School of Speech Ep 20 === [00:00:00] Carolyn Dolby: 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 Dedicated to the excellence in the school setting. [00:01:20] Carolyn Dolby: Welcome and hello everyone. Oh my gosh, I am so excited to be here today. I am Carolyn Dolby and I am your SpeechTherapyPD. com podcast host for School of Speech. School of Speech is designed for the school based clinician SLPs to come together. Together we're going to explore current trends, share insights, and really champion our expertise. [00:01:42] Carolyn Dolby: Our goal is to bolster your confidence, celebrate our triumphs, and really foster a community dedicated to the excellence in the school setting. We have two guests today, Cassondra Wilson, an SLP, and Amy Duncan, a literacy specialist. They are going to be walking us through classroom based supports for dyslexic learners. [00:02:04] Carolyn Dolby: We hope today that you can add to your toolbox some strategies and supports to really bring back to your campuses for your caseload with with students with dyslexia. So Cassondra and Amy will be defining dyslexia's key characteristics and its impact on academic performance. While navigating our exploration of effective and practical intervention techniques with an emphasis on collaboration. [00:02:29] Carolyn Dolby: All right, I know we want to get started, but I'm sorry, we got some housekeeping. Here we go. Each of our episodes of School of Speech are 60 minutes and are offered for 0. 1 ASHA CEUs. [00:02:42] Carolyn Dolby: I'm going to go through our disclosures. Cassondra Wilson is a paid employee of the of the Ohio State University, and she's also receiving an honorarium for her participation in this discussion. Amy has no financial disclosures. [00:02:58] Carolyn Dolby: For non financial disclosure, both Amy and Cassondra are both board members of the Central Ohio International Dyslexia Association Branch. Okay, these are our experts right here. For me, I receive a salary as the district level specialized support clinician. I'm compensated also for graduate courses I teach at the University of Houston, and I'm a consultant to school districts across the nation supporting their program development staff training. [00:03:24] Carolyn Dolby: I also receive compensation from SpeechTherapyPD. com for hosting School of Speech which is my dream come true. Nonfinancial. I'm a member of TSHA, which is the Texas Speech and Hearing Association. I'm part of their feeding and swallowing task force. I volunteer for feeding matters and I also am an ASHA SIG member of both special interest groups, 13 swallowing, swallowing disorders. [00:03:46] Carolyn Dolby: Oh, 14 cultural and linguistic diversity and also school bait issues. Alright, but you know what? Enough about me. I want you guys to get to know Cassondra and Amy. So let me tell you a little bit more. I'm going to start with you, Cassondra. You, I know you know this, but everybody else out there. She is a clinical assistant professor at Ohio State University. [00:04:05] Carolyn Dolby: She currently teaches and provides clinical supervision to graduate students in OSU's Speech Language and Hearing Clinic. But before joining the the faculty at OSU she worked as a speech an SLP in the public schools and outpatient clinics, and her clinical expertise is school aged language learning disabilities, dyslexia, universal design for learning, and also assistive technology. [00:04:29] Carolyn Dolby: Okay, so we don't know what you don't do. Okay, good to know. Okay... [00:04:32] Cassondra Wilson: There's a few things there just a few. [00:04:34] Carolyn Dolby: All right, Amy, you're up. Okay. Oh, I should have asked you to pronounce that for me. Let's see if I if I do this right. Orton Gillingham. Oh, Orton Gillingham. I'm not sure why I was thinking I was going to stumble. [00:04:46] Carolyn Dolby: Okay, sorry, y'all. She is Orton Gillingham trained literacy specialist. We love that. And it's currently working towards her doctorate in special education at the Ohio State University. Previously, she worked as an intervention specialist in public schools and spent years in the clinical setting working with students with dyslexia. [00:05:05] Carolyn Dolby: This clinical setting allowed her the privilege of working with students for many years, taking them from early phonics, phonemic awareness to essay writing. Whoa. Wow. Welcome Cassondra. Welcome Amy. [00:05:17] Carolyn Dolby: How are you? [00:05:19] Cassondra Wilson: We're excited to be here and talk about something that we're both really passionate about, which is dyslexia and how we work with our dyslexic students. [00:05:27] Cassondra Wilson: So we're very excited to get started. [00:05:29] Carolyn Dolby: I love this. I think if you don't mind I personally want to know your journey of how you both became dyslexia divas. [00:05:38] Cassondra Wilson: I feel like before we got on, we were doing the air clap that were dyslexia divas. So hopefully that just sets the vibe for our talk today and our discussion. [00:05:47] Cassondra Wilson: But do you want to start? Do you want me to start? [00:05:48] Amy Duncan: You can go ahead. [00:05:49] Cassondra Wilson: Okay. [00:05:49] Cassondra Wilson: All right. I guess I'll start. So I am Cassondra Wilson. I have been a speech language pathologist for 13 years now. Seven of those, I have been more specialized in language learning disabilities. So how I got here is I took a chance when I moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and I took a position at the Howard School in Atlanta, Georgia, which is a small private school for children with language learning differences, or learning differences in general. [00:06:19] Cassondra Wilson: And that can be language, could be dyslexia, could be a couple different other things. But Again, for Children who learn differently. And that's where I first was exposed to working with clients and students with dyslexia. Their whole motto is that a different approach makes all the difference, right? [00:06:37] Cassondra Wilson: So it was the first time in my career as an SLP that was really challenged to think outside the box. How am I going to do therapy in a classroom? How am I going to work with kids who are at varying levels with varying challenges? And then what is my knowledge on dyslexia? And how am I going to work with these students? [00:06:53] Cassondra Wilson: How am I going to help them? Luckily, I had a ton of support in the administrative team as well as my colleagues. And it was a really great experience, which has spurred me to keep learning and continuing on working with kids with language learning differences and I'm happy to say I'm still doing it. [00:07:09] Cassondra Wilson: So even though I don't live in Atlanta anymore, I'm still on that track and even at the collegiate level I'm happy that I still get to work with clients that have dyslexia. Okay, [00:07:18] Amy Duncan: I am Amy Duncan and my journey started as a mom as many people start their journey with special education. But my oldest son is now 19 when he was 1, he was talking and then by 2, he had stopped and my undergrad is actually environmental biology. [00:07:37] Amy Duncan: So this is my 2nd go around, but. By working with early intervention and actually working with my sister, who was a kindergarten teacher I diligently worked on sound relationships with him with letters and sounds, and that kind of got me interested in, in just reading acquisition in general and. [00:07:59] Amy Duncan: How to teach that properly and the most effective way, I guess I should say. So he started talking again, but as we know that a lot of times, those speech delays are indicative of something that pops up later. And so something kind of popped up later in the school system, and we ended up pulling him out and I ended up homeschooling, which I thought I would never do, because I, it just kind of wasn't done in the kind of more urban environment. [00:08:25] Amy Duncan: I grew up in and, and by. Homeschooling, I learned even more about how to educate and how to differentiate with all of my Children. And when we at some point moved and stopped homeschooling, a friend of mine had who has dyslexic Children recommended that she thought I would be a very good teacher at their literacy center. [00:08:45] Amy Duncan: And so I kind of got started there and realized I needed my master's in the master's program. They didn't teach teachers. At the intervention specialists, how to teach reading and I had already had my training and I said, we got to do something about this. So I decided to go and get my PhD so I could make an impact in the higher education setting. [00:09:07] Carolyn Dolby: Wow. That's phenomenal. I'm just going to put this in the back of our heads for just 2nd Kelly. Thanks for joining us. She is wanting to broaden knowledge and also specifically screenings. If we can tie that in and I'm going to read I've written that down that that we can just maybe swing back around. [00:09:27] Carolyn Dolby: But I think since this is such a fun episode that we should start with facts and myths. [00:09:34] Cassondra Wilson: Oh, okay. Yeah. Let's start there. So for today we had a couple of different like ideas. We're throwing a few different ideas around. Like, do we just start off with like, you know, the dyslexia basics or could we make it more interactive, more fun, more engaging, because again, this is a podcast and we actually have an audience. [00:09:49] Cassondra Wilson: So why not engage the audience? So our first myth versus fact for the audience is. This is probably an easy one to get started with, but you can outgrow dyslexia. What are your guys thoughts? Is it something that you can outgrow? What do you think? [00:10:05] Carolyn Dolby: So if you don't mind listeners just doing a yes or no. [00:10:09] Cassondra Wilson: Yeah, throw it in the chat. Can you outgrow it or can you not? What do you think? No. [00:10:13] Carolyn Dolby: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. [00:10:15] Cassondra Wilson: Everybody agrees. Okay. Okay. We're just getting this going. So again, we knew that was an easy one. No, you cannot outgrow dyslexia. Persist through the lifespan. And again, annual monitoring of phonological skills is, you know, very important. [00:10:30] Cassondra Wilson: So again, not something you can outgrow. Okay, good. Glad we're on the same page. Great test question to start us off. So our second one is going to be, again, Myth versus fact. Accommodations are a crutch. Students who utilize them will become lazy. And my SLP is out here. Yeah, I know. I'm probably going to get a strong reaction. [00:10:54] Cassondra Wilson: We hear this all the time with AAC, right? When we're thinking about our big devices that we're using with you know, various clients. But when we're specifically talking about dyslexia and using assistive technology to help children work around some of their challenges, It is not them being lazy. [00:11:08] Cassondra Wilson: We're just giving them access to the material. We're not going to spend a lot of time today, like talking about assistive technology. I mean, we can but we're going to be a little bit more focused. I just wanted again to kind of bring us all together as SLPs. And again, the same thing range true here. [00:11:22] Cassondra Wilson: It is. Completely a myth. It's not going to promote laziness. Kids want the passive least resistance. So, you know, as soon as they're able to read and write, they're going to do those things. But again, we might need to utilize technology until they get there and they felt confident with that. [00:11:38] Carolyn Dolby: I love it. I'm sorry. I have to do a shout out to Adrienne Mars because I loved her answer because she was like, Oh, no. Okay. That was a great answer. [00:11:47] Cassondra Wilson: Amy's new to our SLP world. So again, we hear this all the time. So I figured I'd hit a couple of chords. Make sure everybody loves it before we really dive in. Okay. So dyslexia is caused by issues with eyesight and colored overlays in Ireland lenses can help them read. [00:12:04] Cassondra Wilson: That was a little bit trickier of a one, maybe a little bit more lengthier. I'll say it again. So dyslexia is caused by issues with eyesight and yet colored overlays can really help False. Myth. Okay. All right. All right. We're all on the same page again. Did you want to talk about that one? No, it's okay. I think we're again, we're on the same, I think we all have the same knowledge here. [00:12:22] Cassondra Wilson: So again, we really just wanted to, to you know, test our knowledge here and like, bring us together as a group. Writing and reading. Oh, this is my next one. Writing and reading letters backwards is a main sign of dyslexia. Myth or fact? Little slower on this one everybody, but that's okay, we're gonna, we're gonna talk about it. Yeah, let's talk about this one. This is where I thought I might stump some people. [00:12:44] Carolyn Dolby: Yeah, well I think they're like, are you tricking us? Yeah, right? [00:12:48] Amy Duncan: So, so all kids might reverse their letters and kind of put things like the B and the D, right? [00:12:56] Amy Duncan: It's often very tricky for all students. And it's actually a sign that their, their instinctual neurology is just intact. So imagine, we call this a mirror generalization. So if you can imagine a lion facing to the right, right? And I would say, what is this a picture of? And you'd say, it's a lion. Now, what if the lion was facing to the left, right? [00:13:20] Amy Duncan: What is it now? So your brain actually doesn't distinguish between it. It automatically creates a mirror representation of things for us. So it's kind of a survival instinct, right? You can kind of think like if a lion was approaching you, you want to be able to recognize it from multiple directions. And so it's a mirror generalization that is kind of a, a natural development. [00:13:46] Amy Duncan: And we have to essentially. Help them unlearn that when it comes to letter, letters representing sounds because so many of them, the P's and the Q's, the B's and the D's can trip them up. [00:13:59] Cassondra Wilson: So, okay, moving on. Dyslexia is caused by insufficient and ineffective phonics instruction. [00:14:08] Carolyn Dolby: Dyslexia is caused by ineffective phonics. [00:14:12] Cassondra Wilson: Insufficient, ineffective phonics instruction is caused. I put a tricky word in there. But, trying to trick you guys a little bit, but no. So again, additional phonics instruction may not significantly benefit a child with dyslexia, but children with dyslexia can acquire phonics skills once they possess foundational phonemic awareness abilities. [00:14:36] Cassondra Wilson: So again, just thinking that through a little bit more. Okay. And then I think that is, is that all the ones that we had? Yeah, that's pretty much sums it up for us, like getting the, you know, audience involved, but for like a row dyslexia profile, what are we looking for? Right. in our students What are the signs, right? And our students with dyslexia. [00:14:56] Cassondra Wilson: So again, things that we look out for. Difficulty with accurate and fluent word recognition. So fluency, reading fluency, we're checking that and accuracy. We're looking at challenges in spelling, impact on reading comprehension, differences in phonological processing, struggles with recognizing and manipulating sounds and language. [00:15:16] Cassondra Wilson: Potential difficulties with other language skills, like vocabulary and grammar and again, this is not something that they can outgrow, and something that I, I think that we in the field, and somebody asked a question already about screening, but something that I think we can be doing better as SLPs is early identification and intervention. [00:15:36] Cassondra Wilson: So we're going to keep talking about that throughout today's conversation, but again, the profile when we're thinking about it, it hits those things. Thanks. [00:15:43] Carolyn Dolby: So when you're talking about the profile, it, you, you, I think there was maybe like eight. I don't know if I got them all. I just, I just want to make sure because this would be those key characteristics, right? [00:15:54] Carolyn Dolby: And would they, and I'm sure you're going to get into this, like, is it more than one or how many of them? It [00:16:01] Cassondra Wilson: can be more than one. I think it impacts. Students differently. And I think that that's why you know, we have so many. This is we're getting off on a side tangent already. I think that that's why we have so many different reading programs. [00:16:13] Cassondra Wilson: I think that that's why there's been so many things developed is because not each kid presents the same way. There is not one size fits all approach. So I think that it's important to know that some Children might have some of these certain aspects, but not necessarily all of them, [00:16:28] Amy Duncan: It's, it's similar to other neurotypical kind of developmental disorders where there is a spectrum, and it can look a certain way for a certain child at a particular age, but then it can look different as things get more complex. [00:16:42] Amy Duncan: So, there are some children who make it through to third grade, simply by almost memorizing words. And then there are, and then when they hit more complex texts, then they start to decline in their academic success. And then there are students who struggle and they seem to be better and they say, well, it looks like we've got them up to grade level and, and then again, once things get more complex and they're expected to do More heavy, like heavy essay writing and that the language and vocabulary is just highly the morphology piece for them just isn't intact. [00:17:18] Amy Duncan: And then they try and take away supports and then they start to fail. So there is again, a overlapping waves and a smattering of symptoms as it, as it occurs with a lot of other developmental disorders. Wow. Okay. I know that we, I know we're SLPs here oh, and Amy yeah. [00:17:37] Cassondra Wilson: And amy. [00:17:37] Carolyn Dolby: And Amy, [00:17:38] Cassondra Wilson: newly adopted [00:17:40] Carolyn Dolby: Right. We're all saying what is the SLPs role? Mm-Hmm. like, is that too big of an ask? Is that too big of an ask? [00:17:48] Cassondra Wilson: It it's not too big of an ask. And I think I'm gonna let Amy answer that one. No. [00:17:53] Amy Duncan: Okay. I'm just gonna hit, made me. Kind of this is where this is one of the things that kind of sparked my interest when I was in the masters my master's program that that in doing research on my own. [00:18:06] Amy Duncan: I came across an author who show goes Swami and she is a. Cognitive developmental neuroscientist. I don't know if I have those in the right order, but she is my academic crush. [00:18:17] Amy Duncan: The paper she writes are actually very easy to read. [00:18:20] Cassondra Wilson: Yes. [00:18:20] Amy Duncan: And [00:18:21] Cassondra Wilson: go Swami for the listening. [00:18:23] Amy Duncan: So here are things. Here's something you need to know. [00:18:26] Cassondra Wilson: So let's think about it for a second. Why are where speech language pathologists have anything to do with written text? [00:18:32] Carolyn Dolby: Right, [00:18:32] Amy Duncan: right. [00:18:33] Amy Duncan: Because your realm and role usually just encompasses oral language. So oral language text based literacy is absolutely built and based off of oral language, right? [00:18:46] Cassondra Wilson: Yeah. [00:18:46] Amy Duncan: Okay. So our oral language is just, it is based on this timing and rhythmic component. Right. We're a stress timed language right now. Let me give you 2 background pieces. The things with with a student with dyslexia, there are 2 things you need to kind of understand as the speech comes in. So, even from infancy, we see differences here. [00:19:10] Amy Duncan: Okay, from the time they are born, they, they see these differences. So, as speech enters. Right. The ears that energy is perceived and it's all based on the timing of that acoustic energy. Right. What we're hearing, like, think about like the rise times in the speech envelope. [00:19:29] Cassondra Wilson: Yeah. [00:19:29] Amy Duncan: So the amplitude of the rise time, [00:19:31] Cassondra Wilson: going back to grad school. [00:19:32] Cassondra Wilson: Sorry. [00:19:33] Amy Duncan: I'm going way out of my scope, but interesting. I probably we're going to title it, but yes. So, but what they, what they see is that. They're unable to discriminate those rise times, though their actual perception of speech, they're unable to then create representations. And the reason why, too, is there's twofold, right? [00:19:55] Amy Duncan: You have their. They're unable to discriminate these rise times in that energy coming in what is supposed to happen as that energy comes in. Is that these energy fluctuations and they're called oscillations brain oscillations and I kind of think about it as this. [00:20:18] Amy Duncan: It's kind of a normal steady state, but as sensory information comes in, what is supposed to happen is the rhythmic, like timing is supposed to end train. It's supposed to sync up with that timing of energy that's coming in. And this is my understanding, and what's happening is, so they're unable to discriminate the timing, and they're also unable to sync up. [00:20:44] Amy Duncan: With the timing that they're perceiving. Yeah. So they're kind of twofold here is what is my understanding. And so they're unable to really create these great representations of sound. And that rhythmic structure of sound is what cues the learner, like to implicitly understand the code. Behind oral language, and then therefore the code that we see in written text. [00:21:12] Amy Duncan: So it is an oral language kind of from the beginning deficit comes in. It's a kind of a processing of that auditory, like that speech signal coming in and the entrainment of the brain oscillations to that speech signal. [00:21:27] Cassondra Wilson: And it's like every time Amy talks, I'm listening to her, I'm like, Whoa, [00:21:31] Amy Duncan: well, when I heard that I went, [00:21:33] Cassondra Wilson: Oh, wow. [00:21:35] Amy Duncan: I am not as smart as this woman, but she is. It's amazing. [00:21:39] Cassondra Wilson: It's really fascinating to think about, like, how we process language, how we process oral language, right? As a foundational skill for, like, learning to read. So again, I'm going to read a definition from Asha. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I see that. I'm okay. I'm going to read this definition from ASHA and I want you guys to think about this for a second. [00:22:00] Cassondra Wilson: So, a language disorder is impaired comprehension and or use of spoken, written, and or other symbol systems. The disorder may involve, one, and this is going to take you guys back to Bloom and Leahy. One, the form of language, which is phonology, morphology, syntax. Then you've got two, the content of language, semantics. [00:22:23] Cassondra Wilson: And, or three, the function, right, of language, so, and communication, pragmatics, any combination. That is from ASHA in 1993. So, do you think we have a role within dyslexia? When we think of form content use, right, content being, form being how we say something, content, what we say. Use why we say it and then thinking about like the whole language learning disability right is impaired comprehension and or use of spoken written and other simple systems. [00:22:59] Cassondra Wilson: I think we can make the case that we need to be working with these students. Now, before everybody comes at me with pitchforks, I am, I am not here to say that we need to be taking all of these students on. I think that our scope Is so wide, and it sometimes feels like it's never ending, and I don't think we need to be taking on dyslexia as an organ. [00:23:23] Cassondra Wilson: I don't think that that's what we need to be doing, but I think we need to be considering how do we work with our students who have these difficulties? What can we do to support them? Who do we find on our hallways? Who can we go find to help us work with these students, right? And I think that that's what led me to Amy, but we're going to talk a little bit more about our collaboration here in a second. [00:23:44] Cassondra Wilson: But I think when we just go back to the definition from Asha, it's pretty clear that we do have a role in it, right? And I think oftentimes, especially when I was first getting started with working with my students with dyslexia, I, I felt overwhelmed. Where do we even begin? What do we do? Like, how, how am I going to be working with this you know, student? [00:24:05] Cassondra Wilson: And I think it goes back to two key things, which every SLP on this call is going to be like, oh, yeah. We're going to talk about assessment, and then we're going to roll into intervention. Right? So Two key things. Do you want to, I saw that there might be some questions in the chat. Do you want, should we, [00:24:22] Carolyn Dolby: where we are was Lim was saying love Amy, your explanation really was stellar. [00:24:29] Carolyn Dolby: But could you Could one of you write in the chat the name of that author you were talking about? Because I did not capture it myself. [00:24:36] Amy Duncan: And I certainly don't want to, [00:24:37] Cassondra Wilson: you know. We wrote it down because we thought that somebody might ask that. So we want to make sure. [00:24:41] Amy Duncan: I don't want to misrepresent your research in any way. [00:24:44] Amy Duncan: This is just my understanding from what I've heard. [00:24:46] Carolyn Dolby: No, absolutely. But. As clinicians. [00:24:49] Amy Duncan: Yeah. [00:24:50] Carolyn Dolby: So I'm sorry to mean to talk over you. But as clinicians, we are always wanting to back up our work. We're always evidence based. We're always wanting to show research that shows exactly what we're talking about. And that was just it was fantastic. [00:25:03] Amy Duncan: Let me grab this. Well, I will say her papers. Well, it's [00:25:07] Cassondra Wilson: with an I. I spelled it with a need by that. It's I don't [00:25:10] Amy Duncan: your papers are so well written. I think that it's They're just enjoyable. All the research papers that I had to read in this program. It's so fun to read her papers. I find what she's doing very fascinating. [00:25:21] Carolyn Dolby: I'm going to spell out the name for our, so those of us that are going to be just listening to this the author is U S H A. Last name is G O S W A M I. Just so everybody gets it. Cause I, I think everybody listening is going to be like, I want to read that. For sure. [00:25:40] Cassondra Wilson: It's just so interesting. [00:25:42] Carolyn Dolby: Yeah, it is. [00:25:44] Amy Duncan: I wanted to touch just quickly before you touch on assessments. Yeah, because I'm watching the time a little bit. So I'm a little bit frustrated, I guess, but I understand that we cover a lot as intervention specialists. We, we cover a lot, but so do SLP's, but that we are not really trained to perform. [00:26:04] Amy Duncan: Assessments. Okay. The way that SLPs are perform kind of a different small, like, I, I don't, I guess, because I worked with students with this next Leah, I don't particularly feel like I need a major formal assessment, but these students do in order to get identified as early as possible. And while I wish that was part of our role in our education it isn't at this point in time. [00:26:30] Amy Duncan: At the very beginning, we see, we see the characteristics come out as oral language kind of their, their ability to reproduce words with multiple syllables, like elephant or spaghetti or popsicle or, you know, things like that, where they are. If they're jumbling, it's typical to do it a little bit, but jumbling those if they're just not hearing sounds quite correctly or that speech delay, you'll see these signs come up and that the speech pathologist is really well equipped to even just perform a quick past. [00:27:05] Amy Duncan: Yeah, I mean, we can work this assessment or something. [00:27:08] Cassondra Wilson: Somebody actually hold on. Go ahead. Let's talk about that for a second because somebody asked about screening already and I am going to segue into assessment here. So we're going to that's where we're going to start the conversation. So when I, when I do that, when I'm thinking about assessment. [00:27:20] Cassondra Wilson: The first step I what I might do is called the past, and I don't know if anybody on the chat has heard of the past before is any [00:27:31] Carolyn Dolby: jump on the chat but I also have another question to before we get too far in. So, oh, Sarah's, yeah, so we've got, yeah, it's real [00:27:41] Cassondra Wilson: quick and, and I can do a pass, right? The past, you know, so I would recommend looking at the past first as a screening measure. [00:27:50] Cassondra Wilson: Because one, especially if you're in the schools, one, it's free. Okay. That's the question. Is it free? And are you saying past P A S T? It's okay. Yeah. Yeah. The phonological awareness screening test. [00:28:06] Cassondra Wilson: So it's free. You can download it. Go check it out online. But teachers know about it. Oh, so that's why I would recommend it. Another really popular popular one is the Woodcock reading mastery test. W. R. M. T. But again, I would lean more towards the past in some instances, especially in the public school setting, just because one, it's free. [00:28:28] Cassondra Wilson: It's easy to download. It's quick. It will give you a little bit of insight to go off of and find your psychologist and be like, what's going on? We need more answers. So it's a nice foundation for that kind of a conversation. And then you can find your other friends on your hallway and go talk to them about, Hey, What is this onset rhyme? [00:28:47] Cassondra Wilson: Or, oh, he's not blending these sounds together. Oh, no, where were, what should I do here? And so then you can go phone a friend, and they can kind of help you get started. So again, it gives you a really nice basic baseline of where a child might be struggling. So I would tell you to look there first. [00:29:04] Carolyn Dolby: Is the past. [00:29:07] Carolyn Dolby: Is there an age range for the past or is it Oh, [00:29:10] Cassondra Wilson: yes. So there's different, like, there's a couple different forms. So, there's an A, B, C, and a D form. Mm-Hmm. . I think [00:29:19] Amy Duncan: it, it just goes in sections. It goes in sections on the age. Yes. So the preschool, it is really just, it's preschool, like a five minute thing. [00:29:28] Amy Duncan: Like it's not, it's really quick heavy. You just have 'em do a couple words like. You know, say popcorn, you know, or something. So it's about their, their hearing more phonological, like the larger components. Can they hear the break in the syllables? Can you repeat them back to you? Or do they kind of garble it or do they leave a syllable off? [00:29:47] Amy Duncan: Right. Right. That's, those are the things they're looking for. Right. And it's quick. And you know, they don't get a couple and you're done, [00:29:53] Cassondra Wilson: right? [00:29:53] Amy Duncan: So, and I'm actually, I pulled it up. Dr. David Kilpatrick is who developed the assessment. So I don't know if anybody's familiar, familiar with him on the call. [00:30:02] Amy Duncan: He's a phenomenal speaker if you ever get to go listen to him. But I really like this as a screening measure. And again, like it's very quick. It gives you just a very good baseline of information. I don't see you know, Age ranges per se on here, but I believe that I've given it. Is it? It is. [00:30:19] Amy Duncan: It's so tiny. Hold on. We're trying to blow it up. [00:30:22] Amy Duncan: I just did these [00:30:23] Cassondra Wilson: screenings last year. I guess I can make it. [00:30:25] Amy Duncan: It says level like [00:30:26] Cassondra Wilson: preschool. Yeah. Grade level. Preschool through. [00:30:30] Amy Duncan: Right. So you can pick the section of the category you're in and see if they do it. Or sometimes you start behind and just see how far they can get. [00:30:39] Amy Duncan: And then at our, at the literacy center where I worked, the SLP there, she always. Conducted the CTOP as a screening. Yes, and you can also screening measure because it counted working memory. And that's a, that's a pretty significant. [00:30:54] Cassondra Wilson: We're going to talk. We're going to talk. We're going to talk about what Amy's mentioning in one second. [00:30:58] Cassondra Wilson: Okay. Minute everyone, but okay. Screening free and free screening measure. I just, again, I want to reiterate that, like, that's something that you can access tomorrow, right? That's a tool for your toolbox that you can download and use ASAP. And that you don't have to have a lot of like. skill or practice yet to do. [00:31:17] Cassondra Wilson: So if you want to get started, I would tell you to look at that and see how it can help you with some of the clients that are maybe struggling or students that you see that are struggling. So start there. Any questions that came in as we're finishing that? I'm sorry. [00:31:30] Carolyn Dolby: Well, actually there was one that I think I missed a little earlier when you I mean, when you were talking about neural entrainment. [00:31:36] Carolyn Dolby: What does it look like in young Children? And if we can maybe start with the young Children that look like, and then we can jump back into Where we're going next. [00:31:44] Amy Duncan: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know exactly what I don't understand the question all the way. What it looks like. It's a lack of the lack [00:31:51] Carolyn Dolby: of like what I'm sorry. [00:31:53] Carolyn Dolby: I didn't even ask the question. Right? How would that synchro inability to synchronize? Everything look in a young child. [00:32:04] Amy Duncan: Oh, so, I think how it how it's coming out is how they and what you see is that kind of syllable that mishearing of syllables and inability to kind of blend or segment maybe put they might hear the syllables coming in, but not. [00:32:23] Amy Duncan: But not necessarily be able to repeat them back to you. Okay. I mean, I'm not 100 percent sure. I think what we really see from this or what makes sense based on this is that they're not able to encode or they're not able to implicitly form a memory. about what this word sounds like and where timing happens within this word. [00:32:52] Amy Duncan: And they're not able to gain this kind of statistical knowledge that happens with typical children to start forming these kind of, Ethereal like conceptions of how language is structured. [00:33:07] Carolyn Dolby: Okay. Okay. [00:33:08] Amy Duncan: So, I, I can't, I can't tell you kind of what, what the neurological tests they do. That's way out of my realm. [00:33:15] Amy Duncan: But I think it's an explanation for why they're not forming. Phonological representations appropriately because they're not, they're not perceiving them properly and they're not able to remember them like form of concrete representation. That's my understanding [00:33:34] Cassondra Wilson: representation. [00:33:35] Amy Duncan: Yeah, that's my understanding. [00:33:36] Amy Duncan: So it kind of maybe makes sense why it takes them longer to learn. Right. It's not that they can't learn, but it takes them longer to learn because they have to kind of really zero in and hear it like carefully and completely and practice saying it and repeating it and things like that. So they just might need more more exposure than than the typical. [00:33:57] Amy Duncan: Okay. Hopefully I answered that. Okay. Again, this is, this is, this is quite out of my general scope, but interesting. [00:34:04] Cassondra Wilson: Yeah. Nonetheless, very interesting. Yeah. All right. Should I start talking about assessment? Cause I know everybody's [00:34:10] Carolyn Dolby: let's jump right into assessment. Cause I really, [00:34:12] Cassondra Wilson: really excited to talk about assessment. [00:34:15] Cassondra Wilson: It's really gets us jazzed on a Wednesday night talking about standardized assessments, but It's funny because I also teach diagnostics here at the university. So I spent a lot of time talking about assessment and tests for my day job but I also really like to specifically talk about assessing our students who learn differently or have dyslexia. [00:34:36] Cassondra Wilson: So, when I'm assessing a student, I'm assessing for language. Language and literacy, language and literacy. So what do I mean by that? I'm looking at phonological awareness rapid naming, phonics reading fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, spelling, written expression, read reading ability. I'm looking at all of those pieces and how they come together. [00:35:02] Cassondra Wilson: So can anybody think of any assessments that we give on a routine basis? Or that you've given recently that hit phonological awareness. Rapid naming, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, spelling, oh, working memory. Oh, is that? That's not my, I mean, I skipped that. Working memory, very important. [00:35:23] Cassondra Wilson: Spelling, written expression, and then just maybe even general reading ability. Do any of our normal assessments do any of those things? Does anything come to mind for anyone? They might be waiting for me to go into it. So, yeah, I'm just going to go in. [00:35:38] Cassondra Wilson: So, spoiler alert, there are assessments that we already give, but I'm going to talk a little bit more about the subtests specifically. So, Again, I'm not going to say anything groundbreaking here, but assessments that we in the States give often is the C TOP. [00:35:58] Carolyn Dolby: See, two people already said that. I was going to see if you were going to say that before. [00:36:01] Cassondra Wilson: Amy said it earlier, you guys. She gave you a hint. So the C TOP is one that we give often, and key subtests for the C TOP are phonological awareness, phonological memory, rapid symbolic naming, and alternate phonology. phonological awareness. I get the past. And the, I'm, I'm kind of thinking about this too in like little subcategories. [00:36:23] Cassondra Wilson: So I'll give the C top specifically when I'm thinking about phonological processing. When I go to spoken language, I might switch gears and give the self five. [00:36:33] Carolyn Dolby: Kelly jumped in and said the cell with a question mark. So Kelly, [00:36:37] Cassondra Wilson: you're right. The whole cell five isn't going to give me the, the everything that I need, but it might give me some clues. [00:36:45] Cassondra Wilson: Right. And I know that that's an assessment that we have. Most schools have. So why not use what we have and try to pull some information out from those assessments? And then the castle. And then there's the TILS, which is another one. So CASEL's Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language. And then the TILS is Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills. [00:37:05] Cassondra Wilson: I threw that in there. TILS, I was wondering. [00:37:08] Carolyn Dolby: So what is the P A T N U? Pantoo? I'm not sure I'm familiar with that one. [00:37:14] Cassondra Wilson: Oh, the Phonological Assessment of Neuro. I'm going to, I, I call that, I think, the Patent. Patent. [00:37:26] Carolyn Dolby: I'm sorry. I don't give [00:37:27] Cassondra Wilson: often, but you can definitely take subtests from that assessment. [00:37:30] Cassondra Wilson: I've given it before. I haven't had easy access to it. So it's not when I give often like the school districts that I've worked in previously, didn't have that one actually. So I just, I wasn't able to give it, but there are definitely subtests from that assessment that will work here. But what you want to look for is, you know, Yeah. [00:37:47] Cassondra Wilson: Yeah. Thank you. Somebody put that in the chat. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. But again, I, I just like to think of assessments that maybe might get me things in a subcategory. So like written language is another area, right? When we're thinking about literacy and what assessments do we already give? [00:38:02] Cassondra Wilson: They're looking at written language. So we've got, you know, and I'm not going to say a complete list here, you guys, but just to get the, you know, Juices flowing here. We've got the test of word reading efficiency, which is the tower T O W R E. We have the gray oral reading tests. We've got the QRI, which is a personal favorite. [00:38:21] Cassondra Wilson: And I don't know if anybody on here has ever given the qualitative reading inventory. It is not a standardized assessment, but it's a great assessment. And if you have never looked up the qualitative reading inventory, I think we're now on like When back in the day, I think we were on like when I first learned about it, like the sixth edition. [00:38:39] Cassondra Wilson: I think we're on seven or eight now of the Q. R. I. But qualitative reading inventory. Go find that. It's an excellent assessment. It tests comprehension. It tests reading fluency. It tests look back strategies, comprehension strategies. I mean, it's a it's a gem of an assessment. So go check that out. If they give you any other tools, that's one. [00:38:59] Cassondra Wilson: So go look at that one. It's cheap. So love a good. It's not free, but it's a good cheap assessment that will give you a lot of information. Yeah, qualitatively. I just, I just want to pop that in there. And then what about the owls? Oh, the owls too. So I think, you know, the owls sometimes gets a bad rap. Sorry, Amy, I know we're going in here. [00:39:18] Cassondra Wilson: We're nerding out. [00:39:20] Cassondra Wilson: I think the owls gets a little bit of a bad rap. I, you know, it's going to give me more of an expressive and receptive language. And I've actually not given that secondary piece, which focuses on the written language, but it's definitely an assessment that does that. So if you have it in your repertoire of assessments, it's definitely one that I would tell you, go look at, see what it looks at. [00:39:42] Cassondra Wilson: And then go from there. But the, the part that I give, The most or I've seen given the most here in the States is the expressive and receptive side of that assessment. So I'm not as familiar with the written, the ones that I use the most are the test of integrated language and literacy, the tills, which is your assessment. [00:39:58] Cassondra Wilson: It's a really, really big box. So don't be overwhelmed when you see it, but it tests, it touches on so many things, expressive, receptive language, pragmatics. And it does a decent job at pragmatics and it really involves the individual's perception of what's going on. So, really like that part of that test. [00:40:16] Amy Duncan: And I'd like to jump in on that because, because, and again, this is another explanation for why kind of that, they call it the temple, temporal sampling framework. Why it makes sense that they're seeing this is because the students with dyslexia often have issues with. They're pragmatics and kind of some of their sometimes social language is a little off with them or their perception of it. [00:40:39] Amy Duncan: Because prosody is also based on kind of a timing feature as well. And so their perception of prosody is can also be a typical because of that kind of that neurological basis that's happening. [00:40:54] Cassondra Wilson: And really quickly for the sake of time, I don't want to get too lost in the weeds on assessment, but just to give you an idea of what I might, because I know the self is given, so I wanted to try to focus on ones I know that people really have like a quick access to that are really common. [00:41:08] Cassondra Wilson: So like for the self, subtests that I might look at specifically, besides like the overall core language score I might look at like the language content index. Well, and I also might look at the language structure index and how those scores come about and then dissect it even further by like all those little subtests that go into those scores, right? [00:41:29] Cassondra Wilson: So, but the language content and structure can kind of give you a decent idea. And then when I'm giving the C top, I'm looking at You know, the specifics here of Oh, I said them earlier, but there's so many different sub tests. I mean, I really do pay a lot of attention to the working memory side of the C top. [00:41:45] Cassondra Wilson: Cause I feel like that tells me a lot about is it sticking in their brain? It [00:41:49] Amy Duncan: does kind of indicate it. Sorry. It can be an indicator of how I hesitate to say this. How how quickly the student will respond to intervention. [00:42:02] Cassondra Wilson: Yeah, it can be even [00:42:03] Amy Duncan: appropriate. So, because if the working memory is. Is typical then I think at least from what I've seen, if the working memory is in the typical area or high, then then they're able to kind of encode those memories a little bit easier and there's not as much repetition needed. [00:42:24] Cassondra Wilson: Yeah. Last thing I'm going to say about this, if you, you are somebody who is like, Oh my gosh, I still am feeling overwhelmed. Just think about it this way. Take this and you'll hear dyslexia people talking about the simple view of reading. And I have a great visual for that from the tills and I'm doing this because all of my graduate students are like, Oh yeah. [00:42:45] Cassondra Wilson: the box. But it really is a great visual representation. I took it from the tills. So if you type in tills simple view of reading, this visual might come up and there'll be four boxes. But I like to think of it this way in my brain, right? So if a student has dyslexia, they're going to be typically good language comprehenders. [00:43:08] Cassondra Wilson: And poor word or they'll exhibit poor word recognition. [00:43:13] Carolyn Dolby: So did you say till simple view of reading? I want to make sure. [00:43:16] Cassondra Wilson: Yeah. Temple. If you Google tills, simple view of reading, there's going to be a visual that comes up and it's going to look like a graph, like a chart. And then you're going to have four boxes and essentially what it is on one access. [00:43:30] Cassondra Wilson: One axis. Oh, look at me going back to the geometry. You're good [00:43:35] Carolyn Dolby: language. Say what? Say again. Do you mind? I'm sorry, because I got us off track for a second. You're gonna be good at what? And then say that one more time for me. [00:43:44] Cassondra Wilson: Okay. I'll say the whole thing again. Don't even worry about it. So. You're looking at the simple view of reading, right? [00:43:50] Cassondra Wilson: So you've got on one access, you've got word recognition and on another access, you've got language comprehension, which is that oral language, right? Language comprehension, or just, yeah, language comprehension in general. Those are on what's, what's on the screen. On the axis, right? This is a visual in my mind. [00:44:07] Cassondra Wilson: Like, how can I bring this live to a podcast? And I'm sitting here with my hands to do this. Right? But when we think about individuals that have dyslexia, typically you're going to have an individual that has good Language comprehension and poor word recognition. If they have a mixed decoding, maybe comprehension type of deficit, they're going to have poor oral language comprehension and poor word recognition. [00:44:39] Cassondra Wilson: You take [00:44:40] Amy Duncan: are you looking at just as a question so that I understand [00:44:42] Cassondra Wilson: when I'm looking at a student and say they aren't performing well on an assessment, right? I'm looking for scores that are giving me more of an indication of how they're comprehending. And then also, Hmm. Can they identify words? Right? [00:44:58] Cassondra Wilson: How are they at identifying words? And if that individual is exhibiting difficulty with identifying words, and maybe even reading fluency, I'm going to be thinking, the alarm bells are going to be going off. Ooh, that, that, that looks like it might be dyslexia there. He's, he's really, he can follow my directions. [00:45:18] Cassondra Wilson: Right. So a teacher might tell you, wow, he's really, you know, great at sitting in the classroom. He's following the directions. Great. I give him a worksheet and he's just sitting there. Now there could be some executive functioning things going on, but he's, you know, I give him the worksheet and all of a sudden it's like, you know, what? [00:45:35] Cassondra Wilson: We just talked about isn't happening. And that could be an indicator for me. It's like, Oh, maybe that's a sign of we're, we're comprehending the language piece, but yet it's just not coming out. That could be dyslexia. Now I also get, and I know everybody on this call has probably seen this. If you're working in the schools the students that maybe have more of the mixed, the gray area, right. [00:45:55] Cassondra Wilson: Going on. So maybe a mixed decoding comprehension deficit, which would be for oral language comprehension with poor word recognition skills. Okay. And what that looks like in the classroom is a student who is maybe just putting their head down. Could be, right? Or maybe looking like they are completely off task. [00:46:16] Cassondra Wilson: And it could be ADHD. There could be something, you know, comorbidities. It could be something else. But, you know, completely off task, not comprehending, just looks like they aren't even paying attention, not even doing anything in the classroom. It could be that maybe they have this type of mixed deficit. [00:46:31] Amy Duncan: And by that, are you referring kind of to the dyslexia versus a specific language impairment? Yeah, I'm kind of segwaying into it. Yeah, SLI. Yeah. [00:46:41] Cassondra Wilson: So in our, our world down here in the States, you'll hear that often. So I'm trying to, to kind of segue into that because again, I think that's such an important piece of an assessment, right? [00:46:50] Cassondra Wilson: You've done all this beautiful hard work. What do you do with it? Okay, what do, what do these scores even mean? Alright, he's poor here in, you know, the receptive language task. Okay, so there's language, you know, going on. Alright, cool. But If that students also maybe, you know, we're decoding, I mean, it could be right. [00:47:10] Cassondra Wilson: Like that mixed decoding comprehension deficit versus just being more of like that straight dyslexia type of profile that were well, because we work with students with dyslexia, we're used to sync. [00:47:19] Amy Duncan: But either way, but yeah, that scenario you might then, you might then have the referral for not just the reading disability. [00:47:27] Amy Duncan: You might have an event and this might be kind of, we can Yeah. Yeah. We're going to say intervention where we've got. The intervention specialist working on the text base and then the SLP working on the oral language comprehension. And then we can kind of talk about, I don't know, [00:47:42] Cassondra Wilson: I think, I think we're, let's like again, I could probably talk about assessment all night. [00:47:47] Cassondra Wilson: So we are going to actually table that. I think we've got some ideas of assessments that we can give, but what do we do with information? How do we work together? How does that all come about? Right. And I think that we both were like, Oh, they take nothing else away from our talk. What, what would we want them to take? [00:48:04] Cassondra Wilson: And it's the importance of hallway conversations. And I know that's not groundbreaking. That's not going to be. You know, groundbreaking to anybody on, you know, listening, but it's the importance of leaving our speech caves. I don't know if anybody else calls that our speech closets. You know, down here in the States, not always, we don't always have, you know, great therapy spaces right in the schools. [00:48:24] Cassondra Wilson: I think that might be a universal experience amongst all of us. But we don't always have access to great spaces. Neither do our intervention specialist members. So, our friends. So [00:48:34] Amy Duncan: I, I remember in my head going, we're always kind of wondering, like, oh, tease over there. The interview specialist over here and the SLP is over here in another room. [00:48:42] Amy Duncan: And what are they doing in there? Yeah. And so I wanted to give you an overview of kind of what a typical Orton Gillingham slash structured literacy kind of lesson would look like so that you can see the overlap that happens between what is done for those students. And when I worked in the school because the very first thing you typically do is you have the letters on a card deck and you hold them and they say, he says, ah, he says, and you run through that. [00:49:09] Amy Duncan: Right. And I, I found that you also often have a card deck. So there is a text element sometimes to your SLP sessions. [00:49:17] Cassondra Wilson: It's a thing about articulation for a second. Right? That's first thing. And that's [00:49:21] Amy Duncan: exactly where it comes in. Because if I, what would happen is I would, I would be correcting the students and I wanted to make sure that if they're in speech or if I need to help correct a student, especially ESL students. [00:49:34] Amy Duncan: Who were having a hard time just acquiring certain, like producing certain new sounds that I would pop my head in Mm-Hmm. to the speech pathologist's office and say, Hey, so how do you cue this? You know? Right. Like, have them touch the tongue, touch their tongue right here, have them, you know, take a little straw. [00:49:51] Amy Duncan: So they would give me a quick, it was not a meeting I was not asking for, you know. Co teaching in any way, because I know how strapped you are for time. Yeah. Our, our caseload is like 16 and yours is like 80. So here in Ohio, I recognized how slammed she was, but I, I wanted to be sure that if she's doing articulation over here that I'm queuing it the same way. [00:50:16] Amy Duncan: In my air in my space, so and that I and that I'm doing it in an evidence based way. Yeah, I'm not just making up stuff. Yeah. Right. Right. And so that's the 1st thing we do. And then we would say the sound. And say, ah, and the student would have to write down the letter a, the letter that represents that sound. [00:50:34] Amy Duncan: So they would also have to kind of make that discrimination of like, which sound is which. And they have a, they often have difficulty with short vowel sounds because they're very close in production, like in the production space. And then, yeah, so that that's, again, something that's difficult. They can't discriminate those sounds. [00:50:51] Amy Duncan: So they do a visual drill, they do an auditory drill, they learn like letter sound correspondence. I dictate a sentence to them, and they have to in the letter sound correspondence, they would do spelling words that all have the same orthographic, like, pattern, right? So, OA words. We're going to do boat and float and moat and toast and, And so I would hear things would come up for me where what was it? [00:51:17] Amy Duncan: The, the student, instead of saying star was saying tar. It was doing that on multiple words. And I went, Hmm. And so I walked down to the SLP and I say, what's going on? Should they get an evaluation? Is this typical at this age? Because what's, what will happen in the literacy on the literacy end is that they're going to, they're going to think the word tar and they're going to spell the word T A R. [00:51:43] Amy Duncan: And so if we don't have, if we don't have these features kind of balanced between the oral and the text based language, then it's going to come out wrong. They might not recognize it when they're trying to sound out the word star. They might not actually be able to put those sounds together to blend the word and read it. [00:52:02] Amy Duncan: So there are, there are many overlapping components. They have to, Order if I dictate a sentence, they have to remember and structure their sentence and sequence their words properly, [00:52:14] Cassondra Wilson: right? [00:52:14] Amy Duncan: Just another kind of, yeah, like you work on [00:52:17] Cassondra Wilson: as well. I mean, thinking. Yeah, yes, definitely. And I think like, you know, even when I'm thinking like. [00:52:23] Cassondra Wilson: You know, when I think about or in Gillingham, like session, right, what she's doing in her space, kind of like how I can come in is thinking about like print concepts, right? So I'm switching gears a little bit, but I think it goes with like, how can we work together? Right. And where can we overlap? And I, you know, I think Amy just did a great job of talking about how like SLPs kind of can overlap over this way, but in our own world, when we get going on something, you know, what. [00:52:52] Cassondra Wilson: Can we pull apart? So thinking about like print concepts specifically, like word attack skills, right? Phonetic decoding. We, we know a little bit about that. We also know a little bit about word recognition skills. Phonological awareness. We all know, I know it's an umbrella term, but we all know blending, segmenting sounds, rhyming. [00:53:11] Cassondra Wilson: Those are all things that we can work on in our speech sessions, right? So when we're thinking of intervention, it's nothing groundbreaking. It's probably already things that you're doing, but maybe you didn't realize the impact that it was having on those students, specifically struggling readers. That that could really benefit them. [00:53:24] Cassondra Wilson: So again, like blending segmenting sounds rhyming when we're reading a book when you have the pictures in the words like again, it's not anything groundbreaking, but it's paying attention and really being intentional with what we're doing and me running down the hallway to her saying, wait a minute. [00:53:41] Cassondra Wilson: Okay. Hold on. Where's he at the program? Like, you know, like, what were levels he at? Like, how is he doing with, you know, you know, blending you know, three letters together, [00:53:51] Amy Duncan: right? I think one of the things that we've talked about a lot is that if everyone's doing something different and the child is at three different levels in three different spaces. [00:54:02] Cassondra Wilson: Right. [00:54:03] Amy Duncan: Then how are we holding that child to a high expectation because we want to be sure that if he's already learned the sound with her, that it's in his card deck when they're working with me, right? So, to honor what they've already learned, and if she's already taught him and cued him, how does make the R sound properly? [00:54:23] Amy Duncan: Then I need to be, I need to be forcing that. Nope, try it again, right? And then Q and know the right Q. [00:54:31] Cassondra Wilson: It's that alignment, right? Of our, yeah, aligning our practices, just being intentional with what we're doing, why we're doing it, how we're doing it and talking with each other. And, and again, it's not like, you know, when I worked at the Howard school, I had like, Oh, A whole bunch of planning time, right? [00:54:47] Cassondra Wilson: But that doesn't happen in the public school. It's like running down the hallway and say, Hey, I've got this kid today. See it. Like, you got 5 minutes after lunch or something along those lines. And it's making it happen that way. Might be like, Hey, I'm targeting vocab from so and so's class today. Ask her for the list and it can be just something as quick and simple as that. [00:55:06] Cassondra Wilson: And then boom, we're all working on the same vocabulary, right? Like the English teacher printed a vocab. I'm. Yeah. Switching gears, like my middle school, high school clients like, oh, hey, our students back in the day. So if [00:55:16] Amy Duncan: you're on, you know, if you have a child's IEP in front of you and they have dyslexia and speech services, then just, you know, this is what's in their car deck. [00:55:28] Amy Duncan: These are the articulation sounds and it can be, I know in the schools, everyone's running and they've got their phones and they just text and it can be that fast. It does not need to take a massive amount of time. We don't need to start having giant meetings about things, but it really can be just as simple as that. [00:55:45] Amy Duncan: Like text. Yeah. And you don't necessarily have to do it. You can ask the intervention specialist to like just pop an update, a text update if they, when they learn something new. [00:55:55] Cassondra Wilson: Right. Or like even, again, like going back, I pick on vocabulary often because it's easy. right? Like words are everywhere. We're always learning words. [00:56:03] Cassondra Wilson: We're always looking at words. And I think that when I teach vocabulary, I might be looking at different tier levels of words, right? You might have heard that like tier two, whatever. So I might be looking at some of those harder complex words. I'm like, Ooh, I wonder, you know, is he be, is he able to decode that just yet? [00:56:20] Cassondra Wilson: So then again, I might, you know, shoot that over to her and say, Hey, is this Word wise, like, how does this look like where he's at with you? Like, is this too complex? Do I need to scale it down? Maybe I can find some words that are at that, like, tier, whatever level that he's at and make sure they're challenging, but a little bit easier to decode. [00:56:36] Cassondra Wilson: So I can also just kind of reinforce, you know, the print awareness, right? So again, nothing groundbreaking. I think sometimes too, as SLPs, we hear dyslexia and it's like, Oh, Whoa, can't, can't do that enough to do. Yeah, we have enough to do. And it's like an immediate shutdown. Right. But the, the reality is, is we're already doing these things. [00:56:55] Cassondra Wilson: Like, it's really not anything new. And I don't think that we need to be obviously the literacy specialist. We don't need to take on that job, but I think that there's ways to help support and help think about like be intentional. With what we're, you know, presenting our students and when we're working with them, just being really mindful of the word choices, being mindful of, you know, Hey, I, I did the past and I remember you really struggled. [00:57:21] Cassondra Wilson: With some phonological awareness skills, maybe I'm going to start with a warm up with some phonological awareness skills, and I'm going to do a whole group and it's going to be fun. Everybody can benefit right? And then, you know, that kid probably doesn't feel singled out. Everybody's having fun doing a rhyming activity. [00:57:36] Cassondra Wilson: You're bringing some awareness to what has been happening in the intervention specialist room, and then you move on and you can continue on with your goals. But again, I don't think it always has to be so black and white. We don't always have to just, Oh, okay. Just like say, I'm going to put on my literacy hat. [00:57:51] Cassondra Wilson: This is what I'm doing. It doesn't always have to be that way. And I think that that's something I've learned throughout my, my years of working with clients and students and teachers and collaborating with others. Is that I don't always have to know everything. That I can rely on my, my counterparts and phone a friend. [00:58:06] Cassondra Wilson: Yeah. Again, I think that relationship is so huge. We're part of these IEP teams. Let's be a part of the IEP team. Right. Right. And like, get in there and yeah, like, yeah. High fives. You know, We're cheesy over here, guys. Just just accept it. But you know, we're part of the IEP team. Let's be a part of it. [00:58:23] Cassondra Wilson: Like, let's make our voices known, advocate for our students like we always do and make sure that these things are being addressed. So, [00:58:31] Carolyn Dolby: okay. All right. [00:58:33] Amy Duncan: Energy or what? [00:58:34] Carolyn Dolby: I love it. I love it. You brought it [00:58:37] Cassondra Wilson: today. I can't believe I, we, we've got the energy going today. Yeah. [00:58:41] Carolyn Dolby: So I just want to make sure that we've covered everything we, I think we did great on, we've got the screening past PAST. [00:58:49] Carolyn Dolby: That's a free tool. I'm just shouting it out for those in the back. And then you've given us a lot of, Those assessments we're already doing that can also give us a, Hey, there might be something else going on. Let's get, let's get them over to the interventionalists. And then I'm getting into strategies. [00:59:11] Cassondra Wilson: Right. Right. [00:59:13] Cassondra Wilson: And I think really the strategy is is use phoning a friend. If you feel like you're stuck finding somebody in your hallway that's doing a really good job and that is, you know, doing all the things like again, go find your literacy specialist. There are a wealth of knowledge if you feel like you're getting stuck getting started. [00:59:32] Amy Duncan: I would I would I don't know. Because you're based in Canada, correct? No. Houston. Oh. Oh, I didn't know that. I don't know. Just kidding. Just kidding. So, the, the professional development is coming. Yeah. And I think that's another thing too. It is coming. But in, like I said, in my master's program, which was not that long ago I knew how to teach literacy, but wasn't taught during that program. [00:59:56] Amy Duncan: No one in that program was taught how to teach literacy to a student with dyslexia. Right. And so. It's not always that you won't always be able to count on the intervention specialist. You might. Yeah. It's coming, but it's part of just the higher education is starting to see, right? And the laws many states are creating laws about it. [01:00:16] Amy Duncan: And so, it's coming, but you might. You might have someone like me, you know, and you'll see more of those soon, but I'm [01:00:26] Cassondra Wilson: coming to a classroom near you. All right. [01:00:28] Amy Duncan: When I was in the schools three, three years ago. Yeah. I think I was the only one who was trained, but since then. I think, I think all of [01:00:38] Cassondra Wilson: them, all of them got trained. [01:00:39] Cassondra Wilson: Like I was building one of three people trained in Orton Gillingham and then everybody else got trained. So it's coming, [01:00:45] Carolyn Dolby: but just, we're going to get that support coming. You said, [01:00:49] Cassondra Wilson: yeah, I definitely see a change in a shift. Nationally with this, and I think that, you know, as the laws have again, like, become more clear, more, you know, bringing attention to dyslexia, I think we're going to get more funding and more support for more explicit training. [01:01:04] Cassondra Wilson: I know that in the state of Ohio, we have a dyslexia support team, so they are, you know, a task force and, you know, as we're rolling out screenings, as we're rolling out, you know, you know, what we're doing next, they are a huge support. So I think more states are doing that as they, you know, do their own law as they form their own laws and regulations on how we're working with our dyslexic students. [01:01:28] Carolyn Dolby: Yeah. I think [01:01:29] Cassondra Wilson: nationally it's a conversation that is hopefully only gearing up and you're going to be hearing more and more and more about this. [01:01:36] Carolyn Dolby: I love it. That means we're on the we're on the ground floor. [01:01:38] Cassondra Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. [01:01:40] Carolyn Dolby: I love it. Well, I love it. Our time went by so fast today. I can't even believe it. Thank you, Cassondra. [01:01:46] Carolyn Dolby: Thank you, Amy. You guys are, I mean, you've blown my mind. You guys are amazing and thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us and coming on. I, I love the way that First of all, the passion you have for these students and just you can tell that you love what you do. And I think that that is infectious to all of us. [01:02:07] Carolyn Dolby: So this has been so fun. I do, I hate to say goodbye, but thank you, Cassondra. Thank you, Amy. [01:02:14] Cassondra Wilson: It's been great working with you. Thank you so much for having us. It's been such a fun conversation tonight. [01:02:19] Carolyn Dolby: I've loved it. All right. Bye everyone. [01:02:21] Carolyn Dolby: Thank you. [01:02:22] Carolyn Dolby: 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, we will submit earned CEUs to ASHA. [01:03:01] Carolyn Dolby: Please allow 1 2 months from the completion date for your CEUs to be reflected on your ASHA transcript. For our School of Speech listeners, we have a special coupon code to receive 20 off any annual subscription to SpeechTherapyPD. com. Head over there to get ASHA CEUs for listening to this podcast and all other episodes. [01:03:22] Carolyn Dolby: The code is SCHOOL20. That is S C H O O L 20. Hope to see you on our next episode. Also, please don't hesitate to tell us which topics you would like us to cover in future episodes. To get in touch, drop us a line in the comment section or send us a message on social media. [01:03:51] Carolyn Dolby: Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.