Interview with Speech Language Pathologist at Lyons Mill ES, Lauren Apt.

1. What is the most applicable piece of information you learned at university about special
education?
Developmental norms: Mrs. Apt said that if you don’t know where students should be normally,
then there is no way to know if a student with a disability is keeping on track with where they
should be or not in a certain period of time. If you don’t know the norms, there will be no way to
remediate their development. It also helps educators use the students’ strengths to build on
their weaknesses and get them further on track.
2. When you first began working with students with disabilities (after college), what
surprised you most?
Mrs. Apt said that nothing was particularly surprising for her—which is not to say that
unexpected things would come up. In fact, she said that expecting the unexpected is part of the
job—getting hit by students, cursed at, spat on, hair pulled, etc. is all expected behavior for
some students with disabilities that are in developmental stages.
3. What are some of the biggest mistakes you see teachers make when working with
students with disabilities?
For Mrs. Apt, it was when teachers use complex language. Students need simple and brief
directions and basic words—especially students with disabilities, but all students in general. If a
student has trouble just speaking in long sentences, and may even only communicate one word
at a time, then it’s unlikely they can follow extensive, complex directions.
4. When you see a teacher successfully work with students with disabilities, what stands
out to you most?
Some successful strategies Mrs. Apt uses are: using visuals (pictures/drawings), having the
student repeat the directions, and teacher modeling successful behavior.
5. What is an area of growth for you in your special education work?
For her, the most difficult thing is getting the paperwork done on time. Her system requires her
to provide daily notes WITH DATA. She must also help write IEPs and progress reports quite
frequently for all her students. Some of these things (mostly the daily notes) are very difficult to
get done on time with the number of hours in a day.

Reflection: Mrs. Apt’s answers were very insightful, and I am excited to put the knowledge to
use for all students. Key strategies are: having students repeat directions, keeping directions
simple and concise, teacher modeling, and expecting things to go wrong all the time while being
able to stay calm and patient and focused. What surprised me was how well I should know the
developmental norms for students of the age that I will be teaching. This proves that I should do
a lot more data-based research on what students of certain ages should be capable of, so that I
can accommodate students and try to achieve those standards (without putting added pressure
on the students of course). This will be important to keep in mind especially once I have a
teaching job, so I can set realistic expectations and aspirations for my students.

Collaboration Ideas
Three professionals that I would like to collaborate with as a music teacher are special
education teachers, regular education teachers, and behavioral consultants.

Special education teachers are the obvious choice for collaboration regarding students with
disabilities. They have the most experience with the students and it is their area of expertise.
These teachers, specifically the ones that are directly involved with my students, could help me
learn a lot about their individual needs and how best to treat them in my classroom, such as
successful integration of their IEP‘s.

Regular education teachers will probably be the primary focus for collaboration regarding
students with disabilities because there are simply more of them in the school. I am aware that
many schools have “team meetings”, where a group of teachers that share many students
discuss what makes them most successful. With the right people, these meetings could really
help me understand my students more deeply, and understanding one’s students almost always
facilitates better teaching practices.

A behavioral consultant could help advise me on how best to interact with individual students,
specifically those with mental health issues. I could ask the consultant, “How do mental health
issues impact my students’ behavior?” or “How should I treat students with mental health issues
in the classroom (without making it seem like I’m giving them special treatment)?”