The House of Representatives today passed legislation introduced by Rep. Joseph M. McNamara (D-Dist. 19, Warwick, Cranston) that would include speech pathology under the umbrella of special education. The bill (2022-H 7273) would provide that for purposes of providing special education services to students with disabilities, “special education” would include speech-language pathology services for students, and the provision of speech-language pathology services would not cease or be terminated solely because the child has attained 9 years of age or greater.

The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing agreed this week to create a new teaching credential for pre-kindergarten through third grade that will require teacher candidates to show they are trained in how to teach reading. The decision came after the commission addressed criticisms that a separate credential that lacked identical literacy instruction coursework and a reading performance test could undermine separate efforts to improve reading instruction in elementary grades.

When 64-year-old Ben Arikpo realised, in 2012, that his son has learning challenges, he was devastated. An applied psychologist, Mr Arikpo was then living in Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital, with his wife and their three children. Although his wife had complained to him years back about their son’s reading difficulty, he never paid any serious attention to the concern. “You are putting too much pressure on this boy!” Mr Akripo often told his wife instead. “He will outgrow it,” he would tell her whenever she talked about their son’s academic challenges. But the problem dawned on him during a reading exercise with the boy. “Now, spell house,” the father of three recalled asking the nine-year-old.

The Edwardsville Rotary Club recently presented a check for $2,620 to the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Speech-Hearing-Language Center. SLHC is a clinical learning environment for graduate students enrolled in the accredited Speech-language Pathology master's degree program at SIUE. SLHC serves individuals with speech, language, and hearing difficulties. SLHC evaluates and treats communication disorders in children from toddlers to adolescents and non-Medicare­ eligible adults.

When students get to middle and high school without strong reading skills, the results can be devastating. In response to a recent Chalkbeat survey, dozens of parents and educators described secondary students who refuse to read out loud for fear of being teased, who can’t understand math word problems or science vocabulary, and gradually give up on school altogether. They worried such students face poor job prospects and bleak futures. One mother called the distress faced by older struggling readers “astronomical.” But respondents also had lots of ideas for helping older struggling readers. It’s an area ripe for attention, since most states and districts have focused recent reading improvement on early elementary students.

A bill changing multiple K-12 education laws in Ohio is headed to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk. If signed, the bill would have a wide array of effects on families in the Miami Valley and across the state, from families who have EdChoice private-school scholarships to families who have dyslexic students. The bill also extends schools’ ability to hire substitute teachers who have just a high school diploma by two years, something districts began to do last year to combat a shortage of substitute teachers.

Life School announces that the Texas Education Agency has awarded it $260,000 through the 2022-2024 Dyslexia Grant Award Program. Funds from the grant will allow nine staff members to receive further education to serve students. The purpose of the 2022-2024 Dyslexia Grant Award Program is to increase the capacity of local education agencies to serve students with dyslexia appropriately. In addition, the grant program provides funding for high-quality training to educators or specific training programs that result in dyslexia credentials. Specifically, these funds will allow six Life School employees to obtain their diagnostician certification, two staff members to obtain their licensed specialist in school psychology degree, and one staff member to receive their dyslexia teacher certification through Scottish Rite.

October is Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Awareness Month. Braylee uses one of these devices/apps to help communicate with her parents and others that she comes into contact with. Here are some companies that have a discount on their apps or devices as of today

Time invested in quality training is always well spent. Discover our Learning Hub and grow your knowledge and skills at your own pace - whether you’re a parent, caregiver, clinician, educator or augmented communicator yourself. Many of our resources also offer the option to earn ASHA CEUs (continuing education units).

Dr. Danai Fannin and Dr. Kerry Mandulak discuss the recently published second part of the forum on increasing diversity in the communications sciences and disorders workforce, published in the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Read the forum at pubs.asha.org/journals/ajslp.