Hanging on with anything I can... I almost have my concept paper accepted. Still working on a few details.  Sent out interest letters to schools in my target area for the paper.  I'm getting them back in slowly.  Everyone is busy like I am right now.  Talk about a crazy semester...  95+ kids on caseload and a student intern as well as 10 credits for my doctorate... a bit insane.  Like I said, hanging on by any method possible. LOL!  Some great things too; finally getting rid of the braces I've had for three years in October! That will be a huge relief! Learning quite  bit from genetics and neuroscience this semester so far in the readings.  When I find something profoundly interesting I'll post.  Stay tuned... ~H.

Here's the photo of me doing FEES.

7/9/12- First day of the convention.

7/8/12--Finished Advanced Voice and swallowing course yesterday.  Did my own FEES instrumentation with a nasoendoscope for the first time.  Photo will follow at a later date.  No photo card reader here in FL.  This course was excellent!  Learned a lot of new instrumentation for both voice and swallowing that I hadn't known before or used before.  Move on to convention Monday.  More tomorrow.  I couldn't post the videoclip I made, the internet service here at the Polynesian isn't that good and it doesn't allow for fast upload or any upload of many videoclips.  I will try a shorter one tomorrow.

Arrived in Florida!  I'm staying at the Polynesian.  Really cool place, just like you're in Hawaii.

Heading to Florida!

All scheduled for my doctoral visit to Florida!  This should be very cool and I'm looking forward to it.  Hope to see all my cohort there!  ~H.

Continuing!

It truly is hard to believe how time has passed.  It seems like yesterday that I started on this journey and now I'm a year into my doctorate!  This course has been the most harrowing to date, but we've all learned so much and basically a 1/3 of our paper is nearly finished!  That takes a bit of the pressure off and adds to the excitement of pursuing what we are all asking in our questions!  I wish everyone a challenging but great experience in the semesters to come and hope to see all of you at summer conference!  I plan to try to continue this blog until graduation to map the process for real!  Take care all of you! ~H.

Dissertation Blog #4

Based on the information learned in class, I feel that my dissertation will be quantitative in nature.  The design I believe will fall under Survey Research.  Survey Research looks at perceptions, attitudes and opinions of participants in a study and have research questions that are descriptive, comparing or relationship based.  My research questions are comparative between two Intermediate Units and the types of pre-evaluation interventions they use as well as how effective they are rated to be.  My data collection will be by questionaire/survey.  I've looked at different surveys used in the literature and really feel that parts of surveys from Elksnin & Capilouto (1994) and Beck & Dennis (1997) will fit what I am looking for in my dissertation.

Correction to previous blog- updated!

This is a revision to the previous blog.

Research Question and Variables

Here Is one of my research questions and the independent/dependent variables.

Update!

I received an e-mail that a group is definitely forming to discuss RTI and caseloads/service delivery!  This is exciting because it will give me more information that I can use to help develop my dissertation!  I'm looking forward to it!

Searching!

I'm beginning to search for surveys that have information that I think that I could use in my own survey for my research problem.  It's really interesting to see what kind of surveys are out there and how the authors used the information in those surveys to back up their hypotheses in their research!   This is getting cool!

Purpose of study and Research Questions

Here are my purpose of study and research questions based on the variables collected.  Feedback is appreciated!  ~H.H.

PURPOSE OF STUDY

The purpose of the study is to determine the interventions and service delivery methods used in the western sector of southeastern Pennsylvania Intermediate Unit to reduce SLP caseload numbers and their effectiveness in treating communication disorders in the least restrictive environment possible and to compare them to the eastern sector southeastern Pennsylvania Intermediate Unit.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

What are the best pre-evaluation interventions used by the SLPs in the western sector of southeastern Pennsylvania Intermediate Units to reduce labeling children with communication disorders?

What are the best pre-evaluation interventions used by SLPs in the eastern sector of southeastern Pennsylvania Intermediate Units to reduce labeling children with communication disorders?

How do western sector southeastern Pennsylvania SLPs pre-evaluation interventions relate to eastern sector southeastern Pennsylvania SLPs pre-evaluation interventions?

How do western sector SLPs compare to eastern sector SLPs regarding the effectiveness of the pre-evaluation interventions they are providing to reduce labeling children with communication disorders?

Independent Intervening and Dependent Variables-OMG what a confusing concept!

I'm looking to find the independent, dependent and intervening variables of my study so I can develop some good research questions.  This chapter was rather confusing and mapping out the different variables was a bit difficult.  Here's what I've come up with so far, but are they right??

The purpose of my study is do identify the interventions and service delivery methods used in southeastern Pennsylvania School Districts to reduce SLP caseload numbers to provide effective treatment of communication disorders in the least restrictive environment.

Independent                             Intervening                                                             Dependent
caseload size                           pre-evaluation intervention tools                          actual intervention/service                        
                                                                                                                            delivery

# responsibilities                      time to deliver interventions                                 effectiveness of
                                                                                                                             intervention
                                 

collaboration/training               barriers to service delivery methods                     perspectives of            
                                                                                                                             collaborating staff

Theoretical Perspective

I think that my topic/problem fits well with the sociocultural theory by Vygotsky (1978).  This theory is an educational based theory that looks at how a child learns.  Vygotsky's theory states that one learns by using psychological tools (signs, symbols, texts etc.) to internalize information, which  helps the individual to master functions of perception, memory, attention and others (Kozulin, Gindis, Ageyev, & Miller, 2003).    These authors stated that a child's development of higher mental processes depend upon mediating agents that interact within that child's environment.  There are human and symbolic mediators which direct the child who takes in the information and adds it to their internal thought processes (Kozulin et al., 2003).

Kozulin, A., Gindis, B., Ageyev, V. S., & Miller, S. M. (2003).  Vygotsky’s educational theory in cultural context.  Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK.  Retrieved from: http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=mfCHutwHT-cC&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=Vygotsky%27s+educational+theory+cultural+context&ots=ufpWqhjYqD&sig=1PytMWBqaA66yYkEMjAa2WpsYNY#v=onepage&q=Vygotsky’s%20educational%20theory%20cultural%20context&f=false

Research Literature Map

Here is a copy of my Literature Map minus the Theoretical Perspective which I am still searching for.  When I find out what theoretical perspective my dissertation will follow I will post that.  That is the worst part of the literature review to date for me. 

News!

I got news this week that a group of therapists/administrators will be gathering to discuss high caseloads in my IU. This was a brainstorm at one point, now it seems like it will come to fruition!   I will be a part of this group!  What a wonderful collaboration opportunity and a way to get interest in participating in my dissertation which is highly related to this topic.  Let's see what we come up with on how to solve this issue of high caseload numbers for speech pathologists in PA!

My Dissertation Research Problem (initial working draft)

Topic- Reduction /Management of School Speech Language Pathology Caseloads

Research Problem-  Speech Language Pathology caseloads in IU#13 districts continue to be heavy despite the use of interventions to reduce them.

Justification-  In the past couple weeks I was asked by my special education director  to have some discussions with other professionals in the IU who have concerns about high caseloads for SLP's.  This group of people has not yet been identified, nor have they decided to put together an action group, but there was a need identified.  I decided that this would be a good topic for a dissertation and approached her about the possibility.  This research question is the result of that discussion. 

I did a limited literature review to determine if there were journal articles justifying there is a need not just in our districts, but nationwide.  The following are a start...

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (2010).  Schools survey report: speech language

    pathology caseload characteristics trends 1995-2010.  Available from www.asha.org

Dowden, P., Alarcon, N., Vollan, T., Cumley, G.D., Kuehn, C. M. & Amtmann, D. (2006).  Survey

    of speech language pathology caseloads in Washington state schools: implications and strategies for

    action.  Language, Speech & Hearing Services in Schools, 37, 104-117.

Edgar, D. L. & Rosa-Lugo, L. I. (2007).  The critical shortage of speech-language pathologists in the

     public school setting: features of work environment that affect recruitment and retention.  Language

    Speech & Hearing Services in Schools, 38, 13-46.

Giangreco, M. F., Prelock, P. A., & Turnbull, R. H. (2010).  An issue hiding in plain sight: when are

    speech language pathologists special educators rather than related service providers?  Language,

    Speech & Hearing Services in Schools, 41, 531-538.

Hutchins, T. L., Howard, M., Prelock, P. A. & Berlin, G. (2010).  Retention of school-based speech

    language pathologists: relationships among caseload size, workload satisfaction, job satisfaction and 

    best practice.  Communication Disorders Quarterly, 31(3), 139-154.

Katz, L. A., Maag, A., Fallon, K. A., Blenkarn, K., & Smith, M. K. (2010).  What makes a caseload

    (un)manageable?  school-based speech-language pathologists speak.  Language, Speech & Hearing

     Services in Schools, 41, 139-151.

Deficiencies Found in the Evidence

     When reviewing the literature in my mini literature review, I discovered five studies that reported deficiencies in the literature surrounding my research problem.  Dowden et. al. (2006) reported research is needed on efficiency of caseload management strategies in schools.  Edgar et. al. (2007) stated that research is needed to find the best ways to facilitate successful recruitment of SLP's (caseload being one of the variable against retention).  Hutchins et. al. (2010) implied that further exploration of relationships of retention of SLP's including job satisfaction, caseload size, workload satisfaction and best practice be investigated further.  Giangreco et. al. (2010) reported that there is a need for more intra and interdisciplinary studies about the roles of SLP's as special educators and as related service providers.  Last, Katz et. al. (2010) reported the need to determine how SLP's working in schools using the Response To Intervention (RTI) program are using the model and managing their caseloads.

Welcome to my blog!

I am still in the process of refining my research problem and questions, so bear with me!  I am currently seeking IRB approval to move ahead with my research question for real.  I will post more later when everything is ironed out.  In the mean time, this blog was requested by my Methods of Inquiry class to allow us to talk to others about our experiences as we go through the dissertation process, so join me through this journey.  Enjoy the ride!~  H. Harnly, MS/CCC-SLP