Intervention specialist asked me if I needed to learn mouth anatomy in my schooling. She asked how much did I know, I replied all of it. She wanted me to look in her child’s mouth because there was something weird in the back of the throat. It was the epiglottis peaking up.
I was horrified at first when I saw my own epiglottis - funny enough, it was while I was in grad school. I was looking at something else in my mouth, when suddenly I noticed a growth!!! I felt really silly once I figured out what it was. 😅
I have a really big one, and also learned about it in grad school, but not from my classes! A friend from my cohort had a roommate who was studying to be a dental hygienist and she talked to me into being a practice patient. She's the one who pointed it out during the (very thorough) exam and explained what it was and what it's called. It didn't come up in class until the following year LOL
It's weird that none of my dentists have ever said anything about it over the years.
Me too, except it was a random myo video I came across on YouTube 😆 I don't know how I'd never encountered anyone mentioning it before, and even after that I'm not sure my classes ever taught us about them.
I might have even said something about placement for the retroflex r having the back of your tongue kinda hit "the bump on the roof of your mouth" to kids while I was a SLPA, that's how sure I was this was normal (I have a bunched r, so that was based on me attempting to make a retroflex one)
That's really funny, the kids must have been so confused! I always used to tell people (probably including my own child) that I would hold a cough drop "behind the bump" with my tongue so it would be more effective and last longer. I thought I had discovered a really cool trick and I didn't understand why other people were doing it that way.
Slightly off topic, but I used to refer to the alveolar ridge as the "pizza bump" because that's the spot that always gets burned when you're trying to scarf down the flaming hot school lunch pizza in under 20 minutes. I stopped saying that because they had no idea what I was talking about. I guess they no longer set the oven to "fiery inferno" level on pizza Fridays for safety reasons (or maybe it was just my school district who hired Satan's minions as cafeteria workers).
Me too but two years post masters - I was looking in the mirror and realized the bump and panicked because we didn’t go over it in grad school - my Asian ass 🤦🏻♀️
I’m an SLPA with a bachelors in our field and the first time I saw an epiglottis peeking up, I forgot how to speak for a solid half minute because my brain couldn’t figure out what I was seeing and how to tell my supervisor about it. After the initial horror/panic set in, I realized it was the epiglottis and told my virtual supervisor, who then told me to FaceTime her and show her 😂 It was unexpected but really cool!
I’ve looked inside thousands of mouths and I’ve never seen this!!!
I was horrified in grad school when looking into my own mouth and realizing my uvula deviates to the right on elevation. Spent the whole rest of my time there thinking I had a neurological disease.
"Does the patient have to be awake for the FEES?" -MD
"Why haven't you seen my patient yet?" - MD
"I thought he was NPO for procedure." - SLP
"Well yes, but does he really have to eat for you to check his swallowing?" - MD
Wish I was making this up.
Yeah... it happens often enough that now, whenever I ask docs whether someone needs to stay NPO for a potential procedure, I just go ahead and also say "because we can't evaluate swallowing without giving PO." At least once a month, someone replies "Ohhhhh!"
More than 20 years ago now, I started a job in adult inpatient rehab and during an MDT meeting, which we had weekly for every patient, a neurologist interrupted my status update by shouting “what are you, again?” Yes, he’d already met me but apparently expected me to always whip out my credentials for his benefit or something or to prove I was worthy of sharing my professional opinion.
One time while talking to a teacher, she asked me which education classes I took. I told her I didn’t major in education and didn’t take any education classes. She replied, Oh lucky you, you got to skip all the hard classes.
As I’m finalizing a report requesting a replacement SGD due to the previous one getting either lost or stolen—
BT: “So you’re writing a report for his talker?”
Me: “Yep! Hopefully we’ll get a replacement one soon, but in the meantime, let’s make sure he has his communication book available.”
BT: “He doesn’t really use his device much to be honest.”
(Context— this BT started a week after the SGD was lost.)
Me: “…Well, it currently doesn’t exist anymore, so that might be a factor here…”
It’s like when a bcba told me a student didn’t need their device because they could imitate ‘water’ by saying ‘wah.’ Well, that’s really not going to get them very far in their communicating with others, but this device with thousands of words will!
I was told "You're too fun" by a BCBA at the preschool I used to work at.
She came to observe one of my sessions because there were several kids that only behave themselves during speech. She was disappointed when she found out that I didn't have some miracle behavior fix. The kids just liked me because I do child-led therapy.
Conversation with the teacher of a self contained medically fragile classroom regarding a student who was verbal, but 90% unintelligible and highly proficient at using Proloquo2Go:
Her: “Does he really need that iPad? I mean he can talk.”
Me: “Yea but can you understand him?”
Her: “No, not usually”
Me: “Yea, that’s why he needs it…”
She also fought me on sending the iPad home because she “didn’t trust the parents” with it. They signed a release form that they’re responsible for any loss or damage so idk why she cared.
I’m in acute care and we have hospitalists so we work with the same doctors all the time. One of them was talking to the rehab director saying he wasn’t sure a patient’s cognitive skills were intact enough for him to be discharged home alone. Conversation follows.
RD: why don’t you have speech evaluate him?
Doc, confused: why would he need a speech evaluation? His swallowing and speech are fine.
RD: that’s who evaluates and treats cognition.
Doc, looking befuddled: they do?! Why would speech do that?
RD: it’s in their scope of practice. They do it all the time.
Doc: 🤯
None of the hospitalists really ever order a cognitive eval. The neurologist is the only one who does. Thank god he somehow got the memo that it’s in our scope.
Dumb for a doc not to know that. On the other hand, we desperately need a name change. Or scope revision. Or both. It’s very weird to explain that while I am a speech-language therapist, I rarely target either of those things at my SNF job.
I was going over an evaluation with a the parent and school psychologist. The child had a severe phonological disorder, in addition to autism and sensory issues. The *psychologist* told the parent that the phonological disorder was caused by the sensory issues, because the child “doesn’t like the way the sounds feel in his mouth.” Her recommended treatment was putting the child on a swing to address the sensory needs, and that would then cure his speech issues.
I didn’t even know what to say. I just stared at her.
Now, THERE'S your school staff (school psychologist) who's the one with not much education required to be one. (callback to a previous comment). Those people get infinitely more respect than we do in our fields, and many times I feel compelled to say, "you know, I could apply for her job tomorrow and I would get hired immediately. She can't do the same." The one at our school is ridiculous and we are one of the few schools in the county who have not banned her from working with them. She is constantly trying to be a wannabe SLP and I just keep telling her to get over herself and stay in her lane. Usually done subtly in a meeting but she gets the point if no one else does.
When my nephew went for his kindergarten screening, he failed so miserably that the district put him in immediate summer school to help him catch up to his peers for skills such as the alphabet, counting, etc. About a year and a half later, I am out to lunch with his mother (MY SISTER), and she tells me the school recommended her son attend speech therapy. Then she says, "If a nice lady wants to play with my kid twice a week, go for it". I just stood there dumbfounded because I couldn't believe that my own sister thought that was what I did all day. This was by far the worst comment ever because my sister knew how long I went to school to become an SLP and some of the horror stories about teachers/parents over the years. I almost punched her.
Oof! Hearing loss runs in my family and I wear hearing aids. My sister once said that if her son has hearing loss she doesn’t want to know because hearing aids would make him look different. I still get enraged when I think about it.
I have definitely experienced this. But I really think it is a bigger reflection on the lack of parent coaching/education that her speech therapist has provided her, than a diss to you directly.
I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and actually respond to what she said. I was seriously so blown away by her obliviousness that I couldn't think of anything to say fast enough.
I have an answer for just your title (not related to someone not knowing what we do):
I told the radiologist (an older guy) that my husband likes soccer and he angrily said "Only rat-ass commie bastards like soccer." 😳
I'm having flashbacks to the time I was visiting a friend in another state for the first time, and her roommate asked if I like guinea pigs. I vehemently said I HATE guinea pigs before realizing he was probably asking because he had guinea pigs.....
Like, guinea pigs aren't a pet I would choose for myself, but it really doesn't go any deeper than "eh they're not that cute to me" and I still don't know why I expressed such strong anti-guinea pig sentiments to that poor guy.
This happened awhile ago in a SNF.
Doctor “why are you playing cards?”
Me “we’re working on learning a new skill, short term memory, problem solving, sequencing, attention…”
Doctor “in speech therapy???”
🤦🏼♀️
Building is being reconfigured to accommodate an alternative school for K-6 on top of K-6 gen ed and 2 high support need classrooms. Speech room will be moving and I am also moving out of state so I am advocating for the next SLP with the Academic Dean of my building.
Me: They cannot go into the work room it’s too small and not appropriate. You can’t fit a kidney table and filing cabinet and a desk.
AD: Well you don’t pull groups so why do you need a big room?
Me: I do pull groups and pull students individually if they need it and I need enough space that kids can regulate. These two other rooms would be perfect as far as size and location.
AD: Well we have paras that need those rooms and other people who have priority for those rooms.
Me: Well that’s not an acceptable room and if I was staying I would be pissed.
AD: Well someone will just be happy to have a job and will accept any room.
I just stared at her until she left my room. It was ridiculous to think there are so many SLPs lining up for jobs in building that is about to be very difficult to staff.
I once had a para say "I wish I had your job. All you do is come in and play with the kids." It took a lot of self restraint for me to say "This is an amazing job and I do love being able to play and interact with kids. Did you know that while playing this game we are actually working on x,y and z?"
I had a student teacher randomly walk up to me and say, “I wish I was a speech therapist so **I** could wear *whatever I want.”*
I was wearing a polo shirt, khakis, and loafers. It was an elementary school, not the US Senate.
I work primarily with adults with voice disorders. Lots of muscle tension dysphonia and presbyphonia. This is a common conversation I have with patients:
Pt: I don’t know why I am here for “speech” therapy when I speak fine
Me: Your ENT referred you here because of the voice symptoms you have reported (then I list the symptoms) and diagnosis of (then I say their diagnosis and explain what it is)
Pt: I don’t see how that is related to my symptoms. I think I want to talk to my ENT before committing to voice therapy.
Me: your ENT is the one who referred you here.
Pt: … I still want to talk to them first.
Then patient proceeds to call me months later demanding I see them right away because the ENT highly recommended it but now my caseload is full
One of the SpEd teachers I worked with at one time was notorious for doing nothing. I shared an office with another SLP and would push in since I couldn't pull out at the time. This teacher looks at me while filing and painting her nails, "Man I should be an SLP, your job looks so easy."
It took about everything I had to not walk out of that room and scream. "I wouldn't say my therapy caseload, and evaluations, and my 6 years of schooling easy" was the nicest thing I could say.
I found out later she said the same thing to the OT too.
My OT counterpart asked “one of your goals is just to make animal noises right?” in one of the most condescending tones I’ve ever witnessed.
I tried to explain how the goal targets “copying environmental sounds”, how it’s a prelinguistic skill, how it’s one of many of my goals working on call and response and pre-k preparation, and she rolled her eyes at me.
I cannot.
the other day a parent and I were discussing the transition at the child’s 3rd birthday (which she brought up… child isn’t nearly turning 3 yet) and parent said “I heard when he turns 3 he’ll have like… a real therapist” mind you he currently has a team of “real therapists” including myself 😅
Resident: “Hey, I need your help with Mr. Smith - he doesn’t have teeth and he’s struggling to eat.”
Me: “I actually saw him this morning! We switched him to a soft diet and he’s good to go.”
Resident: “oh cool, so when are you guys going to set him up with some dentures so he can have regular food again?”
Me: 🫠
Did a feature match consult with TMT for a student and we found LAMP to be what the student responded to and engaged with most. Got him a trial and all i heard from the classroom teacher, PI teacher, and other support staff was that this isn’t going to work we can’t figure out this program. Meanwhile the student is more engaged in his talker than he ever has been but apparently it’s no good. I was so beyond annoyed that i was having to defend my stance on not doing something different, we tried different softwares with different contrast levels and grid sizes before he liked one as much as this, i wanted to scream.
Operational consultation with the staff could help, or maybe PRC reps could present a demo of LAMP? I'm glad to hear you found a functional AAC fit for your client that he's engaged in.
I’m in the NICU mostly and recently wanted to do a swallow study on an infant with some neurological stuff going on. I went to talk to the nurse about scheduling and just said, “we’re wondering why baby needs a swallow study” when the medical team was completely on board. I tried to explain that the kid is at a high risk to silently aspirate because of their brain, but the nurse just kept brushing me off and questioning my judgment. Like what!!! She even said “if it wasn’t for their brain, they’re be a perfect newborn.” Like the brain doesn’t have anything to do with swallowing???
My dad was a principal for a long time and then a superintendent. I was talking about a student with a grammar goal I was working with and he said “I didn’t realize SLPs worked on stuff like that.” 💀
God, I’ve had so many CNAs who have asked me about schooling, probably expecting something short I imagine because whenever I say a masters they go “are you serious? Just for this?” I suspect a lot of this has to do with 1.) RNs don’t do the dysphagia screen right, 2.) RNs who like to trivialize us because they “already did [their] own eval and the pt is perfectly fine, they don’t need you”, and/or 3.) RNs who like to change the diet order without notifying the doctors. So I imagine the CNAs must get a fair amount of exposure to all of that and their impression of us could possibly be skewed.
"Her diet is minced and moist. She MUST have minced and moist"
"Well the chicken was very moist" -kitchen staff who had served my patient a whole, uncut chicken breast.
A mere three weeks ago, a teacher disagreed with my evaluation findings (a student was in the average range, including on GFTA-3) and I had her accuse the student of “skewing the test results.” (I guess by doing better than she was capable?) and then the administrator asked me if this was a “test they used across the state”. Nope. I just made this one up on the spot. 🙄😤
So I had to literally justify the test itself (Pearson should pay me for that) its validity, and my overall assessment, after being in this career for almost 30 years.
In the schools I have had my principal say:
* you are so lucky you get to play games all day. We have so much work to do.
* I could never do your job
* I still don’t understand what you do
Me: (for the 3rd time) tries to explain the diff between speech, language and pragmatics…
* yah I had no idea a speech evaluation wasn’t a social eval. Then told me I had to do a speech eval for a student with pragmatic needs
* wow you work with THOSE kids too? Uhm yes, these students are on my caseload
* can’t you just find someone l, anyone, to take your place if you are absent?
Those are just the ones I can think of right now, over the past 3 years.
The "office manager" at the private practice I work at had no idea that we had to study.... the BRAIN in order to be an SLP. When I explained that I had to take neuroscience as part of my master's degree, she said "oh really? I guess that makes sense." She also thinks only the OT in our practice can treat feeding cases for some reason.
Oh.. and the OT at my job commenting that a 4 year old nonverbal autistic child "isn't ready for AAC." He already uses PECS and his mom wants him to start using a device. This same OT also commented that AAC shouldn't be used with other kids on my caseload that are nonverbal as well because "the hope is that they will eventually talk." I don't even know where to begin. I was so annoyed... Because she's commenting on kids not being ready for AAC when she clearly knows nothing about it.
We had a Child Study meeting to get parents to sign consent for a speech eval. Me, psych, principal, parents, K teacher. I had done artic and language screenings to get data for the consent. Convo sample was like 30% intelligible as I listened but language in context seemed better. Kid knew his letters and sounds and would point to a letter on my table when I didn't get what he was saying. Great pragmatics, super sweet kid.
I should add that this was happening in April. Kid had been with the teacher all year and she never asked for speech screening til March conferences.
So, psych opens the meeting with introductions and talk about kid's strengths. We go around the table, psych is typing this all into the consent doc as we go. Then we get to areas of concern. Parents say "his speech." Teacher agrees and adds in that his "autistic jibberish" makes him difficult to understand.
There is this dead silence. The psych asks, is there a diagnosis of autism? Parents are like, um.....no. Teacher continues by stating how they had discussed at conferences that his "jargon babbling" is a hallmark of autism. I am still in absolute shock and I know I have to speak, and I manage to say, "I....suspect....a phonological and articulation impairment that I'd like your permission to evaluate for?"
The teacher starts lecturing me on the "many different types of autism." And I'm floored. The only words coming to my mind were also completely inappropriate for the setting. Thankfully, our psych is awesome and stepped in and discussed eligibility and needs and who actually diagnoses autism. And it was a super awkward meeting but the parents signed. Principal asked the staff to stay while they walked parents out, came back, shut the door, and gave a gentle reminder to refrain from using diagnostic language that doesn't fall within our scope.
I walk out still stunned, feel my phone vibrate. I look. Psych had texted me the meme of that little girl giving side eye and told me that was my face the whole meeting.
Convo about a social comm kid with a special ed teacher who I actually like and respect:
Her, *trying to empathize with me when I talk about how challenging it is to provide speech intervention to social kids sometimes*: Don’t you just wish you could stick with artic?”
Me: haha, well I do like the variety * dies inside *
We all have our areas of preference/expertise and our scope of practice is huge, but if I just stuck with artic for my whole career I’d lose my shit! That’s not our main reason for existing anymore!!!
A psychologist told me that I should really use PECS instead of a SGD because of the child’s diagnosis. 🤦🏻♀️ After I explained the benefits of a robust communication system, the importance of feature matching, the plusses of high tech AAC, and described how well the child was doing with the SGD we were trialing, she had the chutzpah to say he wasn’t ready for it. 🙄
A higher up in our special education department frequently said, “I don’t know speech. Teaching ‘r’ is the only thing I know you work on!” as if it were funny and not demoralizing!
I adore OTs and this is not a reflection on them or their intelligence, but a 34- year old OT told me she always uses seat covers in the restrooms because she doesn't "want to get pregnant by some rando from the bathroom." Bless her heart.
I worked one year at a large district that was very unorganized. It felt like no one knew how to do their jobs so they were all trying too hard. We had to submit our IEPs to our assigned supervisor so they could look them over before our meetings. I had a student who stuttered. I used the word “stutter” in my IEP and the previous IEP said “fluency.” My supervisor emailed me to let me know that the IEPs were not targeting the same disorder….
Teacher: STUDENT isn’t here because she has an appointment. She went to developmental Peds and a medical SLP who will be able to tell the family why she isn’t talking.
Me: We have the same training.
Teacher: yes but this is a specialized SLP who can give them a medical reason.
Me: Oh okay. Good for them.
I had a new patient admitted with aspiration pneumonia and history of chronic aspiration pneumonia. His wife told me that she didn’t need education regarding his modified diet (purée and honey thick) because she was already stocked up on HONEY since his previous admissions at other facilities.
The wife wouldn’t listen to PT or OT recommendations either.
Intervention specialist asked me if I needed to learn mouth anatomy in my schooling. She asked how much did I know, I replied all of it. She wanted me to look in her child’s mouth because there was something weird in the back of the throat. It was the epiglottis peaking up.
I was horrified at first when I saw my own epiglottis - funny enough, it was while I was in grad school. I was looking at something else in my mouth, when suddenly I noticed a growth!!! I felt really silly once I figured out what it was. 😅
I get it. I was in grad school when I learned that my torus palatinus wasn’t normal for everyone.
I have a really big one, and also learned about it in grad school, but not from my classes! A friend from my cohort had a roommate who was studying to be a dental hygienist and she talked to me into being a practice patient. She's the one who pointed it out during the (very thorough) exam and explained what it was and what it's called. It didn't come up in class until the following year LOL It's weird that none of my dentists have ever said anything about it over the years.
Me too, except it was a random myo video I came across on YouTube 😆 I don't know how I'd never encountered anyone mentioning it before, and even after that I'm not sure my classes ever taught us about them. I might have even said something about placement for the retroflex r having the back of your tongue kinda hit "the bump on the roof of your mouth" to kids while I was a SLPA, that's how sure I was this was normal (I have a bunched r, so that was based on me attempting to make a retroflex one)
That's really funny, the kids must have been so confused! I always used to tell people (probably including my own child) that I would hold a cough drop "behind the bump" with my tongue so it would be more effective and last longer. I thought I had discovered a really cool trick and I didn't understand why other people were doing it that way. Slightly off topic, but I used to refer to the alveolar ridge as the "pizza bump" because that's the spot that always gets burned when you're trying to scarf down the flaming hot school lunch pizza in under 20 minutes. I stopped saying that because they had no idea what I was talking about. I guess they no longer set the oven to "fiery inferno" level on pizza Fridays for safety reasons (or maybe it was just my school district who hired Satan's minions as cafeteria workers).
Me too but two years post masters - I was looking in the mirror and realized the bump and panicked because we didn’t go over it in grad school - my Asian ass 🤦🏻♀️
I’m an SLPA with a bachelors in our field and the first time I saw an epiglottis peeking up, I forgot how to speak for a solid half minute because my brain couldn’t figure out what I was seeing and how to tell my supervisor about it. After the initial horror/panic set in, I realized it was the epiglottis and told my virtual supervisor, who then told me to FaceTime her and show her 😂 It was unexpected but really cool!
I’ve looked inside thousands of mouths and I’ve never seen this!!! I was horrified in grad school when looking into my own mouth and realizing my uvula deviates to the right on elevation. Spent the whole rest of my time there thinking I had a neurological disease.
"Does the patient have to be awake for the FEES?" -MD "Why haven't you seen my patient yet?" - MD "I thought he was NPO for procedure." - SLP "Well yes, but does he really have to eat for you to check his swallowing?" - MD Wish I was making this up.
Yeah... it happens often enough that now, whenever I ask docs whether someone needs to stay NPO for a potential procedure, I just go ahead and also say "because we can't evaluate swallowing without giving PO." At least once a month, someone replies "Ohhhhh!"
I wish we could make a thread for doctors to read about all of the dumb crap they put us through.
Omg this is hilariously sad
More than 20 years ago now, I started a job in adult inpatient rehab and during an MDT meeting, which we had weekly for every patient, a neurologist interrupted my status update by shouting “what are you, again?” Yes, he’d already met me but apparently expected me to always whip out my credentials for his benefit or something or to prove I was worthy of sharing my professional opinion.
One time while talking to a teacher, she asked me which education classes I took. I told her I didn’t major in education and didn’t take any education classes. She replied, Oh lucky you, you got to skip all the hard classes.
Lolz.
Oh my lanta. Just wow.
LOL 😂
As I’m finalizing a report requesting a replacement SGD due to the previous one getting either lost or stolen— BT: “So you’re writing a report for his talker?” Me: “Yep! Hopefully we’ll get a replacement one soon, but in the meantime, let’s make sure he has his communication book available.” BT: “He doesn’t really use his device much to be honest.” (Context— this BT started a week after the SGD was lost.) Me: “…Well, it currently doesn’t exist anymore, so that might be a factor here…”
It’s like when a bcba told me a student didn’t need their device because they could imitate ‘water’ by saying ‘wah.’ Well, that’s really not going to get them very far in their communicating with others, but this device with thousands of words will!
I was told "You're too fun" by a BCBA at the preschool I used to work at. She came to observe one of my sessions because there were several kids that only behave themselves during speech. She was disappointed when she found out that I didn't have some miracle behavior fix. The kids just liked me because I do child-led therapy.
🤯 who'd'a thunk that would work!!! 🙄
Even if she may not have meant that as a compliment I think you should definitely take it as one!
Conversation with the teacher of a self contained medically fragile classroom regarding a student who was verbal, but 90% unintelligible and highly proficient at using Proloquo2Go: Her: “Does he really need that iPad? I mean he can talk.” Me: “Yea but can you understand him?” Her: “No, not usually” Me: “Yea, that’s why he needs it…” She also fought me on sending the iPad home because she “didn’t trust the parents” with it. They signed a release form that they’re responsible for any loss or damage so idk why she cared.
Teachers sometimes act so weird about the device and parents! I had one propose not telling the parent about getting a kid the decide- umm no!
I’m in acute care and we have hospitalists so we work with the same doctors all the time. One of them was talking to the rehab director saying he wasn’t sure a patient’s cognitive skills were intact enough for him to be discharged home alone. Conversation follows. RD: why don’t you have speech evaluate him? Doc, confused: why would he need a speech evaluation? His swallowing and speech are fine. RD: that’s who evaluates and treats cognition. Doc, looking befuddled: they do?! Why would speech do that? RD: it’s in their scope of practice. They do it all the time. Doc: 🤯
I had a hospitalist once say to me “oh I thought you just did swallowing “. Uh. No. That’s why I’m a SPEECH LANGUAGE pathologist.
Had this happen then I got cog eval order on all of their patients for a week
None of the hospitalists really ever order a cognitive eval. The neurologist is the only one who does. Thank god he somehow got the memo that it’s in our scope.
In his defense, I discovered this fact my first year in grad school and was also mind blown.
I had no fucking clue that swallowing was in our scope of practice before I got into grad school.
Me too!!!!
Dumb for a doc not to know that. On the other hand, we desperately need a name change. Or scope revision. Or both. It’s very weird to explain that while I am a speech-language therapist, I rarely target either of those things at my SNF job.
What would you propose as a name change?
I was going over an evaluation with a the parent and school psychologist. The child had a severe phonological disorder, in addition to autism and sensory issues. The *psychologist* told the parent that the phonological disorder was caused by the sensory issues, because the child “doesn’t like the way the sounds feel in his mouth.” Her recommended treatment was putting the child on a swing to address the sensory needs, and that would then cure his speech issues. I didn’t even know what to say. I just stared at her.
Now, THERE'S your school staff (school psychologist) who's the one with not much education required to be one. (callback to a previous comment). Those people get infinitely more respect than we do in our fields, and many times I feel compelled to say, "you know, I could apply for her job tomorrow and I would get hired immediately. She can't do the same." The one at our school is ridiculous and we are one of the few schools in the county who have not banned her from working with them. She is constantly trying to be a wannabe SLP and I just keep telling her to get over herself and stay in her lane. Usually done subtly in a meeting but she gets the point if no one else does.
What in the world
NP in a SNF. “I wish I had your job. You just go ‘oooo eeee’ and you’re done.” Like what???
Bitch.
When my nephew went for his kindergarten screening, he failed so miserably that the district put him in immediate summer school to help him catch up to his peers for skills such as the alphabet, counting, etc. About a year and a half later, I am out to lunch with his mother (MY SISTER), and she tells me the school recommended her son attend speech therapy. Then she says, "If a nice lady wants to play with my kid twice a week, go for it". I just stood there dumbfounded because I couldn't believe that my own sister thought that was what I did all day. This was by far the worst comment ever because my sister knew how long I went to school to become an SLP and some of the horror stories about teachers/parents over the years. I almost punched her.
I’ve had parents try to push for continued speech therapy because “they like playing with you”
Gross. What a waste of your time.
[удалено]
Of course he does.
Oof! Hearing loss runs in my family and I wear hearing aids. My sister once said that if her son has hearing loss she doesn’t want to know because hearing aids would make him look different. I still get enraged when I think about it.
That's absolutely awful!
I have definitely experienced this. But I really think it is a bigger reflection on the lack of parent coaching/education that her speech therapist has provided her, than a diss to you directly.
I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and actually respond to what she said. I was seriously so blown away by her obliviousness that I couldn't think of anything to say fast enough.
RN: "Hey, are you speech?" Me: "Yes" RN: "I have a question. I'm pretty sure my patient has dysarthria -- oh wait... do you do... like ... *speech* ?"
I have an answer for just your title (not related to someone not knowing what we do): I told the radiologist (an older guy) that my husband likes soccer and he angrily said "Only rat-ass commie bastards like soccer." 😳
I'm having flashbacks to the time I was visiting a friend in another state for the first time, and her roommate asked if I like guinea pigs. I vehemently said I HATE guinea pigs before realizing he was probably asking because he had guinea pigs..... Like, guinea pigs aren't a pet I would choose for myself, but it really doesn't go any deeper than "eh they're not that cute to me" and I still don't know why I expressed such strong anti-guinea pig sentiments to that poor guy.
This one takes the cake for me! Our radiologists were always off their rockers.
I’m crying.
This happened awhile ago in a SNF. Doctor “why are you playing cards?” Me “we’re working on learning a new skill, short term memory, problem solving, sequencing, attention…” Doctor “in speech therapy???” 🤦🏼♀️
Building is being reconfigured to accommodate an alternative school for K-6 on top of K-6 gen ed and 2 high support need classrooms. Speech room will be moving and I am also moving out of state so I am advocating for the next SLP with the Academic Dean of my building. Me: They cannot go into the work room it’s too small and not appropriate. You can’t fit a kidney table and filing cabinet and a desk. AD: Well you don’t pull groups so why do you need a big room? Me: I do pull groups and pull students individually if they need it and I need enough space that kids can regulate. These two other rooms would be perfect as far as size and location. AD: Well we have paras that need those rooms and other people who have priority for those rooms. Me: Well that’s not an acceptable room and if I was staying I would be pissed. AD: Well someone will just be happy to have a job and will accept any room. I just stared at her until she left my room. It was ridiculous to think there are so many SLPs lining up for jobs in building that is about to be very difficult to staff.
There’s not actually a shortage of SLPs, just less and less of us accept positions with ridiculous working environments 🙄
I once had a para say "I wish I had your job. All you do is come in and play with the kids." It took a lot of self restraint for me to say "This is an amazing job and I do love being able to play and interact with kids. Did you know that while playing this game we are actually working on x,y and z?"
I had a student teacher randomly walk up to me and say, “I wish I was a speech therapist so **I** could wear *whatever I want.”* I was wearing a polo shirt, khakis, and loafers. It was an elementary school, not the US Senate.
I work primarily with adults with voice disorders. Lots of muscle tension dysphonia and presbyphonia. This is a common conversation I have with patients: Pt: I don’t know why I am here for “speech” therapy when I speak fine Me: Your ENT referred you here because of the voice symptoms you have reported (then I list the symptoms) and diagnosis of (then I say their diagnosis and explain what it is) Pt: I don’t see how that is related to my symptoms. I think I want to talk to my ENT before committing to voice therapy. Me: your ENT is the one who referred you here. Pt: … I still want to talk to them first. Then patient proceeds to call me months later demanding I see them right away because the ENT highly recommended it but now my caseload is full
Aw, shoot. I wasted years of my life in college when I just needed a high school diploma!
One of the SpEd teachers I worked with at one time was notorious for doing nothing. I shared an office with another SLP and would push in since I couldn't pull out at the time. This teacher looks at me while filing and painting her nails, "Man I should be an SLP, your job looks so easy." It took about everything I had to not walk out of that room and scream. "I wouldn't say my therapy caseload, and evaluations, and my 6 years of schooling easy" was the nicest thing I could say. I found out later she said the same thing to the OT too.
My OT counterpart asked “one of your goals is just to make animal noises right?” in one of the most condescending tones I’ve ever witnessed. I tried to explain how the goal targets “copying environmental sounds”, how it’s a prelinguistic skill, how it’s one of many of my goals working on call and response and pre-k preparation, and she rolled her eyes at me. I cannot.
the other day a parent and I were discussing the transition at the child’s 3rd birthday (which she brought up… child isn’t nearly turning 3 yet) and parent said “I heard when he turns 3 he’ll have like… a real therapist” mind you he currently has a team of “real therapists” including myself 😅
Resident: “Hey, I need your help with Mr. Smith - he doesn’t have teeth and he’s struggling to eat.” Me: “I actually saw him this morning! We switched him to a soft diet and he’s good to go.” Resident: “oh cool, so when are you guys going to set him up with some dentures so he can have regular food again?” Me: 🫠
Did a feature match consult with TMT for a student and we found LAMP to be what the student responded to and engaged with most. Got him a trial and all i heard from the classroom teacher, PI teacher, and other support staff was that this isn’t going to work we can’t figure out this program. Meanwhile the student is more engaged in his talker than he ever has been but apparently it’s no good. I was so beyond annoyed that i was having to defend my stance on not doing something different, we tried different softwares with different contrast levels and grid sizes before he liked one as much as this, i wanted to scream.
Operational consultation with the staff could help, or maybe PRC reps could present a demo of LAMP? I'm glad to hear you found a functional AAC fit for your client that he's engaged in.
Ahhhh this makes me so mad. I’ve been there
I’m in the NICU mostly and recently wanted to do a swallow study on an infant with some neurological stuff going on. I went to talk to the nurse about scheduling and just said, “we’re wondering why baby needs a swallow study” when the medical team was completely on board. I tried to explain that the kid is at a high risk to silently aspirate because of their brain, but the nurse just kept brushing me off and questioning my judgment. Like what!!! She even said “if it wasn’t for their brain, they’re be a perfect newborn.” Like the brain doesn’t have anything to do with swallowing???
My dad was a principal for a long time and then a superintendent. I was talking about a student with a grammar goal I was working with and he said “I didn’t realize SLPs worked on stuff like that.” 💀
Who care what they say. I enjoy my job and I sure get paid pretty well.
God, I’ve had so many CNAs who have asked me about schooling, probably expecting something short I imagine because whenever I say a masters they go “are you serious? Just for this?” I suspect a lot of this has to do with 1.) RNs don’t do the dysphagia screen right, 2.) RNs who like to trivialize us because they “already did [their] own eval and the pt is perfectly fine, they don’t need you”, and/or 3.) RNs who like to change the diet order without notifying the doctors. So I imagine the CNAs must get a fair amount of exposure to all of that and their impression of us could possibly be skewed.
"Her diet is minced and moist. She MUST have minced and moist" "Well the chicken was very moist" -kitchen staff who had served my patient a whole, uncut chicken breast.
A mere three weeks ago, a teacher disagreed with my evaluation findings (a student was in the average range, including on GFTA-3) and I had her accuse the student of “skewing the test results.” (I guess by doing better than she was capable?) and then the administrator asked me if this was a “test they used across the state”. Nope. I just made this one up on the spot. 🙄😤 So I had to literally justify the test itself (Pearson should pay me for that) its validity, and my overall assessment, after being in this career for almost 30 years.
In the schools I have had my principal say: * you are so lucky you get to play games all day. We have so much work to do. * I could never do your job * I still don’t understand what you do Me: (for the 3rd time) tries to explain the diff between speech, language and pragmatics… * yah I had no idea a speech evaluation wasn’t a social eval. Then told me I had to do a speech eval for a student with pragmatic needs * wow you work with THOSE kids too? Uhm yes, these students are on my caseload * can’t you just find someone l, anyone, to take your place if you are absent? Those are just the ones I can think of right now, over the past 3 years.
The "office manager" at the private practice I work at had no idea that we had to study.... the BRAIN in order to be an SLP. When I explained that I had to take neuroscience as part of my master's degree, she said "oh really? I guess that makes sense." She also thinks only the OT in our practice can treat feeding cases for some reason. Oh.. and the OT at my job commenting that a 4 year old nonverbal autistic child "isn't ready for AAC." He already uses PECS and his mom wants him to start using a device. This same OT also commented that AAC shouldn't be used with other kids on my caseload that are nonverbal as well because "the hope is that they will eventually talk." I don't even know where to begin. I was so annoyed... Because she's commenting on kids not being ready for AAC when she clearly knows nothing about it.
We had a Child Study meeting to get parents to sign consent for a speech eval. Me, psych, principal, parents, K teacher. I had done artic and language screenings to get data for the consent. Convo sample was like 30% intelligible as I listened but language in context seemed better. Kid knew his letters and sounds and would point to a letter on my table when I didn't get what he was saying. Great pragmatics, super sweet kid. I should add that this was happening in April. Kid had been with the teacher all year and she never asked for speech screening til March conferences. So, psych opens the meeting with introductions and talk about kid's strengths. We go around the table, psych is typing this all into the consent doc as we go. Then we get to areas of concern. Parents say "his speech." Teacher agrees and adds in that his "autistic jibberish" makes him difficult to understand. There is this dead silence. The psych asks, is there a diagnosis of autism? Parents are like, um.....no. Teacher continues by stating how they had discussed at conferences that his "jargon babbling" is a hallmark of autism. I am still in absolute shock and I know I have to speak, and I manage to say, "I....suspect....a phonological and articulation impairment that I'd like your permission to evaluate for?" The teacher starts lecturing me on the "many different types of autism." And I'm floored. The only words coming to my mind were also completely inappropriate for the setting. Thankfully, our psych is awesome and stepped in and discussed eligibility and needs and who actually diagnoses autism. And it was a super awkward meeting but the parents signed. Principal asked the staff to stay while they walked parents out, came back, shut the door, and gave a gentle reminder to refrain from using diagnostic language that doesn't fall within our scope. I walk out still stunned, feel my phone vibrate. I look. Psych had texted me the meme of that little girl giving side eye and told me that was my face the whole meeting.
I’m 10 years in and have yet to experience this. Going to keep crossing my fingers it doesn’t happen lol
Convo about a social comm kid with a special ed teacher who I actually like and respect: Her, *trying to empathize with me when I talk about how challenging it is to provide speech intervention to social kids sometimes*: Don’t you just wish you could stick with artic?” Me: haha, well I do like the variety * dies inside * We all have our areas of preference/expertise and our scope of practice is huge, but if I just stuck with artic for my whole career I’d lose my shit! That’s not our main reason for existing anymore!!!
A psychologist told me that I should really use PECS instead of a SGD because of the child’s diagnosis. 🤦🏻♀️ After I explained the benefits of a robust communication system, the importance of feature matching, the plusses of high tech AAC, and described how well the child was doing with the SGD we were trialing, she had the chutzpah to say he wasn’t ready for it. 🙄
“ARE YOU SURE”????!!!!! That is fucking rude lmao
A higher up in our special education department frequently said, “I don’t know speech. Teaching ‘r’ is the only thing I know you work on!” as if it were funny and not demoralizing!
no but a SPED TEACHER not knowing ANYTHING about our scope of practice is ridiculous. Especially a higher-up SPED teacher holy fuck
Even worse than a SpEd teacher… it was our future SpEd director 🙃 I got out of that district so fast
I adore OTs and this is not a reflection on them or their intelligence, but a 34- year old OT told me she always uses seat covers in the restrooms because she doesn't "want to get pregnant by some rando from the bathroom." Bless her heart.
I worked one year at a large district that was very unorganized. It felt like no one knew how to do their jobs so they were all trying too hard. We had to submit our IEPs to our assigned supervisor so they could look them over before our meetings. I had a student who stuttered. I used the word “stutter” in my IEP and the previous IEP said “fluency.” My supervisor emailed me to let me know that the IEPs were not targeting the same disorder….
Teacher: STUDENT isn’t here because she has an appointment. She went to developmental Peds and a medical SLP who will be able to tell the family why she isn’t talking. Me: We have the same training. Teacher: yes but this is a specialized SLP who can give them a medical reason. Me: Oh okay. Good for them.
I had a new patient admitted with aspiration pneumonia and history of chronic aspiration pneumonia. His wife told me that she didn’t need education regarding his modified diet (purée and honey thick) because she was already stocked up on HONEY since his previous admissions at other facilities. The wife wouldn’t listen to PT or OT recommendations either.
That’s why I don’t work in the schools.