The United States has counted its population every ten years since 1790 — it’s mandated by the United States Constitution. A strong proponent of the census way back then, James Madison, figured the only way public officials could “rest their arguments on facts, instead of assertions and conjectures” was if the official count of the population was as accurate and complete as possible. Which means, hey: let’s make sure all of us with disabilities are counted, too! Here’s why:

• Transportation. Communities use census data when planning for public transit routes, upgrades and changes. Billions of dollars in federal funds are distributed for transportation projects, including public transit, accessible pedestrian signals, and truncated domes at intersections. We need all of those things to assure we can get around safely. The funding each state gets is based on census data. If we are not counted, that could mean less money for our cities and states for these projects. We need to be counted.
• Health and Social Services. States receives billions of federal dollars to support a wide variety of programs, including funding for services we use that are specifically for people with disabilities. We need to be counted.
• Representation. The number of people who respond in our communities and states will determine the number of electoral votes we get to help choose who becomes president, the number of seats our state gets in the U.S. House of Representatives, and how the congressional and state legislative districts are drawn. We need to be counted.

After previously stating the census would run through October 31, the bureau announced it was cutting the count short by a month, moving the deadline for responding to the 2020 Census up to September 30, 2020. This year, while the world faces the impact of COVID-19, people with disabilities need to be counted. More than ever.

My husband can see and in the past he filled out the form for the two of us. This year I was able to fill our form out on my own. The 2020 Census Fact Sheet reports that the 2020 online questionnaire follows the latest Website Accessibility Content Guidelines for people with disabilities. If I could fill out our census form, you can do it, too! Visit https://my2020census.gov now, before it’s too late.

Here it is! Part Two of speech-language pathologist Marsha Boyer’s guest blog about teletherapy. The owner of Speech Connections, Inc in Indianapolis, Marsha says she’s seen countless changes in the Speech and Language therapy field over her 27-year career, ”but the year 2020 has brought a new meaning to the word ‘change!’” In Part one of her Education and Parenting guest post, she described how she, the children she serves and their parents made the switch from face-to-face therapy to tele-therapy while sheltering in place. Today she offers tips for speech-language pathologist and parents for the new school year.

by Marsha Boyer, M.A.,CCC-SLP

I believe I speak for most speech-language pathologists and parents when I say that in the early stages of the pandemic we were using what resources we had and trying our best to continue with services. Now that we have had some time to take a step back and assess what we’ve accomplished so far, we can look at making a few adjustments to improve the delivery of services. I’ve learned a lot in the last six months or so, and today I’m sharing my tips to help speech-language pathologists and parents get the most benefit out of your tele-therapy sessions.

Parents:

1. Try to use a large screen device or computer, and check for good internet connection. Tablets and phones are sometimes what are available when parents also have to be online for work, but I have found these devices often do not allow clients to interact with online activities. Also, find websites that help you check your internet speed and quality.
2. Keep nearby distractions to a minimum. Siblings and pets are great topics for us to talk about but sometimes they are doing things that draw attention away from the speech therapist.
3. Finish up those snacks and meals before meeting. Though I would rather have them happy than “hangry”, we lose some quality therapy time while they are eating, leaving me to stand by waiting.
4. Set up your child in front of the camera so that your speech therapist can see their entire face. Hearing their speech through a speaker often does not allow me to hear those subtle changes. If I also have the visual component, the two together help me make a better assessment of how they are doing.

At this point in the year, most speech-language pathologists have had some experience with tele-therapy and most likely have materials and routines all set. My advice to speech pathologists at this point is to stay true to your style of therapy as much as you can to maintain some normality. For instance, though green screen activities are engaging, if that was not part of your skill set before the pandemic you may not want to tackle that yet. Annotating PDFs and using interactive learning games can address goals just as well. Here are a few additional tips to take your online sessions up a notch.

Speech-Language Pathologists:

1. Have an external microphone and use headphones or earbuds while meeting with a child.
2. Plan ahead for creative ways to engage very young children. We all know preschoolers can be unpredictable, but if you have a general idea of how you want to address a particular goal, you reduce the need to scramble for a way to pull in their attention. Even a simple hide and seek game where you ask a parent to help them hide an object while they turn off video, then back on for you to look around and ask them “where did you hide it?” This type of simple activity is great for working on answering questions.
3. Consider a healthy mix of direct therapy from you and parent/child observation. Parents are happy to help facilitate and be a part of the session, but not all parents are at the same readiness level when it comes to being the leader. To a speech therapist, the parent/child interaction can be valuable information, but several parents I’ve spoken with have expressed feelings of stress and lack of confidence when asked to play with their child while the speech therapist watches and adds tips for drawing out specific skills.
4. Go the extra mile now and again. I use a specific program for stuttering which involves the child keeping a set of cards that explain their fluency “tools.” I don’t ask the parent to print out these cards at home. Instead, I laminate the cards and send them by mail to their home. I include some fun stickers as encouragement, too, and discovered that kids get really excited about receiving mail with their name on it. Now I make encouragement packages a part of my practice for all of the clients I see.

Whether you’re a parent or a speech therapist, I hope my tips help you get more out of your therapy sessions!

The United States General Election will be here before you know it: Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020, to be exact. Ballots across the country will be cast and counted that day, and in order to participate, you must be registered to vote.

A healthy democracy requires active citizenship and civic participation from everyone, including those of us with disabilities. We are a vital part of the communities where we live, work and play, and voting is foundational to being an engaged citizen. Every election, whether local, state or federal, helps determine the laws that govern us, the programs and support services available to us and the elected officials who represent us on every level of government. We all need to vote – this year and every year – to make sure we all have a voice in shaping our futures.

There is concern this year that because of COVID-19, many people with disabilities risk not having their voices heard in the 2020 election. To ensure that people with disabilities are a powerful force in our democracy, we need to register!

National Voter Registration Day is a nonpartisan civic holiday celebrating democracy. This year, it is important to register early and vote early if you can! Go to the National Voter Registration Day‘s voter help page to learn about voter registration deadlines by state, voting times and locations, whether or not you’re eligible, and more. To learn about voting rights for people with disabilities, election information and how to encourage your friends and family to vote, visit Easterseals’ voting resource page.

I am pleased to introduce speech-language pathologist Marsha Boyer as today’s “Education and Parenting” guest blogger. The owner of Speech Connections, Inc in Indianapolis, Marsha has seen countless Changes in the Speech and Language therapy field over her 27-year career. ”But the year 2020 has brought a new meaning to the word ‘change,’” she says, describing in this guest post how she, the children she serves and their parents are managing the switch from face-to-face therapy to tele-therapy.

by Marsha Boyer, M.A.,CCC-SLP

After Governor Eric Holcomb directed Indiana schools to close back in March, I got to work structuring online sessions that would be as close to the face-to-face appointment structure as possible. The number of children in my private practice caseload pales compared to my counter parts in the school setting, but I do encounter young children with hearing loss and hearing aids, children with genetic syndromes, Apraxia, stuttering, and Autism, to name a few.

These children typically have an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) identifying deficits their speech language pathologist have determined are impacting the child’s education. Things were changing so quickly in March that I only had one short weekend to plan for the switch from face-to-face therapy style to online. Granted,one weekend is not enough time to wrap your head around providing quality services under a completely new structure, but I felt compelled to do what I could. School therapy was non-existent while school systems drew up policies and procedures for tele-therapy, and my clients needed to keep momentum going with their speech and language goals.

Many face to face therapy routines I’ve used for years vanished into thin air when we switched to tele-therapy. Without being able to work together physically and manipulate objects together, what would we talk about? How would I help clients who need tactile guidance to show them how to make a sound or to explore a toy? I needed high-interest lessons and activities. Educational videos and songs, too.

Where to find these? Go to the experts: fellow speech-language pathologists!

While searching for online therapy materials and creative lessons, I came across a Facebook group of speech-language pathologists who had been tele-therapists even before the pandemic. To be successful in this field, you must learn to come up with creative, adaptive ways to teach a skill or engage a child. Their tips and resources were extremely helpful when I was trying to hit the ground running. Thanks in large part to them –and to the children I serve and their parents — I’ve been leading tele-therapy sessions for months now.

Stay tuned for part two of this post, where speech language-pathologist Marsha Boyer shares tips to help parents make the most of their child’s tele-therapy sessions.

In his introduction to a story on NPR a few weeks back, Morning Edition host David Greene pointed out that here in the United States, more than 7 million school children receive special education services. “But this spring, many of those vital services, like physical therapy, simply stopped,” he said. “So what happens now with some districts planning to continue remote learning in the fall?” To answer that question, NPR took an approach like we’ve been taking with our Education and Parenting blogs lately. Just like us, they went to experts: the parents of the children with disabilities.

The story features a Minnesota mom with a third grader who struggles with auditory processing, and a mom in Rhode Island whose son has cerebral palsy and a cluster of other conditions.

The mom with the third-grader said her daughter had a hard time keeping up with teacher’s using an iPad. “They’d tell her, you know, look at this problem, look at that problem, no, show me your worksheet…” she said. “I mean, the teachers were doing the best they could, but all those rapid verbal directions just overwhelmed her.” The result? Her daughter has gone from loving school to dreading it.

The boy in Rhode Island who has cerebral palsy loves school but got little of the therapy he needed last spring while school was online only. His mother, a single parent, needs him to be in school this fall so she can work. But how can she send him to school if it’s going to be a health risk? “One more mistake could land him in the hospital,” she says, worrying that a hospital stay like that could be fatal.

Like so many other COVID-related stories these days, this one offered few solutions. That said, I was pleased that NPR found the issue important enough to give it air time. The reporter ended the story by explaining that a handful of lawsuits have been filed by parents and advocates around the country arguing that schools broke federal disability law by providing insufficient services in the spring. “Disability rights experts say this fall, schools have to do better for the parents who are angry or ready to give up, for the schools that know they could face legal consequences if they don’t, and, most importantly, for the kids for whom remote learning wasn’t just inconvenient or boring, but a painful absence of vital care for months that could set them back for years.”

Stay tuned to the Easterseals National blog for a two-part Education and Parenting post by a speech-language pathologist doing all she can to treat the young children in her practice remotely.