Using Special Education Speech Therapy to build college readiness skills

When indicated through assessment of need, speech and language services are usually provided to youth through the school district. If there is a disability related communication challenge that is hindering the student’s access to the education (not necessarily just the academics – this is an important distinction you might have to remind the IEP team of) then the district may assess that the student qualifies for speech and language services to help them develop strong communication skills.

Although speech production is often thought of when SL services are considered, there is a lot more that SL services can target. SL services are not just for producing clear speech, like addressing articulation or stuttering, but can also be used to address the content of that speech as well as the context of speech and the process of interactive speech. These skills are often what a neurodiverse student struggles with. Things like eye contact, understand and acting appropriately to social cues, taking turns in conversation, social “code switching”, understanding complex social dynamics, understanding nonverbal communication, volume, or understanding figurative language like metaphors, hyperbole, idioms, irony, etc…..

Here are three broad language related skill areas:

1.    Expressive language skills – what do I think and how do I use words (and maybe involving accompanying non-verbal communication) to let others know what I know, what I’m thinking, and what I want.

2.    Receptive language skills – being able to decode what others verbally communicate to them (and possibly accompanying non-verbal forms of communication). Being able to apply factors such as subject matter, what is known about the communicator, the situation, and other factors to decode the communication.

3.    Social communication skills – Included both expressive and receptive language skills. It is by definition a skill that relates to an interactive process with others. This skill set allows individuals to interact with others appropriate to who they are, what they are doing, the topic, the situation, the environment and other factors associated with communication.

And here are three college readiness critical social language skills.

1.    Informal reciprocal language (small talk) – Small talk seems like a throwaway skill, devoid of any important content. It’s often maligned and made fun of. But the ability to engage in small talk is a fundamental social “lubrication” skill. It is how we casually connect with others in a non-threatening or overly serious way: “Aren’t you in my history class? How did you do on that last assignment?”. Being able to start and/or engage in small talk with others paves the way to making social connections of all kinds and can lead to all sorts of social relationships – friendships, roommates, romantic relationships, employment, special opportunities, etc….If you think about it, the social world rests on the ability to make small talk.

2.    Reporting information – many autistic individuals have a hard time reporting information. This is a crucial skill as we get older. It underpins relationships with our friends and family, getting effective medical care, and being able to complete work tasks. It affects how effectively we are able to access and receive service from basic community businesses like a mechanic, hairstylist, housepainter or anyone we have to report what happened, what we like, and what we want to. This skill is impacted in many autistic youth by challenges with personal insight, memory, perspective taking, social skills, and language skills.

3.    Self Advocacy – the ability to effectively let others know what you want and need. But there are so many other skills imbedded in this complex social communication skill.

·         An awareness of the environment and the situation will be needed.

·         There’s knowing what I want and need, so self-insight and self-awareness.

·         I’d have to know who to communicate to about my needs, this might take awareness or research.

·         I need to know what the best approach to use to communicate with this person is, needing an understanding of their role and having some ability to take their perspective.

·         I also need to know what to communicate, so I have to choose monitor the words I use as well as my tone.

·         And I might have to track the conversation as it unfolds – using nuanced social cue interpretation and allowing that to guide my actions.

Self advocacy is a very nuanced and complex social skill. It is not just being the loudest voice in the room or merely saying what you want and hoping for the best.

There is much more that can be targeted by speech and language services. Of course the student must qualify for SL services first, but then once qualified, and if the skill shows a deficit in either accessing FAPE (free and appropriate education), when the ITP (individual transition program – see my blog on this topic) is state mandated there is a conversation to be had about including skill building for these language related skills.