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From Angela States, Speech
Teacher
I graduated from Eastern Illinois
University with my Bachelor of Science degree in 2002 and
graduated from Illinois State University in 2004 with my Masters
degree in Speech-Language Pathology. I worked for the Illinois
public school system for 2 years prior to coming to the
Nashville area. My husband and I just moved to Nashville this
past summer. We do not have children yet since we just got
married this past summer. I am excited to now be living and
working in the greater Nashville area.
I have been blessed to have an
assistant this year, Karji Dunkle, who works with my
students on Mondays and Wednesday so I can complete paper work
and attend IEP meetings. Karji resides in Franklin with her
husband and 5 children. Karji earned her Bachelor degree in
California and her Masters Degree in Speech Language Pathology
at Vanderbilt University.
Crockett Elementary
is an inclusion-minded school, so all of my students spend the
majority of their day in the regular education classroom. This
means that there is an emphasis on collaboration among the
special education staff and the regular education teachers.
Speech therapy most often occurs in the speech classroom where
we have access to a variety of resources ranging from activity
books and games to classroom textbooks and language-based
software. I also highly encourage all of my students to
practice at home. This is critical for carry-over of skills
into other settings.
The school recently
purchased a variety of early language and vocabulary building
software to cater to younger students and students with
developmental delay who need extra practice in these areas. We
also utilize the internet for practice with vocabulary and
pronunciation. Our technology department also equips us with a
variety of buttons and other assistive technology to facilitate
use of the computers by students with differing abilities. We
have several FM systems for use in the classrooms as well as
personal amplification systems. Research indicates that these
systems help all children and especially children with hearing
impairment or auditory processing difficulties to benefit from
orally presented material.
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