Speech and Language Therapy
Language skills have tremendous implications for a child’s academic and social success. At SINAI Schools, we use a developmental approach to meet the individual needs of our students, many of whom have a range of language and communication challenges.
Speech and language therapy at SINAI Schools is unique in that it is interwoven into our students’ classroom learning environment. Therapy sessions are determined based on a child’s needs and are carried out both individually (“pull-out”) and within the classroom (“push-in”). Pull-out sessions focus on building specific expressive and receptive language skills through explicit instruction and practice. Push-in sessions include group language lessons, which are designed around thematic units, taught in the classroom with teacher collaboration and participation. Multi-sensory instruction and hands-on projects maximize our students’ carry-over of critical thinking and pragmatic language skills. Therapists work together with teachers and other team members to develop individualized strategies to maximize each child’s reading comprehension, writing, and language instruction across the curriculum.
Our school psychologist and speech and language therapists work collaboratively to lead social skills groups. These groups are designed to build teamwork, cooperation, and empathy through real world experiences. For example, our community skills group and “Giver’s Club,” which take trips into the neighborhood, give our students the opportunity to practice in “real time” the skills they have learned in the classroom.
Our occupational therapists and speech therapists also collaborate to conduct a “SPOT” (combined Speech and Occupational Therapy) group of 6-8 children, in which the students engage in various activities, projects, and crafts to address skills within both disciplines.
Therapists meet regularly with classroom teachers to help ensure that the gains made during speech therapy sessions are successfully carried over to the classroom, and that therapeutic techniques are infused throughout our students’ days.
