My research question that I developed for this project is how can SLP’s help children with communication disorders over come the negative impact that public perception can have on a communication disorder? What made me want to focus on this question is the fact that often many people find themselves making fun of people with communication disorders. I do not know how many times that people will tell me a joke and the content of the joke is making fun of people who have communication disorders. When they get done telling the joke they are laughing hysterically and I am thinking that this is really sad when people actually find happiness at the expense of others. One other particular instance that pops in my head is that I know someone who is 18 years old and says w-r. I know that it is sad that an 18 year old has this problem but many people just would laugh every time he would say w for all the r- words and make fun of him to his face. Often many people would just say w for all their r- words to poke fun at the way he said his words. I think because of the way that other people view and treat people with communication disorders that it can cause them to develop a low self-esteem and a negative self-image. So I wanted to research more on how SLP’s can help children not only improve their speech problem but improve the negative impact that often goes hand in hand with a communication disorder.

After the research question was chosen the next part was to develop the MRP. For this project, I had to develop 6 genres and these genres had to be written in at least 3 different points of views. The voices that I thought would answer my essential question would be developing genres in the voice of the clinician, client, teacher, and parent. The genres that I chose to address my topic were a webliography, poem, power-point presentation, letter to the editor, journal entry, and an interview. All of the characters that I have chosen for my voices are fictional characters. I chose the webliograhy to be the voice of the clinician. I addressed this piece to the public to let readers know more about me and about my research project. Another genre that I chose was a poem in the voice of the client. This piece was intended for the public (classmates, teachers, and parents) and people who read this poem can get an idea of the way a child with a communication disorder feels about himself and about the way his classmates view him. The power point presentation was in the voice of the clinician and it was developed for parents and teachers to understand how a communication disorder can affect the life of that child. The letter to the editor is done in the voice of a parent directed to the public expressing her thoughts about what should be done because of the way her child, who has a communication disorder, gets treated. An interview was done in the voice of the clinician and teacher. This was conducted so that the teacher can gain ideas of how she can help increase student’s low self-esteem due to the negative impact that a communication disorder can have on a child. The journal entry genre is in the voice of the teacher. My research topic centers around the negative impact that public perception can have on a communication disorder and often many children will be perceived in a negative way by their peers at school. Because children spend the majority of their day at school, I thought it was important to include a teacher as one of my voices. The journal entry piece is the genre that I chose to tie all my pieces together.

Interview of SLP and teacher:

SLP: How is Johnny doing lately?
T: Well I think he has been improving ever since he has started therapy. I am just worried about him. In class he just keeps to himself and he does not talk, or interact with the other kids.
SLP: Well you know he may just feel like he does not fit in. In therapy he is real active and participates with the other students. He often complains that he does not want to go back to the classroom that he likes being in the speech room. I guess he just feel comfortable being around the kids in therapy.
T. That is why I wanted to have this talk. I want to maybe get some ideas of how I can help Johnny feel better about himself and become more active in class.
SLP: There are many things that you can do to help improve his self-esteem. I have been doing a little bit of self-esteem activities in therapy but I just don’t have a lot of time to squeeze in too many self-esteem activities. Johnny only comes every Monday and Wed. for 30 minutes and he does group therapy with three other people. In order to help build his self-esteem you need to know how does his disorder impact his life. You probably have observed him in the classroom and you know what he goes through.
T: I do know that Johnny has a phonological disorder, which affects the production of his speech sounds. I know that he uses a lot of speech sounds in place of other sounds (w-r) etc. Sometimes it is very hard for his classmates to understand him. The kids often can’t understand and will ask him to slow down and repeat himself but he just gets frustrated and just avoids talking at all. I know that these feelings that he is experiencing is affecting his self-esteem which is causing him to withdraw from class participation and social activities. Not only does he not participate in class even at recess he just keeps to himself. I would really like to help him become more positive about himself and active with the classmates.
SLP: Well there are many activities that you can use in your classroom that will help build Johnny’s self-esteem. In order to help build Johnny’s self-esteem you need to have activities that will identify his strengths, help him get support from his classmates, focus on positive concepts, have him set his own goals and objectives, and help him be able to problem solve. These activities will help him with awareness, worthiness, and power. These activities will show his individual strengths and weakness and hopefully these activities will help him to balance out his strengths and weakness which will help his self-esteem.

SLP: One way to identify his strengths is an activity called Handicaps not Limiting. Here, you would bring in a speaker (adult) of someone who has a communication disorder. Let them give a speech, on how having a communication disorder does not interfere with their life and they were able to succeed and live a very productive life. After the speaker, have each student list their personal strengths.
T: Yes, I really like this activity. Having a speaker could really boost Johnny’s self-esteem by helping him realize that he is somebody who can make a difference in life no matter if he has a disorder. I think the students will also, benefit from this activity as they will learn more about communication disorders, and then maybe understand that having a communication disorders does not make that person any different than the other classmates. They can be just as nice, smart, fun to be around etc.

SLP: Another good activity to help Johnny build his self-esteem is s to build support groups in the classroom. A good activity for this would be Booster Boxes. Here, have your students decorate a shoebox and cut a slit in the box. Then each student will write a compliment about the child and put in the box.
T: Oh, I think that is a great way to get Johnny involved with the class. Not to mention how much those positive comments will help him feel better about himself.

SLP: Now to help Johnny focus on the positive things about himself you can do an activity called Me Trees. First everyone needs to trace their own hand, and then take paper cut out leaves and paste them on the hand to make a tree. On each individual leaf have the students write positive characteristics about themselves on each leaf.
T: I think activities like these will really help Johnny build his self-esteem. It really will have him realizing that there are good things about him despite the fact he has a communication disorder. Also, when classmates read his Me-Tree they will learn more things about Johnny (not Just Johnny a boy with a communication disorder).

SLP: Another activity is to help him build his self-esteem it to have him develop goals and objectives by an activity called Targeting. Here you have the students make a self-improvement contract. Here each student needs to choose a behavior that they would like to see either increase or decrease. Then have them set a goal and a reward for reaching the goal. Then they will observe this behavior for one week and record the results (when, why, & how often the behavior occurs) & daily progress of the results. They will continue to do this for several weeks and each week they will predict the progress of how they think they will do.
T: So this activity will really help Johnny learn more about himself. Here he will learn about ways to self-improve something about himself by setting goals and reaching them.

SLP: I really think that if you do these activities with Johnny and his fellow classmates you will really begin to see a bit difference in the way that he sees himself and the way that the class views him.

T; I really like the ideas of these activities. I really think these activities will increase Johnny’s self-esteem. Thank you so much for giving me such great suggestions.

SLP: Just remember that if you need anymore help please come by and see me.

T: Thank you so much.

A need for Change in School….

Dear Editor:
I am a concerned parent of a child who has a speech disorder and is the focus of constant belittlement and bullying at Redford Elementary School. Everyday when the bus arrives to pick my child up I have to pull him off my arms and send a screaming, upset child to school. My son absolutely hates school. Everyday there is always some story like how no one will play with him, or how they call him all kinds of names-dummy and weird, or tell him that they can’t understand him and they don’t like him. I know that because of the way he is treated from his fellow classmates that he often does not participate in class and is extremely quiet throughout the whole day. He is an intelligent person who just has a problem with his speech. This speech disorder by no means classifies him as mentally disabled and it does not automatically imply that he is stupid and different. People need to realize that my son is just like his fellow classmates. My son may just as well likes to do the same things your children may like to do such as playing sports, cub scouts, video games etc. He never gets the chance to show people what he is really about before they start passing judgment on him. I think the way my son gets treated in class is unacceptable. I think something should be done in class to help the other classmates understand that my child is no different than them. Teachers must start implementing programs in the classroom that will help my son and children like him receive equal treatment by their peers.
I have been thinking lately of all the changes that Redford Elementary school has gone through in the past couple of years. They have incorporated Primary scheduling, they got a new cafeteria, came up with money to build a new playground, and they got tons of new school supplies. This school has really put in a lot of time and effort into improving the quality of the school. However, I think it is now time that Redford now change the social environments of the classrooms by having teachers work in ways in their teaching to help children perceive others as equal.
I truly believe that no one has even given my son the time of day to even see if they like him. It is really depressing and it almost makes me cry every time I think about how my son gets treated. Parents just want what they thinks is best for their children and I really believe that the environmental setting of my son’s education needs to change.

Sincerely,
A concerned Parent
Deborah Hughes