Creating a Culture of Kindness in Speech Therapy

Episode 148 - Creating a Culture of Kindness in Speech Therapy

Hi there, and thank you so much for tuning into the Speech Space podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Cassidy, and this is episode 148. I cannot believe that we are getting so close to our 150th episode, and I'm just so grateful to be on this journey with all of you.

Today we're going to be talking about creating a culture of kindness in speech therapy. If you have listened to older episodes of the podcast, or if you read the blog, you might have noticed that kindness is one of my favorite topics. I try to weave it into book and video recommendations and our resources as much as I can.

And way back in episode 14, I interviewed my dear friend Claudia Doan from Creative Speech Lab to learn about a blog series that she was doing at the time called the Kindness Project. And even though that was a few years back, many of the featured blogs are still active, and they are full of great ideas that pair well with today's episode. So I will make sure to link those in the show notes for you.

I'm really looking forward to our conversation today. As we get started, I did just want to mention that this podcast is brought to you by the Digital SLP membership site, which features time-saving, interactive digital resources that are all teletherapy platform friendly. You can learn more or sign up by visiting thedigitalslp.com forward slash digital SLP.

As I worked on this episode, I reflected that one of the most refreshing aspects of kindness is that it's something that we can all agree on. We might have different ideas about what kindness looks like or why kindness is important, but in general, kindness is almost universally seen as a good thing. But with our tight schedules and large workloads, it is understandable that we would want to make sure that there's a strong rationale for connecting kindness and learning before we prioritize making kindness an explicit part of our speech therapy sessions.

And it turns out that there is a strong rationale. In many ways, kindness is actually a prerequisite for learning, which might sound a little bit strange at first. So let's dig into that a little bit more.

I know as SLPs, we often focus on brain development as it relates to language. So let's zoom out a bit and think about brain development in general. This is a complex topic, and I really appreciate Dr. Bruce Perry's Neurosequential Model and the way it breaks everything down.

According to the Neurosequential Model, our brains are organized in a hierarchical system that develops from the bottom up. This means that we need to attend to our basic survival needs before we can effectively engage in tasks like higher-order thinking and learning. So in terms of anatomy, we move from the brainstem, which connects the brain to the spinal cord and regulates involuntary body functions, to the limbic system, which plays a huge role in emotional regulation and our ability to connect with others.

And then finally, the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for thinking, learning, and problem-solving. Dr. Perry summarizes all of this and how it relates to learning when he says we must regulate before we can relate, and we must relate before we can reason. And this is especially vital for SLPs to consider because many of our students and clients may have challenges with regulating themselves and connecting with others.

We can't expect a student who feels isolated and overwhelmed to come to their speech session and immediately be able to focus on learning and practicing new skills. But when we feel the pressure of limited time and lots of speech therapy goals to meet, this is often exactly what we do. That's why kindness is so important.

When we weave it into our sessions and make it part of the fabric of our work with students and clients, it can help create an environment that supports regulation and it can help students connect with themselves and with each other. And all of this forms a foundation that makes learning possible. Now, of course, regulating and relating involve more than just kindness, especially for our students who have experienced significant trauma or who are neurodivergent, but kindness is a powerful place to start.

And that's a great segue into discussing the importance of emphasizing kindness from the very beginning of our work with any student, whether that's at the beginning of the school year or when we begin working with a new group or begin seeing a new client. As I was preparing for this episode, I came across a paper from German researchers that really caught my attention. In their study, 18-month-old infants looked at photos that had common household objects in the foreground.

Some of the photos also included either blocks, a single doll, two dolls facing away from each other, or two dolls facing each other. I know this might be a bit tricky to visualize, so I will link the photos in the show notes so you can see them for yourself. The important takeaway, though, is that the children who saw the two dolls facing each other were three times more likely to help an adult in need as compared to the children who saw other photos.

This result suggested that even seeing subtle visual cues related to kindness and connection can help us to be more kind. Now, I love this, and I'm guessing many of you are already brainstorming what this might look like in your own speech room. Maybe you could display picture books about kindness, put up artwork related to kindness, or arrange the furniture in a way that feels as inviting and interactive as possible.

You may even want to involve your students in the process. You could brainstorm a plan together, and then students could collaborate on bringing the plan to life. And in addition to helping students take ownership over creating a speech space that emphasizes kindness, this activity could also target discussion skills, social communication, sequencing, and more.

And if you're looking for a structured lesson plan to help you get started, UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center has an excellent one, and I will make sure that I link that in the show notes. The Greater Good Science Center was a huge help in putting this episode together, and it's an amazing resource for so many topics related to social-emotional learning. I definitely recommend checking them out.

Another way to emphasize kindness at the beginning of a new school year or when working with a new group of students is to explicitly support them in being kind to each other. I think most of us are very intentional about building rapport with our students, and this is incredibly important, but I think it's also important to help build rapport among our students. And this doesn't have to be limited to social groups.

Even in an articulation group where we are focused on getting as many productions as possible, there are opportunities to encourage kindness and connection between students. It could be a simple welcome routine, a special group high five or handshake, or an invitation to write encouraging postcards for their speech buddies. And one of the best things about supporting kindness between students is that we can front load that work right when a group is first starting to meet, and then watch as the connections continue to grow over the course of the year or as long as the group continues to meet.

One research-based way to help students build friendships with each other, especially at the beginning of the year, is with something called the Fast Friends Procedure. It comes from a famous 1997 study that found it was possible to create closeness between people by having them take turns answering a specific set of 36 questions. But really, there is nothing magical about the actual questions.

The idea is that sharing about ourselves and learning about others is what brings us closer together. The questions in the study were originally geared toward adults, but the Greater Good Science Center adapted them into an activity to do with students, so I will make sure that I link to that for you as well. And of course, as students build friendships by answering questions with each other, they can also work on narrative, past tense, describing, and many other speech and language skills.

Ultimately, there are many possible ways to prioritize kindness at the beginning of the year, and I think what matters the most is just making the decision to be intentional about kindness and then allowing that decision to guide our time with students as the year continues. After we establish kindness as a priority at the beginning of the school year, we can continue to build on the foundation by regularly including speech therapy activities that address kindness. There are so many possibilities with this, especially when it comes to hands-on activities.

Students can research quotes about kindness, they can choose a quote and create art to display it and then share why they chose the quote, or they could make kindness coupons for each other or write poems, they could do a project related to random acts of kindness, or listen to songs about kindness, or students could even plant seeds and talk about the idea of growing kindness. The Greater Good Science Center has so many different lesson plans to help get you started, so I will make sure that I link to a few of my favorites for you. And of course, even though kindness is the topic of these activities, you could also use them to work on many additional language and communication skills.

Another way to include activities focused on kindness is with picture books. There are so many options out there and everyone's needs are different, so I'm just going to highlight a few that I especially love that have re-alouds on YouTube that are available. The first one is Buddy the Bucket Filler, a short and sweet story about making daily choices that lead to more kindness and happiness.

The idea of filling someone's bucket, it's an approachable way to introduce figurative language, and it also could become a concept that you continue using with your students long after you finish reading the book together. Another great option is Good People Everywhere, which is filled with examples of people being kind all over the world. I love how it could encourage students to expand their understanding of kindness and look for examples of kindness in their own daily lives.

My third recommendation is a kindness classic, and many of you are probably already familiar with it. It's called Be Kind, and it follows the internal monologue of a young student as she considers what it actually means to be kind and how she could show kindness to a classmate who is having a difficult day. These book recommendations are geared toward younger students, but for older students, you could choose a chapter book with a kindness theme and read and discuss a chapter in each session.

You could also incorporate nonfiction texts about kindness. Like I mentioned before, the Greater Good Science Center has a variety of short articles about kindness and related topics, so you could start there, or you could just look for news stories about people showing kindness. Although it's powerful to plan speech therapy activities that specifically focus on kindness, I think it's equally powerful to remember that any activity about any topic can really help to foster kindness depending on how we approach it.

We can point out when we notice students being kind to each other, we can share examples of experiencing kindness in our own lives, we can highlight vocabulary words related to kindness, and so much more. Over time, I think it can become a second nature to weave kindness into everything that we do. So I will go ahead and just leave you with that for today.

Thank you so much for listening. I really care about this topic and it means a lot to have you be a part of the discussion. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider taking a moment to leave a review to help other SLPs find the show.

And don't forget to check out the Digital SLP.com forward slash digital SLP if you're interested in exploring the membership and other resources on the site. We are currently offering a free 30 day trial. So that's a great way to learn more about what we have.

Thank you so much for tuning in, and I will talk to you in the next episode.