Purpose The purpose of this website is to provide information regarding speech and language disability to teachers, parents, students and anyone else who is interested in the topic.
Group Members The members of our group are Ellen Kaji, Ben Hurst, Cierra Perry, Nate Fisher and Catherine Linford.
Reasons for choosing this topic I chose to work on the speech and language disability website because I underwent speech therapy when I was in elementary school. Before I began working with my elementary school's speech and language pathologist, I had trouble producing certain sounds. Through working with the speech and language pathologist and collaborating with classmates, I corrected my speech problem and became a better communicator. - Ben Hurst
I am an early childhood specialist, working directly with teachers from child care programs, who teach and care for our youngest children, ages birth through five years, and their families. These teachers use their education, understanding and knowledge of typical development to share their informal observations and assessments of each child's progress with the family. It is during this crucial age span that children are most often referred for developmental testing and diagnosis, including communication skills assessment. My own acquisition of new information and helpful resources on speech and language can be shared with teachers who can then pass it on to the families of children in their care. - Ellen Kaji
My interest in the topic of speech impairments comes from my desire to provide the most current and relevant information to the families I serve. I teach preschool - three year olds - and every year I have a student I suspect may have a speech impairment or one that has already been diagnosed and is receiving early intervention services. Therefore this topic is meaningful to my every day experience as a teacher. - Catherine Linford
Speech and Language disabilities interested me because I also went through speech therapy as an elementary aged student. I struggled with stuttering, which was a trait that several other members of my family shared with me. As I got older, I began to see that the weekly visits to the speech pathologist had greatly improved my speech; so much so that I hardly stuttered at all by the time I reached middle school. Another member of my family who had never received speech therapy as a child continued to stutter into adulthood. This led me to wonder if all speech impairments had to be improved with therapy, or were there some cases where the speech impairment could be grown out of. - Cierra Perry
I chose to study speech and language disabilities because it was a topic which I did not know very much about. I felt that it was a disability which was fairly prevalent and I was sure to encounter it many times in the future. Given this fact I thought that it would be good to become more versed on the topic. By working on a website to educate others on the topic I hoped to also increase my own knowledge of speech and language disabilities. - Nate Fisher