Targeting Resilience in Adolescents in Speech Therapy
As we all know when we start working on speech or language with older students, success is so much more than drill and practice. It takes buy-in from these middle and high schoolers to have any hope of continued improvement and eventual dismissal.
When I read this article, by Abendroth and Whited, titled Motivation, Rapport, and Resilience: Three Pillars of Adolescent Therapy to Shift the Focus to Adulthood, I was thrilled to see someone addressing factors that contribute to success in speech therapy with this population.
In this article, the authors identify three key “pillars” of adolescent therapy – outside what you might typically think of including in your sessions.
In this blog post, I am going to address the third pillar, resilience, and if you’re interested in the other two, I’d suggest checking out this blog post by Creative Speech Lab on Building Trust and Rapport with Your Students or this post by Stacy Crouse on motivation.
“Resilience is a dynamic concept through which individuals learn to cope with and adapt to adverse experiences (Craig et al., 2011)….
For adolescent students, risk factors—having a communication disorder, facing discrimination, bullying, or academic concerns—can be absorbed or decreased by protective factors—hope, agency, and positive social relationships (Lyons & Roulstone, 372 2018).”
From Abendroth & Whited (2021).
Educate directly about resilience
Don’t be afraid to work on resilience directly. Yes, you can actually teach students what it means to be resilient and give them strategies to use.
Growth mindset is one great way to do this and some essential concepts related to speech may be:
- mistakes are learning opportunities
- success follows effort
This blog post talks precisely about how you can implement a growth mindset, even in your 30-minute speech sessions.
In the article cited above, the authors suggest discussing “famous failures” like how many times Michael Jordan or Albert Einstein failed before they became known as the icons they are today.
Seeking out resources on these types of topics would be an amazing way to target language and articulation skills while still covering elements of resilience.
There are also many, many TEDTalks available on the topic of resilience, and watching and discussing these with some of your #slpbigkids would be another way to work on these skills while still targeting IEP goals.
Foster social relationships
Those with a strong support system are better able to handle adverse events (Caughter & Crofts, 2018).
Our role in this may be working on pragmatics so that students are better able to make and keep friends, but it could also be done through nurturing relationships – perhaps during a lunch bunch or other facilitated social setting where students are able to meet and make new friends.
And let’s not forget the importance of collaborating with other professionals in the school setting like the counselor, school psychologist, and of course, classroom teacher.
Highlight positive things
One factor of resilience that was highlighted in the article was “realistic optimism.” Helping students to notice and focus on good things that have happened (and will happen) is easy to implement in regular speech sessions.
For example, you may have students each start the speech session by stating something good that happened that day. Better yet, have them also state a good thing that happened in speech that day (maybe a success or something they worked hard at) before leaving for the day.
It’s so easy to ignore things like rapport, resilience, and motivation as we strive to fit in as many reps as possible. But these things have value too, and at the end of the day, they’ll make the impact of those repetitions you worked so hard to get much greater.
References
Abendroth, Kathleen & Whited, Jennifer. (2021). Motivation, Rapport, and Resilience: Three Pillars of Adolescent Therapy to Shift the Focus to Adulthood. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups. 6. 1-9.
Caughter, S., & Crofts, V. (2018). Nurturing a resilient mindset in school-aged children who stutter. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 27(3S), 1111-1123. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-ODC11-17-0189
Craig, A., Blumgart, E., & Tran, Y. (2011). Resilience and stuttering: Factors that protect people from the adversity of chronic stuttering. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing 498 Research, 54(6), 1485-1496. https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2011/10-0304)
Lyons, R., & Roulstone, S. (2018). Well-being and resilience in children with speech and language disorders. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 61(2), 1-21.
