Bridging the Gap: How Speech Therapy Helps Children & School Students Overcome Communication Obstacles-Sangeetha Subramanian

School is almost here! Do you know a child who might benefit from speech therapy resources or maybe you are wondering what Speech Therapy means.

Sangeetha Subramanian is a Speech Language Pathologist based out of Plano, Texas. I have seen the impact accessing the right resources can have on a child's life and on their overall development. The earlier you can access the needed resources, the earlier you can see the impact.

 We'll be diving into the world of speech therapy and exploring how it can make a profound difference in people's lives. This episode is all about empowering ourselves and our loved ones with effective communication skills. Let's get started with "Speech Therapist-Sangeetha"

Sangeetha Subramanian is an experienced speech therapist who specializes in helping children overcome language and speech difficulties. With a deep understanding of developmental norms, Sangeetha recognizes the importance of early intervention and works closely with students, schools   to identify and address any delays in children's language development. With her guidance, children are able to meet their language milestones and communicate effectively. At the  school level, Sangeetha focuses on three key aspects of language therapy. Firstly, she helps children improve their speech production, assisting them in developing sounds they may struggle with, such as the 'r' sound. Secondly, she supports children who stutter, helping them build fluency and confidence in their speech. Lastly, Sangeetha works with children who have language issues, aiding them in understanding and expressing language effectively. Moreover, Sangeetha also emphasizes the importance of social skills, particularly for children on the autism spectrum. With her expertise in pragmatics, she assists these children in adjusting socially and thriving in school settings. Having worked in both elementary and middle schools, Sangeetha brings a wealth of experience to her role. Her dedication to helping children overcome speech and language challenges has positively impacted numerous lives, and she continues to make a significant difference in the lives of her students.

Guest:
Sangeetha: You can contact  Sangeetha  at sangkris72@gmail.com

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Transcript

Sirisha: 1:14

Hello everyone, it is a gorgeous Thursday. Hello everyone. It is a gorgeous Thursday. It's pretty hot outside. It's almost back to school season. Can you imagine July is getting done and school's gonna start soon. And for many of you who may have kids entering elementary school, middle school, high school, we actually have a special guest. Today we are going to talk about student success and getting students ready, and one of the resources that's available through the school is speech therapy. And to enable students, like people who might be less than five, they have resources through cities and stuff and also through school. So you are tuned into live beats with Suresha on Radio Caravan 104. 1 FM, 700 AM. Thank you for joining us today. I am a former tech executive and entrepreneur and a podcast host. I host the podcast, Women, Career and Life. It's spelled W O M E N C A R E R N L I F E. You can check it out on any of your favorite podcast platforms. It has career and financial stories and practical advice. And it's a top 30% Spotify podcast. So welcome for thank you for joining us. I will open up the phone lines as well. I have Sangeeta Subramanian with us today. She's a speech therapist, a certified speech therapist. She's had her own private practice in the past and she actually works with the school district. as well here. And she's got a lot of extensive experience working with students. So I do want to have a conversation with her about, what is her role, what is speech therapy, and what school resources are there. But I do want to give the studio number in case you are wondering or looking for someone from an expert advice. That's why we are here to help you find those resources. So definitely call in. The number is 214 817 3333. The number again is 214 817 3333. Sangeetha, thank you for being here. It's wonderful that you're able to share, your knowledge and information with people so that they can see what's available

Sangeetha: 3:22

to them. Thank you, Sirisha, for having me over. Whatever I know, I'm willing to pass on that information. If anybody has any questions, please call in and I'll answer it to the best I can,

Sirisha: 3:31

yeah, absolutely. And first of all, give us an idea. When you say speech therapy, what do we mean by that? And what does it mean in different age groups? Yeah.

Sangeetha: 3:40

So there are certain developmental norms that the Children have to go through at certain stages in their life, like zero to one. They begin to babble by one. They reach their first say first few words and between one to two. They start putting words together to form two phrases and they start talking to more than two phrases. They start talking sentences. And then from two on up to four, their language just explodes. They're asking questions they're being stubborn. They, they start using more and more language. They have words for pretty much everything that they want to express. And then by five, they're they're asking, they're reading stories, they're comprehending stories, they're able to give you summary of the stories. So when. Children don't fall into. There are kids obviously that develop late. There are certain kids don't necessarily meet. All the kids don't necessarily fall in the spectrum. But on a general note, by five kids are talking like many adults. So if your kid does not where they need to be. You may want to bring it up with the pediatrician and might be a referral to speech therapist. It might just, they need that little bit of nudge, which we can give them a guess and help them meet their milestones. And then when they start school in elementary school so when they come to school level, there are three different aspects of language that we work on. So one is the speech itself, where kids have trouble either producing certain sounds like they have trouble like the are sounds, for instance, come much later. So we work on kids developing that are sound and then that's articulation. And then we have fluency kids where they sometimes kids have a stutter and then we help them overcome. their stutter and talk as fluent as they would want to be. And then we also have kids that have language issues where they have trouble understanding and expressing language. We work on things like that. And we also have pragmatics. We work on the social skills, a lot of kids on the spectrum. We help them in a school setting adjust socially. So that's a lot of stuff that we work on. So we speech therapists are employed on either in primary school, elementary school, middle school or in high school. And so I work in the middle school. I've done elementary school and now I'm working

Sirisha: 5:54

in the middle school. From what you are saying, there are so many intersection points, right? We all, obviously we tend to when we have kids compare them with other kids we see, but each kid develops with their thing. And I remember when I fill these forms every time, especially when you have any young children, the, when you have a young children, the doctor fix it, fill this words, how many words do they speak? How many distinguishing sounds do they have? So for someone who might be wondering if, it helps early intervention helps, I've seen with my own friends where early intervention really brings things. and resolves any challenges they might be facing much quicker. By the way, the phone lines are open. As Sangeeta already mentioned, if you're wondering from school standpoint, or even if of someone or you're looking for resources, don't forget to call the studio number 214 817 3333. So you describe a whole gamut of it, but how does someone identify like when, from a school standpoint, maybe the parents don't realize, right? We may not all know what we're looking for. What is it that when you have a kid entering school, what is the intersection points that intervention happens and how does The resource like what would you actually work with them because it looks like it's not just speech. It's socialization because I think this is something we may not realize, right? And this happens. The other end of the spectrum when people are older and they lose their hearing, it actually impacts their social behavior a lot because they can't hear. So you can't communicate. And that's such a sometimes that can be a thing if you're, if it's something that can help over bridge over that challenge

Sangeetha: 7:23

that you're facing. So true. So for instance, we have Just like we're talking about a physical disability when the kid is not able to see what are here, what the teacher is saying, he may not necessarily come out and tell the teacher I can't hear you, but you can see it in so many different ways. He's going to act out. He's going to fail in classes. He's just not going to produce work. So kids are not necessarily expressive about how they feel like something we, when kid has is on the spectrum is we have child who's probably on the spectrum and his has autism. He's not going to come and tell you I have autism. Something is wrong with me, but you can tell by their different behaviors. You can see when the playground and the kids are out playing during recess. There's this one child who's, by playing by himself, not making eye contact, not having are talking a lot about something and not necessarily relating to what the others are talking about. So the teachers have, if they're a really seasoned teacher, most teachers are able to pick up on these cues and they would bring it to your attention and say, something is not right. We feel like because they used to so many kids, they've seen so many kids and they would bring it to the parents attention saying, this is something that you're concerned about. This is also something that you see, we're concerned and would you like to do something about it? So then. You contact the counselor. The counselor will bring it up with the other teachers. Asked all the teachers if this is something that they see in the procedure. The parent has taken consent. We test and then we see if there's a problem. So again, keep in mind this is not a medical diagnosis. If they do to identify that the kid is on the spectrum, it's not a medical diagnosis. We don't have a doctor coming there to certify that this kid is autistic or not. But it is a educational diagnosis, a school based diagnosis. So Based on what we see, the kid has the child has a problem functioning in the school without these accommodations or modifications. So if you provide these extra accommodations or modifications, the child will be better able to perform in a school setting. So it's definitely an educational diagnosis, not a

Sirisha: 9:15

medical diagnosis. And I think from what you said, I, when you have kids in elementary school, especially you have so many parent teacher meetings, so many intervention point because a lot of these are probably. elementary school times when the early intervention happens, usually captured them. So it's very important to go to those parent teacher meetings, interact with those teachers. It's a little bit, actually, I can tell you sometimes it's a bit intimidating to go to those parent teacher meetings as a parent. I used to be scared to go meet some of the teachers also. And getting that information is important. And how do you communicate with them? Because oftentimes when we all come, I'm a first generation immigrant, as are you. We don't have access to resources. We don't have settings around us because often our friends are in the same batch or same year, so they don't have more experience than us. So where do you reach out? So one of the things here is that's why we're having this conversation, but. Lean into your school resources. See if they have societies or communities that will help you support because even if the school does give you a diagnosis, it is only a singular diagnosis. As she said, it's not a doctor's thing, but you will need a community to lean into so that you feel you have parents. to support you to understand where you're going through. I think that's the hardest part as a parent is it is. I tell my kids this not the best thing to tell them that I'm on the job training when I'm parenting because I have no experience with it. We all learn as we go. So trying to figure out where we can find that support, like having conversations with your friends and being as open as you can, as comfortable as you are. So when these kids are things, maybe you can walk us through some stories to give us some ideas and some examples of how maybe some Children you've seen where you know they were diagnosed on what kind of help them move forward because that way I think gives us the positive impact from the other side, right? We're talking about how to get diagnosed so that you can help. But what does the outlook look like on the other side?

Sangeetha: 11:13

I think since you brought up an important point, which I want to reiterate Don't be afraid. Don't be embarrassed. I think that's in the South Asian community, we believe we should all be perfect. That's a myth that doesn't exist. We want our kids to be perfect. We want to keep them in a bubble, but we don't let anything touch them. We feel like we protect them as much as we can, which is all agreed and accepted. But I think it's important to realize there is no such thing as normal. If there's a problem, just like I was saying, if you're not able to see you wear glasses and if you're not able to hear you had a hearing aid, the same thing. The kid needs help, reach out and try to find the help that you can to help the kid get to where they need to be, reach their potential. I guess that's important to keep them happy to keep them functioning in the school. Because if the more we delay getting them the help that they need, the harder it is as they get, I think elementary is still okay. The demands of academic demands are not as high, but it's as they get to middle school, it gets harder. And then you can imagine in high school, it's harder. And if we So I've had kids that have for whatever reason fallen through the gaps, but I have kids in high school who still cannot read. They're still trying to put syllables together and trying to read, which is sad as a teacher to see, that we failed that kid in some form that we couldn't get them to where we would have liked to have them. If I'm sending this kid to college and I feel like What have we done? How have we prepared this kid? That's the ultimate goal, right? We want to prepare our child for college. And I feel like I have not done my part in getting this kid ready

Sirisha: 12:40

for college. Yeah, that must be very, I don't know what to say, heart rending, right? Because the research shows that by third grade kids have to meet math and reading requirements, because I think that sort of is a sort of qualifier for are they able to keep up that's one singular metric that everyone uses. So it's important to get them there. I had a friend. I remember it was, second child was not talking as quickly. Kids talk at different rates. Even my own kids talked at different rates, but she realized that she was struggling. So she used even schools. If you have kids who are not in elementary school, they have those

Sangeetha: 13:14

programs. They do have preschool where they provide. Yeah. And they also have early intervention where you can take them to the center and get extra speech therapy. So those are all options. And a lot of them are subsidized costs or even free of cost. Yeah. depending on your particular circumstance. So I don't want parents to get thrown up. Gosh, it's going to be expensive and insurance is not going to pay. It's not always that expensive. So if you look into it, there are always ways that you can figure out ways to make it happen. Yeah,

Sirisha: 13:39

so yeah, exactly. And so she used, I think it's ECIL or something like that. And she used it and I've seen that kid, almost, she's 10 or 15 now and it's, you can't tell any difference, but that early intervention really helps. And I think. That's a lot of thing, right? The sort of a caution, a lack of comfort, a lack of knowledge. Sometimes, as we said, we want perfection and sort of the stigma around it. So taking away all of that, we really want people to feel comfortable, confident to ask for these resources. It is your right to ask for them actually. That is why you go to these school districts, you pay the taxes for them, you have access to this. It is your privilege and your right to use them and talk to the schools. If like she said, insurance or cost becomes, they will be able to give you options and alternatives. And even for those people who have Resources through their corporations. I, it's not around speech therapy, but they have employee assistance programs that provide you other kind of resources for stress, mental health and things. So all of this comes, resources are available. So reach out to your school district, see if there's a speech therapist in there, or we, I know we are talking about. Speech therapy. We were actually going to have another colleague join us who does works on school resources, which is for kids who are struggling with developmental challenges. Some of that Zita touched on who can also get access, right? There's, these are teachers who work with these students to see get them streamlined into the mainstream school, but also who are stepped out for additional resources they need, additional help they might need. So the phone lines are open. You're listening to live feeds with Sirisha on Radio Caravan. You can check out and join me on LinkedIn. Search for Sirisha Kuchimanchi. It's spelled S I R I S H A K U C H I M A N C H I. Note this is a show where we want to bring experts and others who have experiences on various things. To share the information so that we don't have to go and search on Google. Google has so much that I can't curate through it. So this is a way for us to bring these experts to you. And we want you to, really take and use that access easily. So call the phone lines 214 817 3333. And you can ask Sangeetha questions as well. So you were talking about elementary or middle or high. What are some of the other things that you were talking about, stuttering and stuff and when Biden got elected, that kind of put a spotlight on it. And actually there's this lady I know who does a podcast Maya Kaon stuttering. It's called Proud Stutter. And there's a lot of visibility around that. And how do you work with this? Because one of them is, you're talking about the developmental things, but I think it's a social thing, right? Let's be clear. If you have kids in school, you realize how hard the socialization is. I think for me, when I came to the States, socialization in India, at least when I was in school, is very different from the U. S. I, I joke with my American colleagues saying, in India, at least when I was there, geeks were the top while in the U. S. it's the flip of it. So it's hard to acclimate and middle school is a just stressful environment. It is this boiling cauldron of hormones and societal hierarchies. So you need to figure out a way and I mean you can only intersect with your child with so much. You can't protect them but what can you do as much as you can do.

Sangeetha: 16:58

So I think at least at elementary school I think it's The academic pressures are not that high, but middle school level, a lot of the kids, the academic pressure are so high for the kids, not necessarily recess, but just the electives that they have, whether it's PE or band or music. Those are the classes that they look forward to at even lunch because It's free and you don't have to worry about who's teaching or they don't have to focus or they don't have to pay attention. A lot of middle school is about socializing, meeting friends, hanging with them. When a kid is not getting the benefit of that, if you're like, kids sitting in the lunchroom and they're away from the crowd, sitting on their phones, you want to find out why, you want to find out why, what is it about school that's not giving them the pleasure? So much more than just the academic work, especially in middle school. I know in high school, when they get to high school, the challenges are higher. They have to be so focused on what they do, but middle school is when they get to enjoy. Actually being in school. And then you so when you see a kid sitting alone, the teachers are always walking around in the lunchroom. I always keep telling my teachers, go find out, why is it this kid is sitting by himself? Why is he on the phone? Why is he not talking? So even with stuttering, we've come such a long way because the focus used to be before that we have to fix the starter. But now we've moved past that. Our focus is to get them to be as fluent as they want to be like it's how comfortable are you with the speech? In fact, we teach voluntary stuttering. What does that feel like you? Are you comfortable with your stutter? How do you feel? What situations just make it worse? So we want to modify the environment or in a way that they feel comfortable speaking the way they are not trying to because it's a myth now that we feel like getting rid of the stutter. That's not something that we work on. So we work on Try to see how comfortable he feels with his speech,

Sirisha: 18:41

his or her speech. And it sounds very much like how we have changed as a society and in the mindset, right? It was always what sort of just as a personality, all of us fixing our weaknesses and not focusing on our strengths. I think it's not so much to fix your weaknesses that, or your challenges. It's there, you try to cope with them, but really leading into your strengths. So what you're saying is. If I stutter or I have some other speech challenge, it's leaning into the fact that how do I utilize my strength in that to communicate and we've all worked with people who had friends, colleagues, who have different challenges and speech and but they're brilliant people. It has nothing to do with anything else about them. So it's separating these pieces off. the person is and making them feel comfortable. I think also we tend to lean in somewhat to accommodate too much, which makes them again, feel incredibly uncomfortable. So it's this very fine line that most of us are trying to walk when we meet someone, you know, or when we may be different from someone else. I think that's

Sangeetha: 19:41

an important part of the schools have this great system of hearing, of having buddies. They have pure buddies who, they team them up with a kid. doing well and has some awareness of what disability feels like. So they pair them up. This kid goes with this kid or sits with the kid in the classroom. If the kid is not able to understand something, helps him out. Especially when we have kids who speak a different language, bilingual kids. We have so many of them. So if they pair them up, the kid doesn't feel like I'm the only one who's going through this. They have this friend. They can ask, if it's the teacher said like 101 things. He has this kid telling him, okay, I can break it down for you. This is what she said. First, this is what she said. Second, which is so helpful. Just the peer buddy system is such a great thing for kids to have. And kids with severe disabilities, they stay in, in one classroom all through the day. So seeing somebody who's like completely neutral and whom they can have fun with is just great for those kids. And they really enjoy the time that they spend

Sirisha: 20:32

with their peer buddies. Yeah. And you actually brought up an excellent point because a lot of people who are listening here are bilingual, trilingual, speak many languages. Your kid may be speaking something else at home. Going to school and, English may not be their first language. So there's ESL resources. There's so many other resources. Obviously, being multilingual is a huge trend. You can think differently. You can communicate in so many ways. So you want to encourage that, but how do we get kids to lean into it? Because I'm sure when... Especially if you came when the kids were in elementary or middle or high school, right? There's, these are intersection points that are already hard to enter into a school system. There are all these social systems set up and stuff, how kids interact. So how do you get your kid comfortable, communicating? It's the style, the linguistics, the accents, there's so much that's different. So how do you get them? So Though we're talking about speech therapy, don't forget that there are resources, lots of resources in schools. Go and ask the counselors, go and talk to the main officers, go and talk to your friends. If you have you can reach out, Sangeeta, why don't you share your information? And I also wanted to mention that since this show is about talking about different things, don't forget to send your ideas, feedback, thoughts that you have. You can ping me at women career and life on Instagram or a Gmail. W. M. E. N. C. A. R. E. R. A. N. D. L. I. F. E. So that we can talk about this. And if you have more questions, we'll try if you have questions for Sangeeta that you haven't got a chance or any of the shows you've listened to. Maybe we'll just do a Q& A session and answer those questions, record them, and bring them back for you so that you can hear them. Sangeetha, if you want to share how people, if you're working with them or other resources, maybe they can reach out.

Sangeetha: 22:11

I think as Sirisha said, school is your primary point and the beginning, I know the counselors will take over. You just have to let your counselor know and she'll... To take it from there, but I don't think it can, if you have a kid who has been diagnosed with anything and they're on, they're receiving therapies, they're receiving accommodations, it's important to stay on top of it.'cause the school is trying. We are all trying. I know that we try our hardest to get the kid whatever he needs and help him be more successful. But sometimes it gets overlooked and it's always good. And when you attend the annual meetings, ask the teachers, is this enough? Do we think we need to do more? Is there, do you think another accommodation will help? Stay on top of it. Read your. Read your T. A. Is that the teacher, the education portal. So that has listing of everything. If the kid has a certain disorder, what are all the accommodations?

Sirisha: 22:54

And actually, I don't want to interrupt. What is an accommodation? Because first of all, I don't know what an accommodation is. For instance,

Sangeetha: 22:59

even something really simple, like a kid who's maybe distracted or he's, not able to focus at the back, just having him sit in the front of the classroom. That's an accommodation. So you make an accommodation in the classroom. He sits in front of the teacher and another accommodation could be the teacher repeat instructions. So I'll make sure that teacher checks for understanding. So those are all small things, but it makes such a difference in how the kid processes what the child, each student is really trying to say. Okay. And some can be modifications where the curriculum itself is modified to suit this kid might be in the form of. The test itself is simpler, so that is an, it's an accommodation. It's a modification that there are accommodations that you make and make

Sirisha: 23:34

in the classroom as well. And I know accommodations are given for various things physical, mental health, a lot of different things. So schools have all these resources. We have just a little over a minute for anyone who wants to call in and ask a question of Sangeetha 214 817 3333. You're listening to Live Beats with Sirisha. And we just wanted to see if you had any questions, next week, we come back at two o'clock to talk about something else, but just to wrap up anything we haven't touched on in the last minute that people might want to remember, that's the head of the school schools, one of three weeks away, two weeks away for most

Sangeetha: 24:09

folks. Yeah, not, don't get paranoid. Don't get anxious. Like I said, there's no, no concept of being perfect. All we need to do is help our child be as successful and as happy as it can. We're not looking to create Einstein's out of them. wherever they are, whatever environment they are, be happy and just thrive in their environment. They are. That's really what we want for our kids. And if there's a problem, reach out to the school and try to help them as much as we can after the I know they'll reach a certain point where they don't need our help anymore. So till he reached that point, stay on top of it and make sure you get the child whatever help they need to be as successful and thrive in their

Sirisha: 24:43

environment. And I think that's a great way to end the show. We are 8 billion unique people, so we have to remember that's what makes us who we are. Don't forget to reach out Women, Career and Life, or you can check me out on LinkedIn, Sirisha Kuchimanchi. Thank you.