Speech & Language Impairment

Read more about students diagnosed with a communication disorder that affects their ability to talk, understand, read, and write
Special Education How to Support Students Who Stutter in Class
Between 5 percent and 10 percent of all children will stutter, as presidential contender Joe Biden once did, at some period in their life, federal data indicates.
Corey Mitchell, August 28, 2020
2 min read
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Special Education As Schools Close to Coronavirus, Special Educators Turn to Tele-Therapy
How can you keep occupational or speech therapy going online? Schools struggle to figure that out.
Corey Mitchell, March 31, 2020
7 min read
English Learners Minority Students Missing Out on Speech and Language Services, Study Finds
Black and Hispanic children are not receiving speech and language therapy at the same rate as similar white peers, which could set them up for academic problems later on, says new research.
Christina A. Samuels, August 8, 2017
3 min read
Student Well-Being Autism Treatment Should Include All Needed Therapies, Says Ed. Dept.
School districts must evaluate children with autism to see if they need speech and language, occupational, or other therapies, in addition to behavior-focused treatments.
Christina A. Samuels, July 29, 2015
1 min read
School & District Management Online Crowdsourcing a Potential Tool for Speech Therapy Research
Untrained listeners recruited through a crowdsourcing platform rated speech sounds as accurately as trained listeners, a study found.
Christina A. Samuels, February 27, 2015
2 min read
Special Education Ed. Dept. Offers Guidance on Supporting Communications Needs of Students
Students with hearing, vision or speech impairments are eligible for additional protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act, says recent guidance.
Christina A. Samuels, November 12, 2014
2 min read
Classroom Technology Opinion Blended Speech Therapy: Q&A with Clay Whitehead
PresenceLearning delivers more than 10,000 online speech therapy sessions a month to schools in 25 states. The company, formed by two recent Stanford MBAs, is a good example of two translational innovations--synchronous online instruction and distributed workforce--now deployed in education to meet widespread special education challenges.
Tom Vander Ark, September 4, 2012
4 min read
Student Well-Being Talk Therapy an Option for Those Using Assistive Technology to Speak
Psychologist Amy Szarkowski figured out provide therapy to work with clients who use communication devices to replace their own voices.
Nirvi Shah, August 22, 2012
2 min read
Special Education Text-to-Speech App Now Features Children's Voices
For the first time, children who cannot speak or who have speech impairments and use the text-to-speech app Proloquo2Go will sound a little more like themselves, thanks to months of work recording real children speaking.
Nirvi Shah, July 30, 2012
3 min read
Early Childhood N.Y.C. Special-Needs Students Lack Services, Access to Elite High Schools
The city failed to provide special education services to about 1 in 4 students entitled to them during the 2009-10 school year, and the city's most elite high schools need to admit more students with disabilities.
Nirvi Shah, February 2, 2012
1 min read
When hooked up to a computer, the Palatometer can provide speech-and-language therapists with a real-time image of students' tongue and mouth movements as they form words. A half-dozen school districts across the country are using the device.
When hooked up to a computer, the Palatometer can provide speech-and-language therapists with a real-time image of students' tongue and mouth movements as they form words. A half-dozen school districts across the country are using the device.
Classroom Technology Speech Therapists Get Inside View With New Device
With the Palatometer, speech teachers get a "mouths-eye" view of where students' speech patterns go wrong.
Nirvi Shah, October 11, 2011
1 min read
Eight year-old Gianna DeTara, who lives in a rural community outside Scranton, Pa., participates from home in an online speech-therapy session. Gianna takes the lessons through her online charter school, Commonwealth Connections Academy. School districts nationwide are starting to turn to online speech therapy as a way to save money and ensure that hard-to-find therapists are available to their students.
Eight year-old Gianna DeTara, who lives in a rural community outside Scranton, Pa., participates from home in an online speech-therapy session. Gianna takes the lessons through her online charter school, Commonwealth Connections Academy. School districts nationwide are starting to turn to online speech therapy as a way to save money and ensure that hard-to-find therapists are available to their students.
Sean Simmers for Education Week
Special Education One-on-One Speech Therapy Goes Digital
When therapists are scarce, some schools are turning to online speech lessons.
October 11, 2011
6 min read
Education Letter to the Editor Cause for Optimism in Stuttering Research
To the Editor:
We applaud Education Week’s article “Scholars Say Causes of Stuttering Are Multiple and Interconnected” (March 2, 2011). However, none of the experts quoted mentioned the exciting research on plasticity of the brain and how this relates to the prevention of stuttering in very young children.
March 29, 2011
1 min read
In the film "The King's Speech," Colin Firth, left, who portrays King George VI, works with a speech therapist played by Geoffery Rush. Advocates hope the film will bring awareness of children's struggles with stuttering.
In the film "The King's Speech," Colin Firth, left, who portrays King George VI, works with a speech therapist played by Geoffery Rush. Advocates hope the film will bring awareness of children's struggles with stuttering.
Laurie Sparham/The Weinstein Company/AP
School & District Management Scholars Say Causes of Stuttering Are Multiple and Interconnected
While an award-winning film is drawing attention to stuttering, experts say research is just beginning to shed light on the disorder's complicated causes.
Sarah D. Sparks, March 1, 2011
4 min read