EPISODE 34

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:06] CL: Hello and welcome to This Speech Life, an audio course and podcast from speechtherapypd.com exploring all things related to school-based SLP practice. I'm your host, Caitlin Lopez, MS, CCC-SLP, a school-based SLP with over 10 years of experience.

In each episode, we will cover three need-to-know aspects of the topic, two resources related to the topic, and one actionable strategy for tomorrow.

[EPISODE]

[0:00:36] CL: All right, everyone. Welcome to today's course. We are so excited to have the fabulous Meghan McCarty here joining us. My name is Caitlin Lopez. I am the host of This Speech Life, the podcast for school-based SLPs. Today, we have the fabulous Meghan McCarty with us. She is going to talk to us about all things related to school-based practice, regarding cultural responsiveness and cultural humility and just why that's important for us and ways that we can do a better job at that if we might not be doing those things already.

All right, everyone. Like I said, we're excited to have her here. If you don't know who she is, let me introduce her. But before I do that, I'm going to go ahead and read our financial disclosures. I'm Caitlin Lopez, the host of the podcast This Speech Life, and I do receive compensation for this episode. I have no non-financial disclosures to report. Meghan doesn't have any financial disclosures to report, other than she will receive an honorarium for appearing on this podcast episode from speechtherapypd.com.

All right, so let's go ahead and jump into it. I am excited to introduce to all of you, Meghan. Meghan J. McCarty is a speech and language therapist with an intense passion for equity and cultural responsiveness. Meghan comes from a long line of educators and got her start in the field of education as a substitute teacher. As time progressed, she transitioned into teaching full-time as a fourth-grade teacher, K through five as an ELA interventionist, and sixth through eighth ELA interventionist.

During her earlier years in education, she became increasingly interested in phonetics, linguistics, and literacy, and we pulled her to the dark side, just kidding. As this fascination intensified, she decided to pursue a career in speech-language pathology, ultimately receiving her master's degree in communicative sciences and disorders from New York University. Meghan chose a career in speech-language pathology to elevate children's voices, support families, and be a proponent of equity, inclusion, and cultural responsiveness.

She's a native of Southern California and grew up in the San Gabriel Valley. When Meghan isn't busy being an SLP, she enjoys spending time with family, friends, cooking, traveling, and going on adventures. A fun fact about Meghan is that she loves learning languages. She's learned Spanish and even took Arabic in college. She aims to be fluent in Spanish, Arabic, ASL, and then the last part got cut off. What's that last language that you want to be fluent in?

[0:03:29] MM: I don't remember. I was doing a lot of things. IÕm doing a lot. ASL. I don't remember.

[0:03:38] CL: Yes. Well, you have your goal set high. I met Meghan at the California Speech and Hearing Association, and I just couldn't wait to have her on the podcast. She has so much energy, and you can tell that she's really passionate about our topic today. The other thing I really love about Meghan is she is a speech-language pathologist, but through the eyes of an educator. Through that piece of, we as speech therapists, we're there in the schools, we're there to support the educational piece, and she really understands that too, at a deeper level. Meghan, thank you for joining us today.

[0:04:19] MM: Thank you for having me. I'm excited. I'm nervous, but I'm also excited.

[0:04:23] CL: It's going to be fantastic. Okay, so Meghan, what are three things that we need to know about cultural responsiveness?

[0:04:33] MM: Three things. I try to do a good job of mixing in my personal experience and advice with some research. I'll start off first with a research center that specializes in cultural responsibility. It's called the Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning, and they have some research and they have, I guess, a pedagogy that's called Validate, Affirm, Build, and Bridge. That pedagogy talks about how when students feel validated, when they feel affirmed, when you're building with students, when you're bridging with students, they feel more included. When students feel included, they perform their best.

It's really great. I highly recommend people check out that site. It talks a lot about ways to promote inclusion of multilingual students and multi-dialectal students, where they feel as though their language is an asset and not a deficit.

[0:05:34] CL: Awesome. Okay, can you say that website, or that center one more time? Because I didn't catch it as I'm trying to take notes here. What was the name of it?

[0:05:43] MM: It's called the Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning. Their website is www.culturallyresponsive.org.

[0:05:54] CL: Okay, perfect. Awesome. Then that pedagogy that they have, that framework is validate, affirm. Is it build and bridge?

[0:06:04] MM: Yes, build and bridge, VABB, V-A-B-B for short as an acronym.

[0:06:08] CL: Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. I love that idea of validating our multilingual, multi-dialectical students and affirming them in who they are. That's fantastic. Okay, so that's the first bit that you have for us is to check them out. What is something else that we need to know?

[0:06:30] MM: I think something that people need to know about being culturally responsive is it's really not that hard. It's not that hard. You just got to do it. You don't have to do a lot of research, or super ornate lesson plans. You just have to jump and do it. I work with a lot of Ð I've worked with a wide range of students. I've worked in the San Gabriel Valley. I've worked in areas that have predominantly Asian students. I've worked in areas that have predominantly Latino students. I've worked for the city of Beverly Hills, that's predominantly white and Persian Jewish students. I've worked in a lot of different areas with a lot of different kids.

IÕve found that some of the best ways to be culturally responsive is A, to learn about their culture. What holidays are relevant to them, and how can you celebrate those holidays? As speech pathologists, we have a really great opportunity to customize a lot of the work and services that we do to our students. What holidays are they celebrating? For example, I've learned about the Lunar New Year when I was working with my predominantly Asian students. That's something that I've kept. I've learned about Hanukkah Harry and different high Jewish holidays, because I had a lot of students who are Jewish. That's something that I've kept with me.

I've learned about different parts of Latino culture. There's a lot. There's a lot that I've learned about Latino culture, because that's the base and the core of the students that I work with. Knowing about cultural holidays and events, knowing about music, music is so powerful. I think that music is the cornerstone of every culture. Knowing about their music, what artists do they like? It costs nothing to play music in the background during a speech session or have a dance break where students can select a song. Learning about music and also learning about food, the food that they like to eat. It costs nothing to do that type of research.

I think, the second thing I want people to know about cultural responsibility is that it's not hard. It's a lot of easy access points and entrance points. All we have to do is hop on the Google shmugler, do some research and students will feel so validated and they'll feel so seen. It really creates these long, lasting memories for them.

[0:08:42] CL: That's awesome. I love how you brought up all the different cultures you've learned about. I think that that's really fun. I'm also thinking of really fun ways that I can bring students into that. Why don't you teach me? Asking them questions, like why is this holiday special to you? What is something special that your family does and then what is something that everyone does? Because I know, even with really big mainstream holidays, like Christmas, each individual family that might celebrate it has their own ways of celebrating that and understanding that piece, too. I think that is so fun to just jump in and learn.

I really love your point, too, about it doesn't have to be some big ornate lesson plan, or whatever. I think that's really fun. Then your point of music and food. I've learned so much about Rigaton from my students that I didn't know before. That's been really fun to have those Ð There was a group of students that they wanted to have a dance party. I said, ÒOkay, if we get through this stuff first, we can have a dance party.Ó Just like you said, have those dance breaks. Then I said, ÒOkay, what's the song going to be?Ó The artist right now is eluding me.

[0:10:06] MM: Bad Bunny.

[0:10:07] CL: It wasn't Bad Bunny. This was a couple of years ago, but I do have students now asking for Bad Bunny. I can't remember who it was. Anyway, that was the song that we listened to for a while. Then I learned about other artists too, and who was cool, and who wasn't cool, and who was Ð I think, giving the students the chance to be the expert in the room can be really fun for them, too.

[0:10:33] MM: Yeah, I just think the piece about giving the child the opportunity to be the expert in the room is really big. It's a great way to have child-led services and child-led sessions. Also, you reduce so much of your planning time if you just say to kids like, ÒHey, kids. What music are you into? What cultural holidays are you celebrating?Ó They tell you, and it's like, I work with a lot of middle school and high school kids, so it's like, ÒOkay, great. We're going to practice a functional skill. We're going to do some research. We're going to read through the research. We're going to come up with a main idea, so on and so forth.Ó I think it's a really great way to have students lead the session. They feel really in control of what's going on, and they feel so much more accomplished, and they feel seen. It just really boosts their energy, and it just really gives them a positive experience, especially as you get with older students, like middle school, high school students, I find.

[0:11:28] CL: Yeah, I can totally see that of the older students are probably going to be much more into the music of their culture. Or, I know that for my husband, it really wasn't until he was older that he really started to identify and love his culture. I can see giving students a safe space to do that and affirming them in their culture, especially if that's not what they're seeing represented, can be so huge for them.

[0:11:59] MM: Definitely. Definitely huge. I think a lot of students, especially BIPOC students, have that similar experience, where they don't necessarily identify with, or celebrate, or feel a closeness to their culture, just because it's not something that is ever really celebrated outside of their families during their childhood. Being that vessel to affirm students and celebrate them just really has lifelong lasting impact, positive impact.

[0:12:28] CL: For sure. For sure. Thank you. Also, for just these great points of it cuts down our own planning time. I'm always looking for those opportunities. We're recording this episode in May. That's for sure, just before we hopped on, Meghan and I were texting each other about like, ÒOh, my goodness. We're almost there. We're almost there to the end of the year.Ó All right. what is your third point that you want to bring up when it comes to cultural responsiveness?

[0:12:57] MM: I think my third point is a Ð it's a point, but it's also an action item. Action item for us as SLPs and us as SLPs working within the education system. I think we first have to understand our multilingual and multi-dialectal students. We really need to understand them and understand what they are bringing to us in terms of their culture. Once we have that understanding, we need to position ourselves to advocate for those students. Then you'll hear me say multi-dialectal and multilingual because I feel like, if we're talking about cultural responsivity within the field of speech-language pathology, my focus is really about multilingual students and multi-dialectal students. I just wanted to clarify that.

I think, as I digress, I think as SLPs, we have to understand our students. Once we understand our students, we need to advocate for them in the school setting and advocate for them, not just having an opportunity to feel seen and heard within our setting, but having an opportunity to feel seen and heard throughout their academic experience.

[0:14:05] CL: Awesome. Do you have any examples and maybe some ways that you've done that in the past, so that we can grasp that idea a little bit deeper?

[0:14:12] MM: Yeah. I think one thing that I have done is I've gone in and I've talked to SPED coordinators and ed specialists and teachers, just about goals that are appropriate. I've talked to them about linguistic delays versus a linguistic difference. It's something that I see really frequently. I work with predominantly Black and Latino students. I constantly see students inherit students with goals that are not appropriate.

For instance, I'll get a lot of TH goals, which you're not supposed to give, because TH is a standardized American English only, like a phoneme. But I get goals like that. Just explaining those sorts of things. I think, also, advocating for teachers not to center standardized American English so much. I think, what I see a lot, especially with English language learners is they spend so much time thinking about what the word is in English, instead of just communicating, instead of just communicating the first word that comes to them.

The first word that comes to you might be in Spanish. It might be in African-American English. It doesn't matter. I think as SLPs, us advocating for linguistic diversity and not linguistic monolithicism. I hope I said that correctly. I think that's really important.

[0:15:31] CL: Awesome. I really like your first point of appropriate goals. I work in a predominantly Latino community. Even when I was working in Compton Unified School District several years ago, and I think it surprises people when you tell them the demographics, because it's not what we see on TV or whatever. I think in Compton, I think the demographics at the time were 87% Latino and then 12% Black. Then the 1% was other, which really just meant either Samoan, or Cambodian. That was what it was.

I noticed a lot of influence of Latino culture with my Black students even because that was the culture that they were growing up in, and that was the language that they were hearing. Maybe their parents themselves were not, but I just really noticed that across the board. Their teachers were. As you're talking about linguistic diversity, I'm also thinking about the classrooms I've worked in and the teachers I've worked with that I haven't Ð I've been very lucky to have worked with diverse communities, diverse teaching communities. I think that's a huge point to bring up. The goals, so the TH goal, and then I also see a lot of grammar goals that the grammar is not Ð

[0:17:03] MM: That was on my list, too.

[0:17:05] CL: Yeah. TH, I think, is a common one that most people know. I still see it, but the grammar is a huge one. Multiple-meaning words don't exist in Spanish. Thinking about different verb conjugations, like irregular past tense verbs do not exist in Spanish. Seeing some of those goals, and I feel bad because I'll get to IEPs and I'll say, ÒOh, this goal is actually inappropriate. I didn't work on it, but here's what I worked on.Ó Or I'll have to call that IEP to change the goal, which is a pain, but it is what it is, right? I think that's such a good point that you bring up about making sure that we're writing appropriate goals and advocating across the board of what that looks like.

[0:17:46] MM: I think also, when you talk about grammar, I think people don't often Ð they often don't realize just the grammar differences, or the differences in syntax that will be present when you have a student who is exposed to Spanish, or you have a student who speaks African-American English. There are things that make sense for them to do grammar-wise. My other point under this goal, we need to advocate action item and thing we need to know is also just understanding and explaining code-switching. Understanding it, us ourselves, and then also explaining it to teachers, because I'll frequently get teachers saying that, ÒWell, the student is using incorrect grammar,Ó and their grammar makes complete and total sense within the context of African-American English, or their grammar makes complete and total sense within the context of Spanish-influenced English.

I think getting people to understand code-switching and getting people to validate code switching. Again, it doesn't have to be standardized American English for it to be valid, or for it to be well received, or even for it to be academic, which is controversial to some people. I have an example of just thinking about how, if someone sounds like they speak Spanish-influenced English, or someone sounds like they speak African-American English, that could impact their ability to get jobs, the interactions that they have with law enforcement, just their overall perceptions by society.

For example, in the Trayvon Martin court case, one of his witnesses, Rachel Jeantel, was a native speaker of Haitian Creole. The jurors that listened to her said that they thought she was a liar because she just didn't speak English correctly because of how she sounded. I think as SLPs, we feel like, well, how can I influence something that's that big or that's that great? 70% of us are in the schools. That's a lot of people. We have a lot of ability to influence and teach people about code-switching, teach people about Spanish-influenced English, teach people about African-American English, and do the work to dismantle the centering of standardized American English and just the centering of English as all that is academic and correct and approachable, so on and so forth. I feel that's heavy, but I think I believe in us as SLPs that we are the ones that can do it.

[0:20:09] CL: Yeah. I think you're right. I mean, you gave us a lot, so I'm still processing everything that you gave us, but I really love that concept of us educating the teachers, educating Ð I mean, this happened just last week in the lunchroom, actually. I was not eating lunch, I was making coffee, but there was two teachers that were in the lunchroom. One is Latina, and she said something to one of the other teachers. The other teacher, her first name starts with a B, and I don't want to out this person. I mean, not that anybody's going to know them. The Latina teacher was saying it with an accent. But it wasn't that thick of an accent. I understood her, but then again, I understand a lot of things.

It wasn't that thick of an accent. The other teacher was very rude to her and kept saying, ÒNo. This is how to say my name. It's not Ôbuh,Õ itÕs Ôvvvh.Õ I just was like, ÒHey, why don't we take a deep breath? That's what I heard her say. It's okay.Ó

[0:21:18] MM: As someone whose last name has continuously for the past almost 30 years been pronounced as ÔMcCartyÕ. My levels of sympathy are so low for that. Oh, no.

[0:21:31] CL: Right. Right. I just took a step in, because the other teacher is a friend of mine, and I just said, ÒHey, why don't we take a deep breath? That's what I heard her say. She just wanted to say.Ó The other teacher just wanted to say something like, ÒI like your shirt, or I like your dress,Ó or it was a compliment and she didn't quite get there and it was this whole thing. I think the other teacher and I were talking about it later. I just said, ÒOkay, there's a lot of education that needs to happen,Ó just like what you're saying, because I don't want this to happen to my students in that classroom.

We do have students in my particular district that move here from out of the country. I have two right now that have Ð I'm working with interpreters to get them assessed, that have been referred. It's speech sound disorders that are appropriate within their Ð that are inappropriate for their language, right? But anyway, that's a whole other thing. I'm digressing a ton. But I think that it is really important. I mean, I saw that this last week at my particular school. I think sometimes, we think Southern California is this haven for progressive ideas and activities and whatnot, and that's not necessarily the case.

I love the hopefulness that you bring to this of, hey, this is a really awesome role that we get to sit in, and we do get to have this impact. You're right, we're the ones who understand this, maybe on a deeper level, especially when we take courses like this where we're learning from you.

My next question that I have that's on topic, but not quite within our framework, is if somebody has a student that they think has a dialectical difference, or grammar differences that might be due to a heritage language, what do you recommend that they do? Where should they look for resources?

[0:23:25] MM: Ask that question again. I need more time to think.

[0:23:28] CL: Okay, I will. I will absolutely ask that question. Yeah, I love the idea of appropriate goals, the idea of teaching other teachers about code switching. I think that's huge. Do you ever teach code switching to your students? You're working with middle school and high school students. Do you ever teach them about code switching?

[0:23:52] MM: No. Actually, I haven't really taught them about code-switching. I don't. It's something that I Ð It's challenging. It's challenging, because I don't believe in code-switching. Not that I don't believe that it exists. I just don't believe that we should do it. I really struggle with this, especially as someone who works with Ð I mean, I would bet that most of your caseload is boys. Most of my caseload is Black and brown boys. I really struggle with this a lot. I want to dismantle this thing, but I also know they need to assimilate into society. It's really hard.

It's really challenging, especially as a Black woman who shows up the way that I do. If people just looked at my name and heard me talk, they wouldn't say, ÒThis is a Black person.Ó That wouldn't necessarily be their first thought. I know it's not their first thought, because that's the feedback that I've got my entire life. I was raised a very specific way and my parents were very hard on me about my grammar and about how I sounded and how I spoke, especially in public. I don't know. It's really challenging. That's not a great answer. But it's really challenging.

[0:25:04] CL: I think that's a great answer, because I think that idea of, I know in the past what I learned, I mean, I graduated from grad school quite a few years ago. It was this idea of like, yes, we Ð We weren't even having this conversation about code-switching. We were just talking about standardized American English. We were talking about differences when it came to maybe Spanish speakers, but maybe not necessarily Ð some differences. I do remember, there was a lecture that we had on African-American English. That was about it.

Then we were also, it moved that we were supposed to talk about code-switching and teaching our students when it's appropriate to code-switch and write academic papers and have academic conversations with their professors. Now, I am seeing this shift of like, why? Why are we saying this is the gold standard, especially when we see the demographics of the US change so much?

I was recently at a lecture this last, or two weekends ago, and they were talking about how Gen Z is they are the Ð I can't remember exactly what the statistic is. The majority of Gen Z are bicultural people. I thought that that was really awesome and fascinating and cool to see. I thought, man, that's really going to impact our field in terms of language and how we assess language. Thank you for giving us that very real answer of I struggle with it. I want them. You mentioned it earlier with the way that society looks at standard American English versus dialectical differences. That's a good thing for us to sit with and reflect on why we would teach code-switching, or why we wouldn't, and to have a stand on it. Thank you, Meghan. That was a fantastic answer. You said that wasn't a good answer and I loved it.

[MESSAGE]

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[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]

[0:27:24] CL: All right. Your three points, I just want to make sure that your three points are Ð check out that website, check out the research of how to be culturally responsive. It's not that hard. Just jump in and do it. Then number three, understand our students and their culture, so that we can advocate for them.

[0:27:43] MM: That's it.

[0:27:44] CL: That's it. Awesome. That's it. Piece of cake, right? Okay, so then what are the two resources that you're bringing to us today?

[0:27:53] MM: The two resources, this is where I'm happy at the beginning. You said that I'm an educator, like I see things through the lens of the educator, because that's very true. That's about to jump out of me right now. There's something called universal design for learning. I don't know if every SLP knows about it, but I think it's something that can be really useful for us as SLPs. I know people might say, well, that's a teaching strategy. I think it can be useful for us as SLPs.

Basically, universal design for learning is a pedagogy that is essentially saying, provide students with multiple means of engagement. Meaning give them multiple ways to engage with a topic. Maybe you're giving them a reading, a video, a tactile activity, etc. Giving them multiple means of representation of something. Giving them multiple means of action and expression, so giving them the opportunity to express their knowledge and demonstrate their knowledge in different ways.

I won't dive extremely deep into what universal design for learning is, because it's very extensive, but it basically talks about if you give all students an equal opportunity to succeed, then students will be able to succeed. I think us as SLPs, it's something that we do naturally. I think if we have a student where it's really challenging and you're noticing like, okay, they're not meeting this goal, I think having UDL in your pocketbook as a way to change how you're demonstrating that goal to the student, or teaching that student the goal, I think that could be helpful.

The reason why I bring up UDL and it ties into the other resource that I have, but the reason why I bring up UDL is because there was research done in 2017 that showed that using UDL was most effective, or was very effective for English language learners. A lot of the students that we work with, whether they are classified as English language learners, or they are not classified as English language learners, a lot of the students that we work with when we have Black, Latino, Asian students are really coming to us as English language learners. They're going to be exposed to a different language, or a different dialect, so using a teaching strategy and a pedagogy that is best for English language learners is something that I think definitely helps support linguistic cultural responsivity.

[0:30:25] CL: Awesome. Thank you. Can you give us an example? I'm a big fan of UDL. Like you said, it's something that we should, if you don't know about it, you've got to Google UDL, Universal Design for Learning. I'm looking to have a guest on the podcast to talk about it, but it's so vast and so big that I'm having a hard time finding somebody who's like, ÒIn an hour, you want me to talk about it?Ó

[0:30:49] MM: I might know someone.

[0:30:51] CL: Thank you so much for bringing that up. Yes, the research for English language learners is really awesome for it, for our diverse learners who learn maybe differently than our general mainstream kids. It's something that can be used with them, too. How are some ways that you have used this pedagogy to work with your multilingual or multi-dialectical students?

[0:31:18] MM: I think the one thing that I use always, because I don't necessarily use everything in harmony, but one thing I always do is multiple means of engagement. I always give students multiple ways to engage with the activity. I like to have it, the activity presented to them auditorily and verbally. I'm always going to give them Ð Did I say auditorily and verbally? That's the same thing. I want to have a visual and the auditory piece. If I need to, we'll get kinesthetic with it.

I have a student who has DownÕs Syndrome and he's an AAC user and he loves basketball. What do we do during his sessions? We play basketball and we target different pieces of language. Because previously, I had tried other methods with him, pushing into his classroom. I tried doing lessons with him and I wasn't super successful in presenting the information to him that way. But presenting it to him where he has a way to use his body and get out energy has demonstrated a lot of growth for this student. It's been really helpful.

I think, I'm in a unique situation where I can do things like that. I have a lot of support, which is very rare in the speech world, but I have a lot of support where I work. I have two incredible SLPA. Shout out, my two SLPAs. I'm not going to say their names, because people don't need to know where I work. I have two amazing SLPAs. They're phenomenal and I am able to do these really unique and super specified activities with students. I'm not telling other people like, ÒHey, go outside and play basketball,Ó because that just may not be realistic for many SLPs. I think that's one way that I've used UDL is I've given that student a different way to engage, that speaks to that student's interest and their best mode of learning, which is learning kinesthetically.

[0:33:04] CL: All right, awesome. Thank you for that example of Ð When we're talking about universal design for learning, we're thinking about all those different learning styles, bringing in all those different ways for students to engage. Then the research is showing that for our English language learners, that that's really helpful for them.

I'm even thinking back to utilizing this information, even with our educators that we're collaborating with, that piece that you said about advocacy. Because I know it hasn't happened to me this school year, but I have in school years past gotten referrals and tried to explain to teachers, ÒNo, this is a language difference, not a language disorder.Ó I can also follow up with them and give them some of these strategies that they can use in their classroom, even though they're not necessarily getting my direct support. I can support the teacher in this way.

[0:33:57] MM: Exactly.

[0:33:58] CL: Were you going to say more?

[0:34:00] MM: No, I was going to say like, exactly. You can also take this information to the classroom teachers, to the SPED coordinator, ed specialist, the principal and say like, ÒHey, this is what I'm using to support students. Maybe this may be helpful to get training on this, or implement this in the classroom so that we can reduce the amount of referrals that aren't appropriate that I'm receiving.Ó

[0:34:24] CL: Yeah, I love that. All right. I think we're ready for resource number two.

[0:34:30] MM: What you just talked about, the inappropriate referrals leads me to resource number two. Like I said, friends I'm a teacher first, and I feel like I'm an SLP second sometimes. Everything is just I'm always with my teacher brain. The next thing that I'm talking about is called response to intervention. As we've said several times today, we frequently get inappropriate referrals for our multilingual and multi-dialectal students. Research shows that Black and brown students, especially boys, are more likely to receive speech and language services inappropriately than any other group. They are frequently referred for services, excuse me, that they don't need. What is response to intervention?

It's basically a three-tier structure. The first tier is tier one, and that's classroom instruction. The second tier is tier two, and that's targeted small group instruction. The third tier is tier three, and that's intensive individual intervention. That would be like a IEP. How does that apply to us as SLPs? Us as SLPs, when people come to us and say, I think this kid needs to be assessed, instead of us just doing an assessment, we can do what is called an RTI process. We can screen the student and first see, does the student even qualify for RTI? Is speech RTI even appropriate for the student?

Then once that determination is made, then we can create an RTI group. We can have a group of RTI kids, or we can put them in another group. Maybe they just need a little bit of support with S, or lateralizing their S just a little. They're right on the cusp, but they need that extra bit of support. Maybe they need a little bit of support with expressive language, so on and so forth. RTI is great for students who don't necessarily need a three-year long IEP, but they need just a little bit of support to get to where they need to be, like to get on age level and grade level.

I think it's really important for us as SLPs to advocate for RTI response to intervention, because I see so many kids that are overqualified, especially coming out of the pandemic. There are so many kids that it's just assessment, assessment, assessment, assessment. I did an initial on an 11th grader. That was last year. I did an initial on an 11th grader. Very, very odd. I think using RTI reduces the disproportionality of Black and Latino students receiving special education services that they do not need, because that's a really big issue.

Research also shows that a good majority of people who are in prison have IEPs. When we are over-qualifying students, we're supporting the school to prison pipeline. I know that sounds intense and heavy, but as SLPs, we want to make sure that we're not over-qualifying students and response to intervention is a really great way to not over-qualify students, give teachers in class support and education on how they can support students who just need a little bit of support. Most importantly, it makes our caseloads more manageable. If we are assessing 10 kids and five are qualifying that really don't need the service, but they failed the test, because anyone can fail a test in reality. If we're assessing those kids, five are failing, our caseload is increasing.

It's not a field where we have a tremendous amount of support. It's not. Rarely do people actually have SLPAs. People are here with 70 kids in three different schools and you're case managing all of the kids. Even if cultural responsivity isn't your goal, doing RTI will help give your case load more manageable and make your life more manageable. Even if you're like, ÒI don't care about cultural responsivity,Ó RTI will just help you also. It's really great cultural responsive practice, and it's really great for reducing students qualifying for services that they do not need.

[0:38:27] CL: You made so many great points. I don't even know where to begin. I think I'm going to go backwards. I think, the last thing that I was processing as you were talking was this idea of and it is important, right? Representation matters. Making sure that our kids are seeing themselves in the materials weÕre using matters. One of the courses I went to at California Speech and Hearing Convention was making sure that our classroom decorations are even representative of the students on our caseload. 

When I first think of cultural responsiveness, that's what I think of, but I really love that you're going deeper and you're saying, no, even our very practices, we need to think about them as being culturally responsive, this idea of RTI and reducing the amount of Black and brown boys that we're qualifying and giving them that extra support. You made that point about the pandemic, too. That is like, I'm up to 70 students as of right now and I still have some more initials to go.

[0:39:31] MM: The pressure is getting worser.

[0:39:32] CL: It is. It's one of those things that I had somebody on the podcast back in January, I think, and she talked about multi-tiered systems of support. That's RTI. Just different acronyms for it, MTSS. It's finding the space within our schedules to do that. That idea of, hey, if we're doing this, we're reducing the amount of students that we're probably over-qualifying. I'm guilty of it right now of over-qualifying students, because I can't give them that support on the RTI model, right?

[0:40:04] MM: Yeah.

[0:40:05] CL: That is something that I talked to my boss about two weeks ago, actually, was, ÒHey, I need more space in my schedule, because I need to be supporting my teachers. It's part of my scope of practice.Ó I brought up what you're saying, the pandemic. We had an IEP yesterday for a student. He's got multiple speech errors in fourth grade. He qualifies for speech 100%, but they were trying to do an academic referral for him, but he's making progress in the MTSS process. He's not reading and he's in fourth grade, but he's making progress. He is reading, I should say. He's reading at the first-grade level. That's problematic.

We're about to be in fifth grade here. But he's making progress. He has the aptitude to learn. It's not a learning disability. The team was just not understanding where I was coming from. They're like, ÒThis kid needs help. This kid needs help.Ó He does need help. He's getting help.

[0:41:05] MM: Yeah, and that's the thing. There's a reason why in the spring, it's a double hockey sticks for IEPs, because so many schools, they do RTI in the fall. Oh, if the kid hasn't made XYZ progress, we're going to go ahead and qualify him in the spring. That's the problem. Good RTI lasts basically, a full school year, because you do six to eight-week sessions of treatment, then you go back and you reevaluate. You see, what growth has been made? Okay, if the kid's not making growth, you change your strategies and your supports, then you go back and do another six to eight weeks with the student. You see, are they making changes? Are they making progress? Okay, we're seeing they're making progress. We're going to do another six to eight-week round.

At that point, you've gone the full school year. If you see the student is making progress with RTI, then you should absolutely keep it. I'm not opposed to, because sometimes, especially with articulation, you'll see some students that probably are not going to do great on the gifta. But I know that, okay, if we work with this kid for maybe one school year, do RTI for one school year, I know this kid will make the growth and we can just bounce them. We don't need to do a three-year IEP. Because I think people really need to look at the gravity of what an IEP is.

Imagine if youÕre renting an apartment, and they ask you to enter a three-year lease. That's a really long time. That's a really big commitment. You're saying, ÒI'm not going to leave this apartment for three years. I'm not going to move anywhere else for three years. I'm not leaving the city for three years.Ó IEP is a three-year long commitment. I think as SLPs, if we're advocating for RTI and incorporating it more, it can help to reduce our caseloads, so on and so forth.

Also, we don't necessarily have to do the RTI, because it's not an IEP. We can work with teachers. We can work with para educators and provide them with the training, the resources and tools, so that they can also support that student in the classroom setting and we can comment and do check-ins on a regular basis. Upfront, it's heavy. It's a heavy load upfront. Once you get it started and you get your system going, it really is most beneficial for students and it's really beneficial for us in our caseloads.

[0:43:27] CL: Yeah, it is.

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[0:43:53] CL: I know when I had a SLPA in my previous district, I was much more involved in the classrooms and helping teachers provide strategies, and brainstorming with teachers like, ÒOh, have you tried adding this movement activity to this?Ó Because, like you said, that is something that we naturally do. We naturally do those UDL things within our speech room when we've got just a few kids. But I am totally going to come to my administrator this week and say, ÒHey, this will also be a culturally responsive,Ó because I know that's something that our district is dealing with.

We've got a lot of Black and brown boys on IEPs for behavior, or whatever, right? That's something that we're seeing, that we're getting dinged on as a district. Which I think most districts are at this point, right? That's what the research is showing. I really appreciate that. I know too, when I was doing RTI at that previous district, we also, and I was talking to my principal, she's not my boss necessarily, but I was talking to her about this week about, and this was in response to that student where I said, he's not appropriate for special ed. I said, we need to we got creative in that previous district. Money was tight, but there were some local colleges and some local universities and we started getting these college volunteer tutors that were wanting to get into speech programs that are competitive, wanting to get into things.

I was training them on what RTI looked like for some language lessons and for some speech stuff, and then they were doing it. Then the teachers started utilizing them for more of those academic ones too, but then I was just going in for progress monitoring and that was it, which was so helpful. Meghan, thank you, because this is really inspiring to me to come back at that Ð I really am at that point in the school here where I'm like, ÒAh, just a few more weeks.Ó But it's like, no, I need to stay in the game. I need to keep working here. I need to keep being inspired and you've totally inspired me to reignite the RTI flame of not only is this best practice, but really if I'm thinking about it, it's culturally responsive.

I just love that idea of being culturally responsive from the ground level and not just that Ð not that it's performative, but from the ground level, thinking about what practices we have, how do we qualify kids? How do we not qualify kids? And thinking about it from that ground level, Meghan, is so, so huge for me. Thank you for bringing that piece.

[0:46:30] MM: Yay. I'm happy it was helpful. I was very nervous putting this together. I was like, ÒIs this going to make sense?Ó Are people going to be like, ÒWhy are you mentioning this? This is very teachery.Ó But I'm happy to get this positive feedback that you're getting something out of it and it makes sense.

[0:46:46] CL: It does. It does make sense. Like I said, I would have never thought about RTI being culturally responsive and something that I needed to be doing in that light, right? It's something that I know I need to be doing to keep my caseload down, to be more of a service to my school site. I love that idea and I know you got a little heavy there. I don't want to say controversial, because I don't know. From my perspective, it's not necessarily of that prison to Ðthe school to prison pipeline and what is our role in that? I think that's a really good point to bring up. If you're unfamiliar with that term, definitely look it up. Definitely do some research there. That's a whole another hour conversation at least.

[0:47:27] MM: Definitely.

[0:47:27] CL: I like just that question you post to us is what is our role with the prison to pipeline, or the school to prison pipeline? Because we might think that we don't have a role that's outside of us. That's not us. But research is showing that the majority of men in in prison have IEPs and I think that's such a good point to bring up to us, too, to think about. Meghan, I appreciate the way you are approaching this topic from your teacher standpoint, from your speech standpoint, from your own personal experiences as well. This brings us to our last point. You have given us some actionable strategies already, but what is that last actionable strategy that you want to give us?

[0:48:11] MM: I feel I gave you all a lot. What I wrote down is advocate and implement. That is my actionable strategy for you all. Advocate for these things and implement these things. Advocate for RTI. Advocate for UDL. Advocate for cultural responsiveness when it comes to language. Advocate for our multilingual, multidialectal students and implement teaching strategies that support them. Yeah, those are my Ð I feel like, I gave a lot of information. The ball is in your court to advocate, implement and also, educate yourself. We can never stop learning.

As a Black person, sure, I'm familiar with African-American English, but African-American English is different regionally. There's things that they say in the Bay Area. There's things that we say in LA. There's stuff people say in New York and in Miami, so on and so forth. I can never stop learning about that. It's something that I'm never going to stop learning and I love to learn about it. Advocate and implement. Those are my action strategies for you all. 

[0:49:19] CL: I love it. I like that, I know that sometimes we come to these PDs where we're like, just give us the things that I can do tomorrow. Give me that one thing that I know I can do. I really actually like that today, you didn't give us just this clear cut, this is what you need to do to be culturally responsive, right? You need to just pull out this book that is representative of your students. You gave us so many things to process, because I think what Ð at least when I'm reflecting on my own learning that we've just done, it's going to actually help me own it a little bit better and it's going to help me understand my students and the process at a deeper level.

I mean, you're an educator. You're an educator, Meghan. That's probably what you're doing with your students and what you've done with your students in the past is that idea of, ÒNo, I'm not going to give you the blueprint. You're going to come up with the blueprint, but I'm going to give you the framework for your blueprint,Ó which is hard work, but I appreciate the hard work that you've tasked us with.

I just really love that the concepts that you gave us today are not your stereotypical culturally responsiveness action steps, or resources. I'm not going to lie, Meghan. I totally thought today was going to be like, check out this Instagram to learn about these culturally responsive books and there's this SLP that's doing this. I love that what you've given us is from the ground up. It's accessible for any student we work with, but especially thinking about how it's going to better our multilingual and multi-dialectical students. I love that. Can you review your three things we need to know one more time?

[0:51:09] MM: Our three things that we need to know is about the Center for Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning. They have a really great pedagogy that's called validate, affirm, build and bridge, or VABB for short. I think the second thing that you all need to know is that cultural responsivity is not hard. We just have to do the research and find ways to connect with students through music, food, cultural holidays and culture in general. The second thing is it's really not hard to do. It just takes some research and digging and a lot of that research we can do with our students. Then the third thing says, as SLPs, we have to advocate for our multilingual and multi-dialectal students and clients. By advocating, we have to first understand them. We have to understand what their language differences are. We have to understand what their culture is. Once we understand that, then we're better able to advocate for them and support them.

[0:52:05] CL: Fantastic. Cynthia also has the same thoughts that I did. The thought of she said, ÒI never thought of RTI in the terms you've presented it in terms of advocating.Ó I agree with her. I've always thought of it in terms of advocating for myself, of lowering my caseload and making sure that I'm not having to do a million assessments every year. I've never really thought of it in terms of advocating for my students is what's best for them, and keeping them out of special education if they don't need to be there. I think that that is Ð I am so excited. I'm so excited to take that and to be on fire for our students and making sure that that we don't have that role in the school to prison pipeline. Thank you again for just reviewing your three things. Can you review your two resource points for us?

[0:52:57] MM: My two resources were universal design for learning and response to intervention. Those are my two resources.

[0:53:07] CL: Fantastic. Then your last actionable strategy for us to take with us tomorrow. 

[0:53:14] MM: Advocate and implement. Implement and advocate. Don't hesitate. Also, learn. Advocate, implement, educate.

[0:53:23] CL: Awesome. Your experience is, I'll get to that question in a moment, or that thought in a moment, but your experience was you were an interventionist. That means that you were pretty much working within the RTI model, correct?

[0:53:35] MM: Mm-hmm.

[0:53:37] CL: Okay. That makes sense why you have such a deep understanding of RTI, a deep love for it. Do you have any examples of how you've seen RTI? Any examples where it just clicked for a student, or you were able to get the student out of the RTI process and some major success that we can inspire us to move forward?

[0:54:02] MM: Yes. When I first started doing RTI, I really just got thrown into it. I was doing this teacher on special assignment position where I covered a maternity leave for one semester. Then the second semester, they had me do intervention for reading. I worked with a group of third graders. Never in my life had I done reading intervention. Had no idea what I was doing, but my mom, both my parents are special education teachers. My mom, her specialty is reading. I asked her a lot of questions, did a lot of researching, did a lot of digging. I figured out a great strategy, I guess, to teach kids reading.

I had my intervention groups. I saw those students pretty frequently, because it was a grade level of students who had a lot of constants, like a revolving door of teachers. At the beginning of the school year, a teacher quit in first grade and then they had a sub until second semester. Then in second grade, a teacher quit during the second semester and then they had a substitute. It was a group of students who had never had a consistent teacher. That impacted their learning.

As I digress, I was able to work with those students and I was able to pretty much get a whole grade level of students up to reading level in about, I would say, three months, three or four months.

[0:55:18] CL: Wow, that is fantastic. Reading is such a major part of our lives, or it can be, right? We want children to read for fun and to unpack that. You had such a such a profound experience on their life. I love hearing that. I love hearing that you were able to do that in three months. That gives us a lot of perspective of like, ÒOkay, this is doable. We can do this.Ó Thank you for sharing. Gil has Ð she has a great comment and I just appreciate her authenticity with it. She says that she agrees that code switching is a really tough topic. She's a former English major. It's tough for her to not to want to focus on learning standard English. Especially being an English major, that was probably drilled into you. That's a great thing that she's processing what that is like.

That was a great Ð some great points that you made about code switching, that idea of well, I'm weighing what society says, but I also want to dismantle this thing. That's good for us to also think on and reflect on as to why we would teach code switching, or why we're using it in our own practice, or maybe why we're not. Then that way, we can advocate that to when we have our own language for it, we can advocate that to other teachers. I just appreciate, Meghan, everything that you've brought to us today. You are almost done with your CF year.

[0:56:52] MM: IÕm dropping. I should have my Cs by the end of this month, actually, God willing.

[0:56:55] CL: Wow. Congratulations.

[0:56:56] MM: Yes, I'm done. Yes. I should have them, hopefully, my ASHA C and my state Cs. IÕm speaking it into existence. They will be here by the end of this month. California is going to process my application by the end of this month. It is going to happen.

[0:57:11] CL: Awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome. I love that. Yeah, weÕre going to celebrate that with you when you get those. What I was about to say is you don't need your Cs. You do need your Cs. I'm not trying to say that. What I'm trying to say is like, I just really appreciate all the experience and all the wisdom that you brought to this and our Cs are just that little Ð those little extra things after our name and I just really want to validate you and all that you bring to our profession and all that we've taken from you today. I appreciate that.

If people want to get in touch with you, or they have more questions as they're processing, or they have questions about RTI and how to do things, how can they reach out to you?

[0:57:56] MM: Awesome. I do have an Instagram page. It's for my business that I'm in the process of creating. My Instagram page is @greatergood_edu.

[0:58:08] CL: Okay. @greatergood_edu. Fantastic. That's the best way to get ahold of you if we have any questions about UDL or RTI.

[0:58:21] MM: Yes, and that I also have an email and the email address is info@greatergoodedu.org.

[0:58:31] CL: Okay, fantastic. Info@greatergoodedu.org, or Instagram @greatergood_edu. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you, thank you so much, Meghan. Is there anything else that you want to leave us with? Any other tidbits?

[0:58:50] MM: Any other tidbits? I feel like I talked so much. I think, some of this can be uncomfortable. It can be uncomfortable to separate from our own thought process and our own ideas, or our own practices and even doing it towards the end of the school year can be tiring. I'm tired. Well, I took a nap today before I did this. It's very tiring time of the school year, but I would say, do it for the kids. Push yourself for the kids.

I went into speech-language pathology, because kindergarten through my master's program, I had two or three Black teachers. In the field of speech-language pathology, it's 3% Black. Do it for the kids. If you're not necessarily representative of them culturally, try to find ways where you are able to still show up for them. I'm not a Latina, but I show up from my Latino students. I speak Spanish. I give them affirmations in Spanish. I'll compliment them in Spanish. I ask my friends like, what are some mama bear things that she would say? How do you redirect students? My favorite is [inaudible 0:59:59], which means one more time and you're going to see.

Just go the extra mile for your students. I know it can be uncomfortable and it can be challenging, but I'm on a really long tangent, but just do it for the kids. Show up for them, because they show up for you. Just do it for the kids.

[1:00:15] CL: I love it. I think that's so great. I love the idea of Ð I love that you are so passionate about being the person you needed when you were growing up. I think that that's so valuable. I also love your experience and you sharing your experience of, ÒOkay, I'm not Latina, but I'm going to speak Spanish. I'm going to show up. I'm going to affirm and celebrate who you are.Ó I just love that. Thank you so much for just being you, Meghan, and for sharing your wisdom with us. I just can't wait to run into you in the future and to see what great things you have in store for you.

Everyone else, thank you so much for joining us. We will see you back here soon. If you please, just as a reminder, log into your speechtherapypd.com account at the conclusion of today's course and complete all modules, especially the one entitled Quiz by the end of day today to get your CEU credit. Hopefully, Mara, that answers your question. Mara, I'm really glad that you were able to have some takeaways for early intervention as well.

All right, Meghan, have a great evening. Everyone else, have a great evening wherever you are and we'll see you back here soon.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

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SpeechLife 34		Transcript

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