For this objective, my goal was to learn how to document progress of a child receiving speech and/or language therapy. I have learned that it is important to keep track of the progress your patient has made and what activities you have done with them. This is a good thing to reference before planning the next activity, and is especially helpful when talking to the child’s parents. To my surprise, a speech pathologist not only has to take the data for themselves, but also to be entered into an online database (Teaching Strategies Gold) for the school department to see, and for some children, the data is even sent in to Medicaid.

      To complete this objective I began by observing the speech pathologist and how she took notes throughout therapy sessions. She would jot notes on scrap paper and then transcribe them onto a neat chart. With this chart she would enter her information onto the Teaching Strategies Gold (TSG) or Medicaid online websites.

     About a week into the internship I chose the child that I would like to focus on. We will call him Michael. I made my own chart to document his progress, which you will see below. At every one of his therapy sessions, individual or group, I would take notes on scrap paper and then neatly rewrite them onto my chart for future reference. In addition to my own documentation, I also documented Michael’s progress on Teaching Strategies Gold and transcribed a Goldman Fristoe articulation test conducted by my supervisor.

      Through completing this objective, I became aware of the fact that there is a lot of paperwork to be done in this field. I also learned that if you keep yourself organized, it makes the documentation process faster and easier. In addition, it was interesting to learn how to officially document data using TSG and how to rate the child and his abilities from 1-9. This whole process of learning how to record and document progress will certainly help me when I am working in the field.

      Also learning how to administer an articulation test was very interesting and will be very useful in graduate school and beyond. Although I was not allowed to administer the articulation test on a child at the school, I was able to take the results of a Goldman Fristoe articulation test that my supervisor administered on Michael and transcribe the data myself.

      It was very exciting that I was able to relate some of my coursework to this learning objective. I took the course Language Development my junior year, where I learned what sounds should be mastered at what ages. This helped me to realize that Michael had not mastered many age appropriate sounds yet. From there, my supervisor and I were able to decide which sounds should be given attention during his therapy sessions and in which order. It is a great feeling to be able to take the information I have learned in class and utilize it in real life situations.

      Located below are screen shots and downloadable documents of each of my pieces of evidence for this objective. These include: data and progress charts, TSG documentations, and a Goldman Fristoe articulation test. You can also find more detailed explanations of each piece of evidence below.