bjlackwood’s Articles at WOW Fellowship Blog

The world of work is volatile and invigorating. In these unprecedented times, the world of digital work can be seen as limited, and in many respects it is. Communicating with colleagues becomes a bit more difficult, but this forces you to become creative. In the same vein, you have to be creative with social justice work.

Though I was not hands-on with every social justice initiative I saw at my job, I made note of many of them. Social justice work makes you sit with injustices and inequities, sometimes knowing that you may not have to find solutions all on your own. What you can do is try to understand why they exist and validate that they do exist.

When I started to learn more about IEPs (individualized education programs), I realized that the root of the issue of how they are administered in schools cannot be squarely blamed on just one person or one thing. The public education system and the massive amount of students it houses makes it difficult for IEP evaluations to be individualized and truly reflective of every last student.

Through my role, I was able to see the difficulties of having digital speech therapy. There are some inconsistencies with technology that cause distractions that you would not necessarily find in in-person meetings. It exposes areas in therapy that can be further developed to accommodate more people.

Before I started my internship at My Speech Matters, it would have been helpful to have known a bit more about the standard strategies that speech therapists use with children, in particular. The reason why I would have liked to know more about them would be to compare how well they work virtually. I did, however, have an opportunity to learn more about a wide range of strategies after observing several sessions over time. Learning how to assuage a child’s temper or gauge their attention over the computer requires adjustments. As mentioned earlier, they may be dealing with sensory overload in their environments or not accustomed to remote sessions. I would have appreciated knowing how different things needed to be handled given varying circumstances.

Lastly, to anyone looking to pursue a career in the speech pathology field, I would say it is as fulfilling as your mission. I believe that if you have a passion for helping individuals to work towards achieving social-emotional skills and goals, then the speech pathology field would be fulfilling. It is also a field in which imbalances in care and implementation of strategy are present. I always wonder who does and does not have access to speech pathology resources and ask why.

Working at My Speech Matters this summer has given me insight into my career in the sense that it has allowed me to envision the space I want to cultivate and provide for my community. It has been an invaluable experience in the sense that I have been exposed to many things that the field is working on and many ways that the field can do better. As I go through introspection about how things will progress in the field by the time I enter it, I still know that many things will need work.

I am interning for My Speech Matters, a speech therapy private practice for adults and children. I have aspirations to become a speech pathologist and would like to get insight into the working of a private practice and how they cater to NYC students. However, those who might have access to these things are still slighted. According to “NYC’s Special Education Crisis” written by Kevin Mahnken for The 74 Million, 50,000 NYC students were denied “students were denied special education services to which they were legally entitled in the 2016–17 school year.” Mahnken goes on to note that this is ¼ of city children who ultimately did not participate in the programs they were meant to take part in.

IEPs, or Individualized Educational Programs, is a document developed for each U.S. public school child who needs special education. Mahnken continues to give figures on just how many schools have IEPs and implement strategy from initial consultation. They note that 180,000 of NYC’s 1.1 million schools have IEPs. However, 23% of those are partially receiving those services and 4% were not receiving them at all. Though these numbers have grown compared to previous years, they have not grown enough.

At My Speech Matters licensed, speech therapists have extended knowledge in the field and provide speech services to students attending DOE schools and private schools. While this does not completely correct the insufficient care that some may be receiving inside of their schools, it does work to acknowledge the need for a better IEP program overall. Parents are not directly involved in in-school sessions between students and therapists. These sessions may also be group sessions in which students may not be catered to individually.

The questions of why isn’t every student who is in need of the services being evaluated properly through IEPs, and why are some students not getting the services they need are still present. There is also worry about the quality and timeliness of the services that students who are “fully receiving” services recommended through IEP receive. In the 2016-2017 school year “4,500 students had to wait more than 60 days — roughly one-fifth of a 10-month school year — for an IEP meeting after an initial evaluation.” Students who have learning impediments such as ADHD, autism, deafness, and speech related conditions miss out on the services that can be significantly aiding in their learning.

In recent news, amidst the pandemic, schools have naturally curtailed many services as the transition to virtual classroom learning in its initial stages are presented to be arcane and challenging. Special education programs have bared the brunt of these cutbacks. It is important to acknowledge that many students do not have access to technology at home as they would in the classroom. Just how services like occupational therapy and speech therapy will now be provided remotely has been under consideration. According to Alex Zimmerman in “NYC Gives the OK to shrink special education services amid coronavirus upheaval” for Chalkbeat some were concerned as to how meticulous educators will be about special education programs granted they were not obliged to replicate the classroom setting.

Some child sessions with My Speech Matters are essentially, outside-of-the-school sessions for students whose schools do not have in-house speech therapists. Most of the IEPs that these young children come to sessions with are watered down, and do not genuinely reflect the unique needs of the students. We can look towards the overwhelming need for supplemental educational services and underwhelming, unmatched supply. During these times My Speech Matters has been giving teletherapy sessions to all, and while they may not look 100% like in person sessions, they work to continue this need despite the shutting down of schools.

I have been able to sit in on many of these sessions with children who attend public NYC schools and take notes on the session basics, cataloging any questions that I may have. Issues with technology will always be an issue, but the sessions I observe work to further the organization’s implied mission of bringing the appropriate services to those who rightfully need them.

My Speech Matters is continuing to have speech therapy sessions through telecommunication.

I will continue to observe these sessions which have been supplemented by collecting information on parent groups, and school speech pathologists in the area in hopes of piecing together my introduction into this internship. These are only small steps. The real change will come once the DOE takes IEPs seriously and once the services provided are all encompassing and do not turn away students based on bias or perceived lack of need.