The Speech Teacher’s Handbook: Book Review
I recently came across this book on Amazon. It piqued my interest so I bought it. It is called “The Speech Teacher’s Handbook, A Parent’s Guide to Speech and Language” by Molly Dresner, MS SLP-CCC. I found the title to be a little awkward but the information in the book to be pretty good. First of all I know a lot of you out there will take exception to the use of “The Speech Teacher”, you all need to get past that. Face it we have a branding issue, which is certainly a topic for another time. I can understand why Ms. Dresner used the title “Speech Teacher” because in the world of early intervention that is how we are known. In the book she makes it clear that she is a “Speech Language Pathologist.”
The second part of her title provided a little more explanation regarding whom the book was written for but still seemed a little incomplete to me. People who are not Speech Language Pathologists might ask Speech and Language what? Parents might not know immediately that it is written for them.
Getting past the title, this little book contains a lot of good information for parents on how to foster speech and language skills with their little ones. Ms. Dresner’s guidance and explanations are clear and concise. There is a nice little summary at the end of each chapter. Some easy to understand speech and language developmental norms are found at the end of the book.
A seasoned SLP might look at some of Ms. Dresner’s suggestions and say that most of her information is just common sense. However, I’m seeing more and more older students who can’t name body parts/common objects, have poor listening/memory skills and produce short sentences so some parents out there do need this information.
The chapter on “Cocktail Talk” puzzled me a little bit since that seemed to be written for SLP’s. While Ms. Dresner initially mentions that you should make sure parents know they can get an assessment through their school system, she goes on to mention parameters of speech and language development in a variety of areas. (I personally back off on talking about speech and language issues when asked outside the professional realm. I have found that that people who engage me usually don’t follow my advice or take my advice to mean the child is probably ok. When people speak to you outside of the professional realm and without the child there, you have no knowledge of their background or other developmental needs. I’m big on including both in my assessments of students, even my middle to high school students.)
I’m giving thumbs up on this book. I think it would be an excellent resource to give out either to early intervention clients or as a welcome to daycare packet for little ones. Day care teachers could read this book as a refresher and daycare assistants could use this book as continuing education. Ms. Dresner has put together some wonderful ideas for simply interacting with your child through out the day. This book is not just for children with speech and language delays but for typically developing children as well. This book will “Help You Help Your Little One” which I believe was Ms. Dresner’s goal when she sat down to write this book.