The Beach Street Speech department has been working so hard on providing the best teletherapy sessions they can to their students they serve. Before going into the remote learning module, they created "speech packets" for their students with countless materials, worksheets, Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) device information and speech therapy ideas to do at home. As supervisors, Regina Volodarsky and I have been so impressed with their creative ideas, motivation to learn new ways of remote teaching, and diligence to detail to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible when providing teletherapy speech sessions. Each week, the speech department shares materials they used during sessions that were the most engaging for their students as well as what ASHA CEU courses they are taking in their spare time to further enhance their knowledge on a variety of topics relating to autism and remote learning speech services. We are so proud of the way they are communicating with their students as well as with the parents, as they are such an integral part of our speech sessions!
The speech department recently participated in a "graduation drive-by parade" and visited the 2020 school program graduates at their houses, holding up signs, balloons and gave them cards congratulating them and their families. We wanted to make it special for the graduates- even during these uncertain times- to see a familiar face and tell them how proud we are of them!
Although we are so anxious to come back to work and obtain some type of normalcy, the speech therapists have adopted a new way to provide services to our students and have been wonderful throughout this process. It definitely looks and feels different than seeing our students face to face, but nonetheless, the speech staff have truly gone above and beyond to help the students we serve and we are so grateful to have such a wonderful department.
Janine Kipp M.A. CCC-SLP
Coordinator of Speech Services