Happy New (School) Year

At the beginning of every school year I always make some new year's resolutions. I try to pick 2-3 things that I want to improve upon. The past couple of years have been about stepping up my language group planning and how I track their progress. This year communication with parents and teachers is a top priority. I have also had resolutions concerning testing more quickly, making articulation groups more fun, staying more current on research, etc. Just like real New Year's Resolutions I don't meet all of my goals every year. But I am constantly self assessing and seeing the areas that I feel need improvement.

Many times, as a speech therapists, we are on our own. We are not closely supervised in the therapy room nor do we have a set curriculum. Most of the time, as long as our paperwork is done on time and correctly our supervisors are happy.

The endless paperwork is not my favorite part of the job. The way that I can still be creative in the therapy room and have the freedom to change what isn't working are some of my favorite parts of the job. But, I feel like there is a need to be able to honestly assess our own strengths and weaknesses, which can be hard.

Here are a few ways I have found helpful to assess myself.

1.)  Am I aligning what I am doing with what is most important in the classroom, at home, and to the child?

2.)  What was a supervisor or parent not pleased with last year? (This is an obvious one. I think that we all tend to dwell on this beyond what we should.) Recognize when you've made a mistake, take responsibility, try to fix it, and move on.

3.)  Where am I seeing the least amount of progress? What can I do to improve that? Collaboration is key here. What are good therapists doing to be successful in the areas with which I am struggling? Do I need more continuing education in an area or just some fresh ideas? Social media has made it so much easier to find out what others are doing to be successful.

4.)  Where is the greatest amount of my stress at work coming from? What are steps that I can take to reduce that stress? We can't always change the things that stress us out, but I have found that there are many ways to make situations better. (i.e. more parent communication, being more organized, more communication with classroom teachers, etc.)

5.)  What do I need to do to help myself stay excited about what I do?


I have read through ASHA's performance assessment guide. I was scared and inspired at the same time. I don't live up to all of the standards yet. Do I want to? Yes. I hope to live up to these standards and my own by making improvements every year.

Do you make New School Year Resolutions?