Speech & Language

The Speech-Language Department of the Las Lomitas School District welcomes you to our website!

Mission

The Las Lomitas Speech-Language Pathologists are dedicated to ensuring and nurturing the speech and language acquisition and development of all of our students. Our purpose is to positively impact our student’s communication and to help them articulate their use of language to learn, process and foster their ideas while developing strong social relationships.

What are Speech and Language Services?

Speech Language Pathologists work as a part of an Individualized Education Program (IEP) team to achieve specific communication goals within an educational context. Communication areas include:

Articulation-Students may be eligible for services when speech significantly interferes with communication, attracts adverse attention and impacts educational performance.
Voice- Students may be eligible for services when voice is persistently abnormal and impacts educational performance.
Fluency-Students may be eligible for services when the flow of verbal expression is abnormal, significantly interferes with communication between the student and a partner and impacts educational progress.
Language-Students may be eligible for services when the student’s ability to understand (receptive), form (expressive) or use (pragmatic) language is well below age or developmental expectancies and is significantly impeding educational performance. This includes the social use of language and the student's ability to interact with peers, learn in a group, recognize people's emotions, turn-taking, conversational reciprocity, etc.
Hearing Loss- Students may be eligible for services when a hearing loss results in a language or speech disorder and significantly affects educational performance.

The Speech and Language Department offers a variety of service delivery approaches. These may include the following or a combination of delivery approaches.

Consultation-SLP’s continuously provide education and support to the classroom teacher, paraprofessional, service providers and/or parent related to the needs of students with speech and language impairments.
Collaboration-SLP’s work with the classroom teacher and other service providers to implement an integrated, intervention program in the classroom for students with speech and language impairments.
Direct- The SLP’s provide group or individual services based on student’s needs that are aligned with classroom standards and curriculum.
Both schools also offer social communication support activities during lunch. Contact your school SLP for more information!

Suggestions & Resources for Parents

Suggestion for Parents

Read, Read, Read! Choose colorful books with large simple photos or drawings. Talk about the pictures rather than reading the text.
Use Self Talk. Talk out loud about what you are seeing, hearing, doing, and feeling when your child is in earshot, this will help increase receptive language.
Praise your child. Respond to your child’s speech attempts with non-verbal and verbal praise. This will encourage him to try and communicate more.
Expansion Modeling. Try and add one to two words to what your child says when responding back to him. For example, The child says “daddy,” and you say “daddy home.”
Sing to your child. Children love music! Songs promote vocal play, imitation, attention, listening, and speech. For example: “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” or “The Wheels on The Bus.”

Resources