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Literacy-Based Speech Language Therapy Activities


                       Finding a fun and effective way for teachers, parents, and students to know their goals is
                       important.  You have put a tremendous amount of effort into your evaluation and progress notes.

                       Take one more minute to make sure that everyone understands what you are working on and that
                       your goals are functional, measurable and make and make an impact.

                       Alignment of State Curriculum and Speech-Language


                       Therapy



                       An important part of our work as
                       speech-language pathologists is to

                       support children within an
                       educational setting.  This is stated

                       in our federal guidelines through
                       the Individuals with Disabilities
                       Education Act (IDEA).  Part of
                       our responsibility is to ensure that

                       our efforts support the general
                       education curriculum.  Why is this
                       important?  It ensures that we are tackling the most salient concepts that result in academic success.


                       The Law

                       First, let's talk about the law.  The three parts that we need to know are:

                           1.  FAPE:  All children need to have a Free and Appropriate Public Education.
                           2.  Access to the General Education:  This means that all Individual Education Plans (IEPs)
                              need to align to the general education curriculum.

                           3.  Least Restrictive Environment:  Students should be provided special education services in
                              the least restrictive environments.

                       Because our educational plans need to consider the sentiments of the grade level curriculum, we are

                       required to align them.  So, that means that the goals of fourth grader working on his receptive and
                       expressive language goals need to relate to fourth grade state adopted curriculum standards.

                       Aligning to Curriculum

                       I promise that this goal is easier to accomplish than one may think.  Here is the most important
                       takeaway.  We are speech-LANGUAGE pathologists.  That means we are the experts in all-things-



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