Student Learning Outcomes (SLO's)

Hello and Welcome to my Speech and Language Blog.
I know there are many blogs out there and I appreciate  that you've taken a moment to visit mine!   With the increased focus in Wisconsin on Educator Effectiveness and Student Learning Outcomes (SLO's), it was certainly a busy year for an already busy SLP...I'm sure many of you can relate to that statement!!  The 2013-14 school year was my second year of doing a student learning outcome, (SLO) and I wanted to share  it with you.  Hopefully it will help you with writing your own SLO!

The first year I wrote an SLO, I felt like a square peg getting shoved into a round hole. I struggled to write an SLO and frankly, it seemed silly to me because the purpose of an  SLO is to measure student learning, right?  Well, I'm already doing an evaluation, data collection and an individual education plan on each student so I felt I was doing a fine job of measuring  my student's learning, thank-you!  The second  year, I chose an SLO that actually had a meaningful impact upon  my practice and the  progress of my students.  That is the one I'd like to share with you!

Here's what follows.  I've rewritten  my SLO from the start of the school year (omitting the name of my school and student's name):  I've added comments in red that reflect my current thoughts and experiences but were not added to the original goal or reflection!
                                   

                     Student Learning Objective (SLO) Plan:
Content Area/Grade Level:
Kindergarten students on my caseload with speech or phonology impairments.  Common Core Curriculum areas:  SL.K.1:  speaking and listening involves students being able to participate in collaborative conversations effectively with peers and adults (I've paraphrased).  SL.K:6:  Speak audibly and express thoughts, feelings and ideas clearly.

Baseline Data and Rationale:  
At the start of my school year, 5/9 (55%) of the kindergarten students on my caseload had articulation or  phonological deficits that were categorized as moderate or severe. Research shows that significant speech deficits can negatively impact a child's reading skills.  Two of the five students had severe speech intelligibility issues that impacted their social and/or academic skills.  I chose this  SLO  for three reasons:  First, with the onset of common core standards, there has been a  greater emphasis on  reading skills in our district.  Children with phonological delays often have sound/letter correspondence difficulties that impact their  ability to sound out and/or  spell words so I felt this  objective was rooted in the common  core standards.  Second, I was feeling discouraged because two of these students had not progressed significantly in their overall speech intelligibility.  I needed to investigate other therapy approaches with them.  Third, I  figured articulation and speech intelligibility would be easier to measure than language skills!

Student Population:  
All kindergartners currently in speech therapy with articulation or phonology goals on their individual education plans for the 2013-14  school year.  I will group them into the following categories as outlined by S.Crosbie et al, 2005.  1.  Articulation Impairment, 2.  Delayed Phonological Skills, 3:  Inconsistent Speech Disorder.  Research (Dodd et al, 2006) shows that  students in the first two categories can be expected to improve at a greater rae than students in the third category of "inconsistent speech disorder."

Interval:  2013-14 school year

Growth Goal/Target:
100% of  kindergarten students receiving speech therapy as identified on their IEP's will improve speech intelligibility as measured by SLP-created data collection tools.  The SLP will use 10 words from  the "articulation list" from the 5 year old screener from the Preschool Language Scale (PLS) screener for categories 1 and 2.  (I did not want to include categories 1 and 2 in my goal because typically these students DO make progress.  However, the district I work for wanted the goal to be on ALL kindergartners with speech delays to coordinate with what the regular education teachers were doing for their slo's).  This list contains words with sounds that children should have mastered by the age of five, the typical age of a child in starting kindergarten.  (I made pictures on Boardmaker to  accompany  these words).  If the student is in category one  or two, (articulation or phonological disorder) they will improve their word level intelligibility on the PLS speech list by 10% from baseline. If the student is in category 3 (inconsistent speech disorder), they will improve their word level (you could also measure conversational intelligibility with a non-slp listener)  intelligibility on 10 words from their core vocabulary lists by 8% (I made this expectation less since this group of students typically progresses slower) from baseline.

For category 3 (inconsistent speech disorders), a list of 10 words will be pulled from each of these students 50 word core vocabulary lists.  I will show the students pictures of  these words (they are non-readers) and transcribe their exact response.  A percentage of intelligible words  will be calculated as pre and post data at the start of the school year and at the end of the school year (or at iep dismissal, whichever comes first).  Interim data may also be collected.

Instructional Strategies:  Evidence-based articulation  therapy, Phonological therapy (Hodson's approach),  parent collaboration, core vocabulary therapy.

Evidence (assessment) for growth goal completion:  Student growth will be monitored by pre and post data collected on an SLP-created data collection tool.   Percentage of correct  productions at the word level will be collected each trimester to check progress.  

                                        Professional Practice Goal (PPG):

1.  Research evidence-based strategies that target improved speech intelligibility with inconsistent speech disorders and identify strategies to use in my classroom.
2.  Pilot an instructional strategy related to improving speech intelligibility for students with inconsistent speech disorder and develop materials, resources and service delivery model(s) for these students.
Domain 1c: setting instructional outcomes, 1e: designing coherent instruction.
Non-instructional strategies:  Amplification, group dynamics, collaborate with general education teacher and parents.

                             Professional Growth Strategies and Support:

1.  Time to see students with significant speech needs individually or in like groups  of two.
2.  Time to confer with other SLP's via blogs, websites and school-based meetings and time to develop materials.

So  that was the goal I wrote at the start of the school year and what follows is the reflection I wrote at the end of the school year:

                                                        Goal Reflection:

The data I collected (I made progress graphs on google)  suggested some conclusions.  First, all students made significant gains and surpassed their target  growth goals.  Second, the children in category 1 (articulation) and 2 (phonology) made great gains in speech intelligibility, as expected.  However, children in category 3 (inconsistent speech disorder) often make slower progress.  Of the two students  in this category, one of them moved out of the district shortly after the start of the school year.  The other made significant gains with the core vocabulary approach!!  I am eager to try this approach with another student!  There were a few challenges with the core vocabulary approach.  Since it is so different from  Hodson's cycles approach, it is hard (but not impossible) to group students receiving core vocabulary therapy with Hodson's phonological therapy.  (They might fit will into a "modified" 5 minute kids approach).  Also, this approach was more time-intensive because all materials were created by me!!  (That's the essence of the core vocabulary approach-you use words from the student's everyday life so you can't use "pre-packaged" ipad pictures or articulation cards).  However, the parent letter and data collection sheet I developed can now be used with future students.  Also, I believe this students success was also bolstered by home practice (this student practiced with an adult at least 4 times per week in addition to therapy sessions).  My biggest challenge was writing iep goals incorporating this approach!!  (Any ideas??  Please share in comments section).


My next blog posting will be on core vocabulary therapy with inconsistent speech disorders!!  Please stop back if you are interested and happy "SLO" writing  to you!!