Credentials for Speech Language Pathologist

by JLH
(Michigan)

I have written before about my 10 year old daughter who had severe SPD as a younger child, who has developed some good coping skills. However, the main issue now is with her inability to process instructions, which worsens each year as she progresses in school.




We've seen an occupational therapist, but I now want to get her in with a speech language pathologist. I know about the importance of finding an OT familiar with SPD, but I don't know much about the field of speech language pathology. Is there special "credentialing" available for them to learn how to work with kids with SPD or basically, will any speech language pathologist be "OK".

The school has a speech language pathologist who is off for the summer and I want to get my daughter started with someone right away. Also, I heard the pathologist through the school may have too many kids to begin with.

Thanks for input from anyone. I didn't want to just look in the Yellow Pages for a SLP without first having some qualifying info to begin with.



Comments for Credentials for Speech Language Pathologist

Average Rating starstarstarstarstar

Click here to add your own comments

Dec 11, 2008
Rating
starstarstarstarstar 		Speech therapist
by: Nancy

Hi,

I'm a speech therapist or speech-language pathologist. You want to make sure they have the credentials, CCC-SLP. It depends on the therapist you get at the school. I've worked in the schools for 6 yrs(now doing 1st steps) & I've done sensory processing stuff and worked with sensory diets, but I've known some SLPs that have never heard of it. I think most SLPs tend to specialize in 1-2 areas or a population in private/medical settings and in the school setting they have to know a little of everything.

The most important thing with any therapist is to keep open communication and offer the reading material and websites in a non-threatening manner. I'm always open to learning about something new, especially if a parent presents it as something they see beneficial and important to their child. Hope that helps! My 5 yr old son goes for an SPD eval tomorrow morning.
Jul 24, 2008
Rating
starstarstarstarstar 		Speech therapy
by: Jessi

I'm not sure either about the credentials, but I can tell you that there's a big difference between school therapy and private. During the last school year (the last few months) my son was seeing a therapist through the school system even though he was only 3 and also going to private therapy. What I noticed is that at school he was mainly learning various words - being able to look at a picture of something and know what it is and name it.

At private therapy, they work a lot more on putting words together in a sentence. He has more trouble the longer the sentence gets. So they started at 3 word sentences and have gradually added words so that now he's working on 6 words in a row. So I feel like the private therapist is working on 'language' as a whole while the school therapist was more just working on 'words' by themselves. That being said, I think the combination worked very well. It was important for him to have names for things, but he also needs help actually learning how to talk and communicate. So my advice would be to start therapy now and then during the school year, if you can swing it, I would do both. Good luck!

Click here to add your own comments

Join in and write your own page! It's easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to The SPD Q & A.