and we say, oh, one and a half standard deviations below, and depending on your state will depend on how the state says yes or no, this child may qualify. But we don't ever do that in schools in isolation from a team. Everything that we do is related through the team.
[00:12:30] So even though I find a weakness doesn't necessarily mean that child needs my service. I have to be at a team meeting where I'm having a conversation of what are this, what is this child's overall profile and what is their performance? In the classroom, either with the curriculum or social emotionally, right?
[00:12:49] So we look at the whole child. It's not just academics, but that can be a part of it. I think it's clear when it's a child with stuttering disorder, articulation, apraxia, like that's our. That's what we do. There's nobody else in the school that does that. I think it gets a little bit fuzzier for us sometimes when it's more of the literacy language skills, because all those literacy skills are language based skills.
[00:13:16] And so sometimes it can get fuzzy. You know, there's, when I identify a disability or a weakness in a specific area, just because the child has that deficit doesn't necessarily mean I'm the best person on the team to address that deficit. I think that takes close collaboration with my team. 
[00:13:35] Carolyn Dolby: We need to hear that, that we might not be the provider, the, the right provider.
[00:13:42] Laura Mansfield: Correct. If that child needs that skill in context, and there's a special educator on the team who has the skill set to provide that instruction, then that might be better for that child. And we are also, all states fall under the federal regulation of least restrictive environment. So I'm taking my, that student out of context.
[00:14:03] How am I making what I'm doing related? I should always be thinking about how, what am I do? How is what I'm doing related to what they're doing in the classroom? So, I'm a big proponent of a 3 1 model, writing monthly minutes, getting in classrooms. I think that's the most efficient way to make sure what I'm doing is related and to think more.
[00:14:24] Flexibly about service. I don't know. I think I think it's carry over from the medical model. That seems like everyone gets a two times 30. I think we've done better since, you know, I mean, I've been. I was an SLP from 2001, so I think back then it was more standard. Everybody kind of got 2 times 30. It wasn't very individualized.
[00:14:42] I think we're better at that now overall, but I still think we get stuck in these ruts of service provision and we do have multiple models. We can do consultation. We can push in and we can pull out. 
[00:14:56] Carolyn Dolby: Exactly. I find that sometimes we, we feel like we want everything to fit in a box. So we want to see everybody in, in a certain increment.
[00:15:05] And so, yeah, if we give everybody 2 times 30, then I can schedule it just like that. And it all looks nice and pretty. But again, IEP. You know, individualized as you you know, it's not individualized is if everybody is getting the exact same minutes and the same service delivery. 
[00:15:26] Laura Mansfield: I think sometimes we get stuck on how to talk to families and parents and educate our fellow staff members about what we do and why we do what we do, because I don't know if we have clarity all the time on why we're doing we're doing.
[00:15:38] And how it relates. I think that's the most important part and being able to say to parents. It's really important that this child with a language based learning disability understands how what I'm doing with them relates to what they need to do in the classroom. And so, in order to make sure I achieve that, this is the services that I'm going to be able to.
[00:15:57] You know, provide, and I need to link with the classroom and be that bridge for that skill. 
[00:16:04] Carolyn Dolby: Kelsey, thanks for jumping in. She, she's agreeing she thinks that something, that is something that compliment, complicates scheduling, yes, but it's so important that kiddos have individualized minutes. It's true.
[00:16:18] Yeah, especially, not only should Individual education plan. Yeah, individualized, but also least restrictive environment that you touched on. And that's part of knowing the law, knowing the law that the child has the right to be in, in the least restrictive environment with their peers. As much as possible.
[00:16:39] Laura Mansfield: Yeah. And Kelsey, I really appreciate your point because I know for me, like scheduling used to be such a stressful event and I hated scheduling and I have come up with systems that really helped me with scheduling. I hold a scheduling party. I invite all the teachers to my room and they know everyone's in a different environment, so that might not work for everyone.
[00:16:59] But I do, even though I'm individualizing, I still have a general idea of what's going to work best for that. Yeah. type of disability. So if I have a child who has more significant articulation issues, I prefer for myself, I can be more effective working with that child one on one for short spurts of five to seven minutes ish, two, three, four times a week.
[00:17:22] And so I have broken out in my schedule time that I do that, and I have a little kitchen cart that my husband helped me retrofit with wheels, and I pull it around in the hallways, and I have my kids, and I just cycle through my kids real quick. I use an abacus. I get 100 trials or more. I use the principles of motor learning for most of my students, and that system of addressing those needs fits within my schedule in a nice way.
[00:17:50] Okay, so even though I am always individualizing because I'm thinking does this child have one sound so I'm doing once a week. Or does this child need two, three, or four times a week, depending on the intensity and their need. I'm still kind of within the framework. So I have a framework, but I'm individualizing within it.
[00:18:09] I hope that makes sense. That streamlines my scheduling. 
[00:18:12] Carolyn Dolby: Sure. 
[00:18:13] I like that idea that you have a cart on wheels that you take. I, and I just heard you use an abacus. I love that. 
[00:18:21] Laura Mansfield: The kids love the abacus because they're very, Competition based. Oh, sure. Yeah. Right. So they know that that's the goal is to get 100 trials within that certain amount of minutes.
[00:18:31] And so it motivates them. It's quick. The teachers love it. I don't have the kids out for a really long time and it allows me, you know, to touch base, even because I'm in the hallway. So I can touch base with teachers easier. You know, this is the sound this is what they're working on. This is what I'd like you to cue them with in the classroom.
[00:18:48] So it's been really efficient for me. Okay. 
[00:18:51] Carolyn Dolby: Right. And... 
[00:18:51] Laura Mansfield: Effective for the kids. 
[00:18:53] Carolyn Dolby: Sorry. I didn't mean to speak over you, but what made me think about it also, it makes you visible in the school. You're not just in your little, little hobbit hole. 
[00:19:04] Laura Mansfield: Yeah. When I took over the case a little three years ago there was no push in minutes and there was no, everything was in the Therapy room.
[00:19:12] And so I shifted my schedule so that I followed a three, one model, which most people are familiar with. So in general, for most students, I had three weeks, I wrote on my minutes monthly, so 20 minute or 30 minute blocks, depending on the skill, three times 20 a month, or three times 30 a month, or six times 30 a month.
[00:19:34] And again, this is my framework and I can flex it depending on the child. And then once a week. In that month is my push in week. And so I would write those minutes in the a grid or in the consult grid, depending on your state and how you write your minute. And that would allow me to be in the classroom, which was invaluable to make my services related.
[00:19:56] I not only got to see the language the teacher was using with the child, or some little strategy that they were using to get their, the students to respond I could see how they, what they were expecting. I think I, because I work with only students with disabilities. It's easy to forget the level that my students are expected to perform when I'm not with them.
[00:20:21] And I realized there was a gap between what I was asking them to do and what they're expected to do in the classroom. And I needed to provide them skills and strategies to close the gap in their classroom and keep meeting that goal for them. And if I'm never in the classroom, how do I know? I never knew.
[00:20:38] And then I'm in the classroom. I'm hearing the teachers see me as someone who's a support. Definitely developed better relationships overall, there's always that teacher or a couple of teachers who don't understand why you're there or don't want you to observe them or don't really understand. And so those were my special teachers of, you know, touches of conversations and just keeping things open, helping them know that I was just there to support them to support their students because I know that's their goal too.
[00:21:10] Because they want their students to be successful. I want that too. How can I support you in doing that? Was definitely the way that I came in. I think that's a skill in and of itself for us as speech language pathologists to remember that, you know, teachers might react to us, but it's probably not about us.
[00:21:27] And that's a whole skill set in and of itself. 
[00:21:28] Carolyn Dolby: Sure. Yeah. And that's that whole collaboration. 
[00:21:32] Laura Mansfield: Yeah, it's so important. 
[00:21:33] Carolyn Dolby: We are a related service. 
[00:21:36] Laura Mansfield: Yes. Yeah, I think a lot of times we try and make school therapeutic setting. Right. Yeah. Instead of make our service related to the educational setting. You know, it's a slight shift in thinking, but I think if you make that shift, it makes a huge difference.
[00:21:54] Carolyn Dolby: And I think it really educating everybody on what our role is in the school. I remember I was in an IEP last fall or last spring and a parent said, well, how much, how much, how many minutes have they been allotted? Like in a medical setting, like how much, how much has insurance Right. Your thought is I want everything that the insurance is going to do.
[00:22:17] It was, yeah, we had to reframe, take a minute and kind of talk about how it is different. And I think Joanne is jumping in saying she thinks it's hard for parents to also, yes, exactly. It is hard for them to understand because we all want what's best for their students for their children. But I think understanding and I think the way Laura, you said, That we have we are related service, meaning our services need to be related to the classroom to the education.
[00:22:47] Laura Mansfield: Yes. 
[00:22:48] Yeah. And that could be their curriculum or it could be new social skills. You know, it could be resource and lunch and those types of things. And I agree with you, Joanne. I do. think it is important for us to practice and to have a little script that we're comfortable with so that we can explain when a child qualifies, the goal of our service, why we're providing it, and that the ultimate goal is that they won't need us anymore.
[00:23:14] I think, I think we do parents a disservice when we don't have that conversation at the initial qualifying meeting. So this is my role in the school. This is how I'm different. educationally from a medical clinical model. We have the same training. I have the same master's degree, but their criteria is activities of daily living, quality of life, insurance coverage.
[00:23:40] My criteria is, does the child require my service to access special education or general education services? This is my role. This is how I'm going to bridge that gap to these skills that maybe the special ed teacher is working on. Sometimes a special ed teacher, say, might work on comprehension. In the second grade classroom, but my child doesn't really understand the difference between where, when, and why I might focus on where, when, and why, because I know they're not doing that in the classroom in the way that my child needs.
[00:24:13] To be able to answer comprehension questions, but I'm connecting what I'm doing to a book and I'm doing, you know, literacy based therapy that's contextualized and get in teaching them with visuals that then the teacher can use in the classroom when they're asking comprehension questions related to books in the classroom.
[00:24:30] And once they have that skill, you know, my goal is to pull back and maybe do consult services now that they have that skill. So I think. It's important to think that through and, and be able to explain it to parents and staff, you know, this is, this is what I'm doing. 
[00:24:49] Carolyn Dolby: Yeah, I like that because right. Oh, Elaine just jumped in.
[00:24:53] She says, I agree. I talk about goal of moving out of speech from the initial IEP and talk about it at each annual review. That's perfect. And that's a great way to just remember to do that every single meeting. And how they're doing in the big picture, because right, we want them to not need us. The goal is to get out.
[00:25:14] Otherwise, everybody in speech, if the goal was everyone to have speech, we'd just take all of them. But that's not our role. 
[00:25:21] Laura Mansfield: I think sometimes maybe we do over qualify students. I mean, not every student in the school would benefit from the skill sets that we have. It's just a fact. They all would, and sometimes it's hard to draw that line for students where you feel like, but I could help them because that's what we do.
[00:25:38] We're caring, you know, people, but then I think it impacts our ability to be effective with the students who really require our services and it wouldn't just benefit from them. 
[00:25:48] Carolyn Dolby: Exactly. That's when we, that when we're talking about, we're frustrated with how large our caseloads are. Well, we need to take a minute and look at those caseloads and really think about the three prongs of our, you know, qualifications.
[00:26:04] Is there a disability? Right? And are the need, do they need specialized instruction?
[00:26:11] Laura Mansfield: Are they making effective progress in the classroom? 
[00:26:14] Carolyn Dolby: Right. Oh, right. Do they need to make effective progress in the classroom? And third, are the skills of an SLP the one that is needed? Because they still might need the help.
[00:26:26] But they don't need, but there's, they're receiving other supports. I mean, I think it does get a little hard when they're only qualifying for speech. You know, they're only they're provided special education under the umbrella of speech. That does get a little but I think if we follow Elaine's advice even if they're coming under just speech that at the very initial IEP, we're saying our goal is to get them in, get them out.
[00:26:51] And then at each, yeah. Thank you, Elaine. 
[00:26:54] Laura Mansfield: I think a lot of times too, the speech only youth tend to be the younger. With your younger children a lot of the times, and so it's important to have conversations at those meetings about how sometimes, you know, this is a developmental delay and that the child can grow these skills and that that would be the goal.
[00:27:13] But sometimes it can also be a precursor to other things. And so we have to be good advocates for students. If we see red flags for reading disabilities or comprehension disabilities. Because if they do have a true language based disability, it is going to impact them academically. And depending on the state that you're in, sometimes a school district might not have done a psychoeducational evaluation.
[00:27:34] And that child really requires that in order to make sure that they get the academic supports that they needed, you know, with a special educator. 
[00:27:43] Carolyn Dolby: 100 percent which leads us right into leadership and being an SLP and being a leadership. What does that look like? 
[00:27:50] Laura Mansfield: Yeah, I think I used to think that leadership was my title.
[00:27:54] And I definitely have found that leadership is we lead no matter where we are in a school. And I really feel like speech language pathologists have a unique opportunity to be leaders and agents of change in their schools. By We touch so many people in a school, you know, in the school that I'm in.
[00:28:15] I'm the only SLP. I work with grades 1 through 5. I work with multiple teachers in each grade. I work with we call them ESPs, the educational support personnel. I work with the occupational therapist, the physical therapist, the school psychologist, the school adjustment counselor. I have a lot of ability to impact those relationships across a school.
[00:28:40] I really do. And I can you know, I've definitely not done it well in the past for sure. And I've learned a lot along the way on how to build those relationships and advocate for change in my building. Like my building was using More of a whole language balance literacy approach and through advocacy, we've got them to bring in more of a structured literacy approach.
[00:29:07] And that I think is because of relationships that I developed across the school and insight that I could bring to the table. You know, I think leaders, it depends on, I guess, your definition of leader. I like servant leader, but we have to lead ourselves first and we lead our students. And we can lead change in our schools.
[00:29:28] And we can provide leadership to teachers and our administrators. A lot of, I've had administrators say to me that SSLPs make them nervous or they're afraid of us. Because they don't really understand what we do. And I think that's the case a lot of the time. But it took me being an administrator to go into my principal and say, you know, What are your initiatives in the school that I can support you with?
[00:29:51] What are your biggest goals this year? That's leadership. You know, that's listening first and trying to understand the system. You know, we're in this big umbrella educational system, but then we're in our school, which is a system within the larger umbrella. So how does my, how does this school work? What are the goals of my administrator?
[00:30:12] What are the goals of that teacher that I want to work with? What are the goals of the parent for my, for the child? You know, what goals do we have? How does my student understand their goals? All of those skills, you know, take leadership. 
[00:30:24] Carolyn Dolby: Agreed. Kelsey agrees. Thanks, Kelsey Burge out there. She also thinks, you know, SLPs, we are leaders, not only in the school.
[00:30:31] She's saying, we're SLPs are leaders in the hospital setting and in SNFs everywhere that she's worked. She's been a leader and in the schools as well. And I think that's true. I'm, you know, as an SLP is full stop an SLP, whether we work in whatever setting we are and we are the leader. But I love.
[00:30:50] When we're really talking about what we need to do in the educational setting that yes, we are trained to be leaders should be trained to be leaders but I think we're here to, to, to get more insight on how can we what's the potential for us to, to become that leader. 
[00:31:09] Laura Mansfield: Yeah. And I know I'm listening to, and I'm thinking, No, I don't want any SLP to listen to this and think that there's more things that I have to do and feel overwhelmed.
[00:31:20] I just want to empower SLPs to think about, you know, how we do what we do is sometimes more important than what we do. We have an opportunity to support. We are trained communicators. We're communication experts. And yet sometimes I feel like we fall short with communicating with other adults, or being able to navigate hard conversations with teachers or come alongside people in a school setting, and we can get really frustrated, and sometimes how we communicate our needs, that frustration comes out, and then we can't be heard.
[00:31:57] So I think there's a whole set of skills underneath the, what we do. To help us figure out how to do it in a way that helps us be hard. You know, it's not always successful, you know, I've worked for really difficult administrators where as much as it depended on me, I did everything I could and they just didn't get it and they didn't understand.
[00:32:21] And sometimes you do have to walk away, you know, if you're in that kind of environment, but I hope, and in my career, those have been less frequent than People who really just wanted what was best for kids and we're open to having conversations about this really isn't working. And this is why, but I had to have clarity on why it wasn't working and what I thought could solve the problem because you, I'm the only one, like, especially most of the administrators I worked with were teachers.
[00:32:52] Or and hadn't aren't clinicians, like we're clinicians. We have a different clinical understanding of the skills that we're looking at for our students. And so we have to understand the educational system and what might work to help us best provide those clinical services within the school and that take the leadership skills, 
[00:33:12] Carolyn Dolby: right?
[00:33:13] Right? Leadership or agents of change. 
[00:33:16] Laura Mansfield: Yes, exactly. Agency. I love that word agency that we feel ownership and agency and not in a way that again is I don't know. Unfortunately, when I sat as an administrator, administrators a lot of times would be frustrated with the SLPs. They're always asking for things like these are things that I heard as an administrator and it always broke my heart because I knew the heart of the person asking, but with an administrative team who feels frustrated and overwhelmed and they don't really know how to help us because they haven't done like, you know, We know it's sometimes it's hard to remember that not everyone knows what we know.
[00:33:53] Have you ever felt that way? Like you're, you're like, what? You don't know that? Doesn't everybody know that? That seems weird. So instead of assuming they know, I, now I just assume they have good, I assume good intentions. And I assume it's just a misunderstanding. They just don't understand until I'm proven, Otherwise, so we have that conversation and I asked the questions like, why are we doing it that way?
[00:34:15] Can you help me understand? Can I offer a solution to this problem and come with that, you know, solution oriented mindset? Love we're not taking it personally. 
[00:34:25] Carolyn Dolby: When you said assume they're coming from good intentions. I think that is powerful. If we come from that positive, okay, they're, you know, they're coming from a good intention, so I need to know, I need clarity, because being clear is kind.
[00:34:44] Laura Mansfield: Yes. Exactly. 
[00:34:47] Carolyn Dolby: So, yeah, I think, like you said, we need to, we need to understand what the situation is before we can, so we know how to help and be on, and get what we need understood. 
[00:35:03] Laura Mansfield: Sure. Yeah, and sometimes, it's, sometimes we can be so frustrated, we can just be like, okay, so it's too high. Like, fix it as opposed to this is this is my perception of what's happening in this setting with the students and here's a potential solution.
[00:35:18] I have and this is why I think it works. 
[00:35:21] And this is how it meets all of your regulatory requirements because I've asked the questions. I think that approach. Hopefully, you know, can help. And sometimes it's just starting those ongoing conversations and getting those conversations going. You know, it wasn't until I was an administrator that it even occurred to me to look at what my district, every district has a district improvement plan.
[00:35:44] They have goals of how they're where they're trying to move a district and schools have those 2 and principles spend a lot of time on that. And it never occurred to me to ask it never occurred to me to ask my teachers, did they understand my role? Was there anything I was doing that was limiting my ability, our ability to communicate?
[00:36:02] So, I, every school year, I send out an email using Google forms with some basic questions. You know, is there anything you want me to know? Is there anything I can do better? For new teachers, do you understand the role of an SLP in the classrooms or anything I can do to clarify that those kinds of questions to really survey the staff that I'm going to work with?
[00:36:23] So I know. Kind of what they, where I'm starting from, like, we did today, where are we starting from? What's our, you know, what's what's what are you frustrated about? What's working for you? How long have you been doing this? Just so you understand your audience a little bit better, I think. You know, seeking first to understand before being understood.
[00:36:41] That's Stephen Covey Seven Habits Highly Effective People. I love that book, 
[00:36:45] and I think that piece of seeking first to understand is something that we can do really well because we're all human. Clinicians, we're so good at asking questions and getting to the bottom of things. We're diagnosticians.
[00:36:59] We're problem solvers. I mean, we solve problems all day long. We, you know, differentiate for our kids. We're flexible. We're creative. We're our best therapy tool always. And so I think we can come up with these forward thinking out of the box. That is still falls within the regulation. allows us to better hone in on the skills our kids need, be more effective, which I think helps us feel better about our work.
[00:37:29] And then be that, that positive, you know, shift culture shifter in the school because we, we have so many touches across the building. 
[00:37:40] Carolyn Dolby: Absolutely. And I mean, touching on caseload, I think we'd all, most of us are going to say I'm super frustrated with how high my caseload is. And I think You, you gave us some great things to think about.
[00:37:53] Think about your service delivery model. Think about is everybody 230 or everybody 150 or whatever it is. Is everybody in that cookie cutter? That would be exhausting. You couldn't get everybody in, you know, and really at the dose and frequency for what the, not every child needs that same dose and frequency.
[00:38:19] Laura Mansfield: Yeah. And unfortunately, I mean, we have, we do have a lot of research on more of that speed speech model for effectiveness, but there is some new research around even things like grammar where researchers have done more short, you know, 15 minute twice a week or something that kind of shorter targeted. So I'm all for trying things.
[00:38:41] And I always tell parents, you know, my goal is to meet this goal with, for your child to make this growth. And if what I'm doing is not working, I'll, you know. We have amendments like we can change things. And so, you know, building that trusting relationship with your family so that they know to that.
[00:38:57] If it's not working, we'll change it. I think that's that's really helpful as well, but, you know, caseload numbers. I think. If you are qualifying children in isolation outside of what the teacher is seeing what they're doing in the classroom, that's a really. Priority if that you could make this next school year, you know, are you serving teachers?
[00:39:21] Do they fill out something for you? Do you have a sense of what their skill set is in the classroom? And once you get scores, standardized scores, do you have a sense of how that's impacting them in the classroom? Because even if. And this is the federal law, even if they have a disability, if they're still making effective progress in the classroom, they don't qualify.
[00:39:42] That's the next question. 
[00:39:44] Carolyn Dolby: Wait, say that louder for the ones in the back. 
[00:39:47] Laura Mansfield: You can have a disability and still not get IEP services. Just because you have a disability does not mean you qualify. So we have to be able to explain how the disability impacts progress and why they need our service to make effective progress.
[00:40:07] And it might not always be us. They can, I have identified disabilities and weaknesses, deficits in students. And as a team, we decided the best person to work on that was a special ed teacher. I might have a consult with that special ed teacher, but that doesn't mean they need me to work on that skill.
[00:40:27] Carolyn Dolby: And depending on the skill, would the skill be Taking them away from learning it in the classroom in the context that it should be. 
[00:40:37] Laura Mansfield: How often? 
[00:40:38] Carolyn Dolby: Yeah. 
[00:40:39] Laura Mansfield: Sorry, but like, how often do we forget that these are real human beings? Yes. Like these are children who sometimes have such messy schedules. They're bouncing in and out.
[00:40:50] They're working with multiple different people who are using multiple different supports with all different strategies and they have a disability. Okay. And we wonder why they're not like, and they don't sometimes the teachers don't go year to year using the same strategy and then they have to learn a new strategy.
[00:41:10] But, you know, I like to keep that child in the middle of the conversation with parents as well. Like, I understand, you know, that you want your child to have. All that more. However, all that more means missing. They might miss math or miss their reading group or miss, you know, whatever it is that's happening in the classroom and that doesn't allow continuity for your child to learn this curriculum area and that's important too.
[00:41:38] So we have to balance those things. We only have so much time and yes, I want to address the skill, but I honestly can't address that skill in 15 minutes. Yeah. Because that's the thing I'm honing in on. Sometimes I think we also try and do too many broad things. And so when you're trying to do too much, it's hard to fit it all in.
[00:41:56] So honing in on what's my role, what's my responsibility, what skill am I teaching? 
[00:42:02] Carolyn Dolby: I like that. Right. Because we could, I mean, it might not, not be KSO, but it might be how many goals do For every student and I think we really need to, to really think about, you know, we don't need to have 15 goals. There might have a lot of deficit.
[00:42:23] Absolutely. I'm not saying that they don't, they might not have weaknesses, but looking at what. is the biggest impact your service would be relating to what they need in the classroom. 
[00:42:38] Laura Mansfield: Yes. And which ones are most important to measure? Because just because it's not on the IEP doesn't mean we can't work on it.
[00:42:47] Sure. Right. We work on skills all the time that we're not measuring, but what are we going to measure to show the progress? In that deficit area and in writing, because sometimes I've gotten in where it's like, 1 objective, but there's actually 4 objectives in the 1 objectives. Like, they're working on plurals plus irregulars plus.
[00:43:09] I don't know, ING endings, plus, and it's all in one objective, I'm like, oh my goodness, like I take data on these, that's like four different goals for me. So yeah, which one am I going to measure to show the progress that the student needs to have the access to the, whatever that curriculum based or social emotional skill is.
[00:43:31] Carolyn Dolby: So I think what I'm hearing and I love this is that when you are deciding on the goals and this this ties into getting the buy in from the parents of understanding, you know, your So Your time and the reason why you're doing this time is you're choosing these goals that are going to have the biggest impact and those are the goals you're going to measure, but you're going to and being able to say to the parent because we're working on this goal, all these other objectives will come into play.
[00:44:01] We're just not. They all are. They all support this main goal that we're working on. 
[00:44:07] Laura Mansfield: Yeah, especially in the schools because you write them for a year. Yes. I'm thinking about where do I want to get them in the year, but there's like steps along the way. 
[00:44:16] Always.
[00:44:18] Carolyn Dolby: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Where do we go next?
[00:44:23] But how do we get, how do we advocate? How do we get to become agents of change? 
[00:44:30] Laura Mansfield: Wow. That's such a big question. I know. That was so hard. It's so hard because everyone's in their own setting with their own unique Players. Yeah. Unique systems, unique, you know, I'm not sure where everyone is across the country, but you know, every state has a little bit of a nuance difference sometimes.
[00:44:48] But I think one of the first things we can do is be really honest with ourselves, like, where am I? Where am I on my own clarity of what my role is in the school? Where am I with my relationships with the people that I work with? You know, where am I with my administrators and in my relationships with them?
[00:45:10] Do I feel like I am a clinician working well within an educational framework or am I trying to make that framework clinical? I think all those things are places that we can just kind of reflect. Without judgment, please. Yeah, I think we need to be really gentle with ourselves. This is there's no judgment here.
[00:45:32] It's just allowing ourselves to ask the questions and hold the answer and be okay with wherever the answer is. Knowing that we will figure it out because we always do, that's what we do. We're clinicians, we're SLPs, we always figure it out. So I think, you know, so good, nonjudgmental, curious, just being curious, not judgmental.
[00:45:56] That's Ted Lasso, one of my favorite. 
[00:45:58] Carolyn Dolby: Oh, that's, yeah, love Ted Lasso. 
[00:46:00] Laura Mansfield: That's like my favorite line from the whole show, you know, be curious, not judgmental. I have to tell myself that a lot. All the time decide to be hard on myself. You know, how well do I know the law? Am I depending on other people to tell me what the regs are?
[00:46:15] If I actually read them, I'm not going to lie to you. They're not all that fun and exciting to read. However, you really should get on your state website, read your state regs, understand them. And if you're being told to do something that you don't think matches, figure out how, who to ask and how to ask in a way that gets you the clarity you need.
[00:46:35] You know, that's not how I read that. Why are you interpreting it that way, you know, and again, not in a like gotcha kind of way. But then I just really want to understand because when I read this, this is what I'm how I'm interpreting it. And I think that this is within the law. Or can you sometimes there's case law.
[00:46:52] That administrators know, or there was a hearing in their district, and so they changed the policy that doesn't seem to quite line up with the law. But I want to know that I want to know how we got here so that I can operate under what they're saying. But I can also kind of in the places that I need to push back for clarity, but maybe it doesn't have to be that way that I understand what those spaces are and then I think we can also be really good listeners.
[00:47:20] You know, we listen diagnostically so well. Are we also listening to who we serve? You know, do we know what's most important to our administrators? Have we asked our teachers, you know, if we have provided clarity with our role, do they understand our role in their classroom? Do we understand their goals for their students?
[00:47:41] And we could do that with our students as well. You know, I'm a big proponent and all my kids knew what their goals were. So how are those, you know, their understanding of why they're with me, you know, and, and again, if my students don't know why, what we're working on and why, then I, that goes back to me, you know, am I clear?
[00:48:01] Am I clear? Do I know why I'm seeing you sometime? I know in the beginning, I definitely didn't. I definitely didn't.
[00:48:09] Carolyn Dolby: I love that. Get the, yeah, I think the kids, they have the right to know why they're being pulled from their peers or either in the classroom or being pulled to your room to know why.
[00:48:20] So they can have the words especially that helps that, that relationship between you and the parent when the student knows because, you know, kids go home and go, Oh, I did nothing. Oh, I don't go to speech. I don't go to speech. And they're like, wait, what? And they're like, what do you mean? And then you get that call.
[00:48:40] You haven't been seeing my child with for speech.
[00:48:44] 
[00:48:44] Laura Mansfield: Well, my kids, I would always ask them especially for move ins, like, who is your speech teacher? What did you do? And a lot of times they would say we played games, you know, they didn't really know what they did. And I know that the speech therapist was working on specific goals with them for sure.
[00:49:01] Carolyn Dolby: Absolutely. And so I think that the clarity, I think, is what you're really kind of hitting us with is everyone needs to have the clarity. So we need to be clear on what our role is. And the staff, the the school staff needs to have an understanding so they have clarity of what exactly our role is.
[00:49:25] We're not the gateway to all special ed and we need to then our parents need to have clarity on what speech therapy. Is in the school setting and I liked how you said yeah, we have the same skills the same education. We we A lot of us that work in the schools also work in the medical in clinics, we have all that skill set.
[00:49:53] We're not saying we Can't person like I personally can't do that because I'm this little speech bat. We're not saying that we're all superstars But what we're saying is that what we need to be doing in the schools is different Then what is being done outside and I'm 
[00:50:13] Laura Mansfield: beholden to the educational law.
[00:50:16] Be clinical based is beholden to the medical model. I'm beholden to the educational model. I operate under an educational system. And so how I frame who I see is filtered through that system. Unlike a medical. model. And that's how I will deal with like an outside eval with an IEE, you know, independent ed eval that's come in and SLP was a medical and sometimes unfortunately they'll prescribe how, what I'm supposed to do.
[00:50:47] Yes. And so I always will say, you know, that's great clinical information for me. I'm going to filter that through how they're performing in the classroom now. So I need to get some more information because that's only one piece of information. From this outside therapist now, I have to say, is there a is there a educational impact?
[00:51:08] Is it impacting their progress in the classroom? I need to collect some data for that. And then we can have a conversation and Carolyn. I just realized that my plug is broken. And my computer is dying. Oh no, run and get a different plug because it's telling me it's not charging. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm so sorry.
[00:51:29] No 
[00:51:29] Carolyn Dolby: worries. No worries. I'll be right back. Okay. I think what I just heard her say and makes me think about dynamic assessment. And what is really special about being a speech path in the school setting is that we get to see them in other settings besides just in the clinic, that one, one hour only and having that clarity with the parent that our testing is different.
[00:51:57] What they saw in the clinic is very different than what we can see in the classroom. And I think most of us in, in. I hope I'm, I'm unanimous in this that we are all being charged to do the impact statements in our IEPs I'm hoping that those that are listening that yes, we're all having to do impact statements because I think that is so powerful when we can do, yeah, okay, thanks, Beatrice, that yes, impact statements is what we're being charged to do now to really, we, Prove that there is a medic.
[00:52:33] Oh good. Thank you. Laurie. Oh, yes While you were gone, I was just talking about how we do dynamic assessments. We're not just doing one standard assessment in the Clinic, we're really seeing them in other in different settings within the school and how important it is for the impact So that's kind of what I was doing while you're in doing 
[00:52:55] Laura Mansfield: Thanks.
[00:52:55] I did hear you talk about dynamic assessment, which I love to see, you know, if I'm teaching the child this skill, how quickly do they pick it up? Sometimes that helps me also inform whether or not I feel like they need my skill or they don't actually need my skill. Right. Because if I teach it to them and then they can tell me a narrative because I just gave them a simple story structure, maybe they just haven't learned it.
[00:53:17] Maybe they don't actually need my skills and be missing class to learn that. So I think dynamic assessment is really helpful, but I think a lot of times we do, and we, I'm not trying to minimize the load that a lot of SLP's carry. I do it too. Like, I have a lot of evals to do. I know it's hard. But I also believe that there are simple systems we can put in place to find out from the teacher what they're seeing.
[00:53:42] So that we have that classroom piece is so critical and it's critically important for a school based SLP because if I don't know how they're doing in the classroom, how do I know if what I'm finding is related to what's happening? 
[00:53:58] Carolyn Dolby: Absolutely. And when you said, like, you, you teach, then test and read, you know, or.
[00:54:06] Yes, but I'm sorry. I'm getting that all mixed up. But and if they haven't learned it yet, does that make sense to take them out of the environment of learning? Or if they haven't been exposed to something, is that a deficit? Even though it's going to show up on a standardized test of, of a deficit, if you know, but how much have they had the education?
[00:54:33] Laura Mansfield: Yeah, I don't want to call something I'm very. I'm hesitant to call something a disability that might be a difference. I'd never want to label a child as having a disability if I think it could be something different. And so, you know, I love to use like someone had mentioned the RTI model and what that is, like, I really enjoy seeing students within the intervention model, because that gives me a lot of information about how well they can learn something.
[00:55:03] And if they can pick it up quickly. They probably don't have the disability yet. You know, I, I know those kids that take forever for me to even, you know, for them to even understand how to differentiate W. H. questions and the difference between the character and the setting and the story, those can be really hard for my students with, you know, DLD whereas I have these other students where there's concern, they pick it up really quickly and I can Kind of parse out.
[00:55:30] Oh, this looks like an attention issue or something else. That's not necessarily my realm. I think one other thing I'd love to say is just that, you know, it's great that we have this huge scope of practice and sometimes I think as SLPs, we get frustrated because it seems like our scope of practice keeps growing, you know, there's so many things we can do with the skill set that we have.
[00:55:54] It just doesn't mean we have to. Just because it's in our scope of practice doesn't mean it's our responsibility to work on.
[00:56:03] Carolyn Dolby: Yes, I think we're all going Yeah, raise the roof on that one because it is true there we I think it speaks We are superheroes. We have superpowers and we can do it. And yes, we we We are the gurus of communication but Is that it's not our it's not our You Responsibility to take over the roles of everyone in the school.
[00:56:32] Yes, even though we could do it better
[00:56:43] Yep, yeah. Oh gosh, this has been fantastic are there any Do you want to take aways any last thing? Do you want to make sure that you've have we've gone gone over everything you wanted to share with us? 
[00:56:58] Laura Mansfield: All right, I think I just want to say thank you for what you do speech language pathologists are so important in the school setting.
[00:57:05] I love the public school. I love being an SLP. I think our roles are so, so important and a lot of times under. Recognized because people don't really understand our training and what we can bring to the school setting. And I just want to empower those who are doing the work to. find joy in their work that they are doing. And so, I would love to connect with people. Is it okay if I share, like, you can find me on YouTube. 
[00:57:34] Carolyn Dolby: I was going to ask if we could, yeah, let's do a shout out of how people can connect with you. 
[00:57:39] Laura Mansfield: Yeah, right now I'm on YouTube. So if you just search my name, Dr.
[00:57:42] Laura Mansfield, I should pop right up. I do have a free download at thejoyfulslp. com slash qualify. So it's a qualifying guide and it kind of outlines some of the things we talked about today. The difference between the educational medical model and the 3 1 model, things like that. So if people would like that resource, they can go to that URL.
[00:58:00] Did you say Dr. Joy SLP? Dr. Joy SLP. So the website is thejoyfulSLP.com oh, I'm sorry. The joyful SLP dot com slash qualify. We'll get you that. And then if you want to find me on YouTube it's best to just search my name, Dr. Laura Mansfield. Let me see. I just popped that in the chat. Did I do that right?
[00:58:22] Yeah. And if anyone wanted to connect, you can email me at laura@thejoyfulslp.com 
[00:58:29] Carolyn Dolby: let me get that in that laura@thejoyfulslp.com
[00:58:35] Laura Mansfield: I'd love to get any feedback you have for me. 
[00:58:39] Carolyn Dolby: Wait. Laura at the joyful SLP. com. Got it. Boom. All right. 
[00:58:48] Laura Mansfield: Thank you, Carolyn. 
[00:58:49] Carolyn Dolby: No, thank you. Thank you everyone for joining us.
[00:58:53] A huge thank you, Dr. Laura. You are wonderful. I hope to have you back. I want to say thanks to everybody. Bye guys. Thank you so much. 
[00:59:04] Speaker: Thanks for joining us on today's podcast. Remember to go to speechtherapypd. com to learn more about earning ASHA CEUs. We appreciate your positive reviews and support and would love for you to write a quick review and subscribe. If you have indicated that you were part of the ASHA registry and entered both your ASHA number and a complete address in your account profile prior to the course completion.
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