What is it Like to Have Speech Therapy in My Home? | Speech Education Part 2

Video Transcript:

Kelli Floyd:
Hi guys. My name is Kelli Floyd, and I am a Speech Language Pathologist with Bright Start. And as
promised, I am back to talk a little bit more about our services. So today what we’re going to be getting
into is how our services are going to look a little bit different if you happen to have a speech language
pathologist coming in your home or even our EI services coming in your home and why we do the things
that we do. And before we get into that, I just want to make sure and remind all of you that if you’re
watching us on YouTube, please be sure to like and subscribe. Check out the description for this video
for other social media platforms that we share our content on so that you can catch us there. Those are
your favorite ways to take in content. Also, I wanted to make sure that you remembered that we are
taking questions.

We are taking content suggestions. So if there’s anything you want to hear more of, anything you want
to know more of, any questions that you have that we might be able to answer and provide some more
videos for so that we can really help our audience and the families that we serve, then I am absolutely
happy to do that. So make sure you drop those in the comments as well. And hopefully we’ll be able to
provide some content for you and answer your questions.

So back to today’s topic. So today what we’re going to be talking about is how do we look a little bit
different when we come in your home? Why do we do that? Why is it different? And I’m going to share
a little story to start out to illustrate our point. So I have been a speech language pathologist with Bright
Start for 10 years and I’ve been going into homes for early intervention for several years longer than
that, right around 13 years. And when I first began to go into homes for my visits, I just brought a bag in.
Basically I took my clinic into the homes. At the time I was a young speech language pathologist. That is
what we thought was best at the time and I didn’t have kids of my own.

And so many of you parents who maybe have had therapists who come in and bring all their things, do
their therapy, give you all these things to do and then leave, maybe have had that experience. That used
to be what I did. And then I had a wake up call actually. I went into a home and the mom told me that
she had bought a bag of toys so that she could work with her child the way that I did. And inside I died a
little bit because I thought I have done this family and all my families a disservice. They think that there’s
magic in this bag. They think that I’m the magic and I’m not. They’re the magic. They’re the ones that are
the expert on their child. They’re the ones that know what their child needs. They’re the ones that are
going to connect the best with their child and I’m just here as their guide to help them work on the
things that are a priority for them.

And so from that day forward, I quit bringing my bag of toys. I quit bringing my clinic into their homes
because therapy in the home isn’t going to look like therapy in a clinic. Therapy in the home is going to
utilize what’s in the home. It’s going to utilize the family’s already current environment and it’s also
going to utilize the family’s routines and it’s going to utilize what the family finds important for their
child. I don’t know how you are in life, but I personally don’t work on things that aren’t important to me.
And my bet is that in your family, you do the things that are most important to you all.

And so as a therapist coming into your home, into your life, and my job is to help make your life easier
and to help your child develop adequate and appropriate speech and language, I’m meant to come into
your home and figure out what’s important to you because if it’s not important to you, then it’s probably
not something that’s going to be worked on when I’m not there. So the first thing that I want to talk
about with Bright Start is we believe in family centered therapy and intervention. So when our
therapists and our early interventionists come into your home, you are our focus. Your child is our focus.
Your daily routines are our focus. The things that are hard in your life are going to be our focus because
those are the things that are most important. They’re most important to you, but they’re also going to
be the things that are going to be most important to work on. And we’re easily able to put our
interventions around the things that are important to you.

So we’re going to have conversations every time we come in your home about what’s been hard this
week. What are we celebrating this week? What’s changed since the week before? What’s important to
you that we work on today? And that’s actually how we write our goals. And very soon, we’re going to
do a video with a family about goal writing and how we write goals for their sessions and how that
benefited them or where they feel like it hasn’t benefited them. Guys, when I became a parent, my
therapy probably changed even more and I realized that being a mom, being a parent, being a dad, I’m
sure I’m not a dad so I can’t speak to that. But it’s hard. Sometimes we are just doing our best to survive.
Sometimes getting children fed, bathed, in bed, up in the morning fed and dressed and out the door is
all we can do and we can’t really think beyond that. And so figuring out how to fit the things that we’re
working on into those routines in your day is going to be important for you.

If you have extra time, great. We can come up with some other things to do, but that’s not the focus of
what we do when we come in your home. We want to know how we can best fit into your life the things
that are important to you that will help your child move forward in their language and their speech
development and for our EI services for all areas that we have a delay in. And so you are going to be a
huge part of that process. Your wants and needs are going to be a huge part of that process, your
priorities, your current family life and structure and what your day looks like is going to be a huge part of
that process. So when we come in your homes, we aren’t going to bring clinic with us.

We’re maybe not even going to bring anything with us, but ourselves. And we’re going to come in and
we’re going to figure out where you are and we’re going to meet you right there. And then we’re going
to help you build to those goals that you have slowly using the things that you’re already doing because
we’re all busy. We all have a lot going on and none of us need one more thing to do. And the things that
we are given to do are hopefully things that are priorities for you, which means that it’s a better chance
that you’re going to want to and be able to work on those things.

Hope that this has helped and stay tuned and come back for our tips that we’re going to be sharing in
the coming weeks. I hope that you join us. I hope you follow, like, subscribe, and please be sure to leave
your questions, comments, feedback. We are very open to all of those things because we want to be
able to help and serve you and meet you where you are. Have a great day.