Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, doctor joy hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website
at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for session four fifty three of the Therapy for Black Girls podcasts. We'll get right into our conversation after word from our sponsors. The ability to express ourselves through speech remains one of the most important ways
we communicate. It's at the root of how we connect, understand each other, and even how we explore our own identities. From childhood, we learn that what we say and how we're able to say it can impact how we move through the world. Speech pathologists help those of us who experience challenges in expressing our thoughts in processing language, and as important as this work is, there are still disparities
in who receives care. A recent study from twenty twenty four found that black patients are about thirteen percent less likely to receive speech language pathology services than white patients, even after accounting for differences in health and demographic factors. That's why I'm excited to welcome doctor don Ellis. She's a speech language pathologist, advocate, and educator whose journey led her to a career helping children, families, and communities communicate
with confidence. In this conversation, we explore language development, identity, and how communication intersects with mental health, particularly for black women and families. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social media using the hashtag TBG in session, or join us over in our patreons and talk more about the episode. You can join us at community dot therapy for Blackgirls dot com.
Here's our conversation. Hi, doctor Ellis, thank you so much for joining us today. Hi, thank you for having me. Yeah, it's a pleasure to chat with you. So can you start by telling us about your journey in speech and language pathology and what drew you to this field.
Sure. So when people ask this question, I think about my Cotilion book that in there, my under my picture I had listed I wanted to be a child physists. Not sure what that is. But fast forward to going to college. I was accepted into cal State Fresno, and when my parents got there to drop me off, they said they had their quota of black students. The letter hadn't reached them yet, and so I could not enroll, I couldn't stay. And so I'm not sure and I
would tease my mom how this happened. But on the way home, they stopped at Bakersfail College and they knew that they had dorms and they had a space. Someone didn't show up in the dorms, and so they left me there and they were like, oh, we'll get her enrolled and all of her aid and everything will transfer because it was this state school. And so my work study job was in the handicapped Service center and I was assigned to the speech language pathologists. Wow. And so
I always say, God makes no mistakes. And so then I finished my two years they and transfer to cal State University Northbridge, where I got my bachelor's in Communicative Sciences and Disorders and then onto Howard University where I got my master's at my doctorate.
Wow, that is quite a story. I love that it has come full circle for you. Actually it has been a field that you have thrived in. So what did you intend to major in when you were going to college?
I knew I wanted to work with children, and so, like I said, I don't know what a physiologist was what I put in that or answered that question, but probably I was thinking psychology. I was probably thinking child psychology. But I knew I wanted to work with children. So at Howard they had a grant from Department of Ed Office Special ED program, which is another full circle moment because I later in my career I became one of the competition managers for that program at Department of Ed.
But it was specializing in zero to five. So that was when the law had changed, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act where it went down to age zero, so it started from at three to twenty one and the law had changed. And so what the department event put out programs which I now know to make sure that people are trained both what we call pre service, which is at the university level, and in service, which would be what you're a professional and getting like continuing education units.
But through my masters, I was trained in pediatrics, so we had to take twelve more units and have more clinical hours in that birth to five population.
Got it. And so what does a typical day look like for you as a special language pathologist.
Yeah, so now it's a little different from the work that I do. But I have a private practice and I'm also associate director of Technical Assistance Center. So my private practice, I mainly my caseload is with individuals with developmental with intellectual and developmental disabilities. So I see some clients via telehealth and home health. And that home health the clients can be in their natural home with their parent or guardian, or they could live in supportive living
like a group home. So I try to focus like one specific day for doing home health when I'm out in the community going into the homes to see clients. And then I have virtual clients, you know via telehealth, and some clients that I see via telehealth. I also I do like a hybrid model, so I make sure that I see them like once a quarter, once a month in person. So that's pretty much like a typical day. In between that there's a lot of planning, there's billing,
there's I do service work. So I do a lot of service work with my national professional organization, so I may I sit on a committee right now, I'm on the Committee of Ambassadors with the American Speed, Language and Hearing Association, and I am the Speech Language Pathologist representative for the District of Columbia. So in that there's a
lot of work just doing advocacy work. And then I'm also the associate director of DREAM, which is a national technical assistance center that supports minority serving institutions, including HBCUs and tribal colleges to help them write applications and build capacity to get federal funds to train personnel under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
Beautiful, You're a very busy woman.
Yeah. I get to do a lot of things that I love to do and that have just built upon my experience over the years.
Mm hm. So I feel like I've only i think historically heard about speech and language pathologists as a part of like elementary school, but clearly the work that you do spans much later into life as well. So you've already talked about working in schools, having a private practice. What other kinds of career paths might have speech language pathologies be able to explore.
Sure, And that's a great question. So I think about my own career path where I started working in schools, in early intervention, which is in community based settings, going into home, also at daycares, in hospitals, so that's some of the places that you can work hospitals, rehabilitation, in
the home. I've been on faculty both at Oklahoma State University and Galadette University, also adjuncts here in the area like Howard University of District of Columbia, and also I worked for my national professional association, the American Speech Language and Hearing Association, where I worked in their research department where I was the director and manager of federal funds, which gave me federal experience, and then working you know,
in federal service for the government. Living here in the District of Columbia, I had the mindset that I wanted to work in all of these because there are some really unique opportunities being here in the nation's capital. So I wanted to touch all of those and so I
felt like I was successful doing that. But you can be in academia you can work at the university level as a faculty member or a clinical educator where you are supervising students doing like practicum because usually the university settings have a speech and hearing clinic where scholars or students get their experience first in the clinic before going out to like a practicum site. There's just so many
opportunities in different settings that people can work in. I have friends that are colleagues in private practice that also work with, say, actors on modification of a dialect for a role in a movie. There are some that work in the corporate setting that may want to help people communicate better. That's a job that's more of an elective.
It's not a deficit, but it's something that corporations may want to offer as a benefit to people, and just not to accent or dialect reduction, but also just to be an overall better and more effective communicator.
So, doctor ellis, what are some of the common speech and language and communication disorders that we might be both familiar with, but maybe some that we also aren't familiar with.
Yes, so when we talk about speech, we think of production, articulation, motor planning, voice fluency. All of those fall under speech and talk about familiarity versus non familiar One of the things we like to talk about fluency, which most people may know as stuttering. We don't like to use that term because we don't want to label individuals, but mainly refer to the characteristic of the speech, which is a disruption in the flow. So we talk about fluency disorders.
When we think of receptive language, what we understand expressive language, you know what we're able our words or grammar are sentences. Then there's vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics, which is more social communication and how you use the language in a social context, and then communication overall social communication, we can talk about
alternative and assistive devices, agnitiative and alternative devices. That's part of communication, so people that may use a device to communicate, and then cognitive communication, memory and attention, executive function, and multimodal communication, sign language, people using gestures, body language. Those are some of the areas that communication could be effective. Might seek out a speech language pathologist.
Yeah, so such a wide variety, right, And I think when you hear it broken down that way, you realize, like how many parts there are to speech in communication. So maybe we just start with like fluency, right, which you talked about, used to be known as stuttering, but the more appropriate term now is a fluency concern. When you talk about fluency, is this typically a physiological kind of concern? Is it more social emotional? Like? What is
typically the cause of a fluency concern? Yeah, it can be.
All of the above or parts of that. So I think about when we look at children. Children can in the developmental stages of language, especially at ages like three and four, their receptive language always exceeds expressive. So children are going to understand more than they're able to get out.
And so when they're trying to get all their thoughts together and express that, and sometimes they know what they want to say, but they don't don't have the words, that can't put it into words, and that might sound disfluent to a parent. So often we get oh, my child's stuttering, you know. So first the thing is like, okay, let's you know, we counsel parents, like we want to
talk about the characteristics and not label it. You don't want to call attention to it because then that makes the child self conscious about it, and you know, let's give it time for maturation, for development, and you may see those disfluencies go away. You don't be a good model yourself is slowing down your speech and helping them find the words by just modeling those words, not scolding or shaming someone about not being able to get their
words out. But then we can see where there could be an issue as time develops an age and a person may still have those disfluencies. Sometimes it could be related to trauma like adverse childhood experiences. Not all the time, but it can be you know, something comes up, you saw something, or you get in a situation where you feel stressed. So therefore, and it could be a stressful environment.
And then it develops more into a pattern, and then we see adults that as you get older, the individual has maintained those patterns and may need to seek therapy for just ways to modify and to control that. And sometimes that also involves counseling, especially if there is some trauma identify with how a person may have begun to have some disfluencies.
More from our conversation after the break, are there particular concerns that you feel like are often misdiagnosed or overlooked, especially in the black community. When we're thinking about Speacian language and communication disorders.
Yeah, just acceptance awareness. So under a lot of times people aren't aware of a speech language pathologist, and people think about speech only, but they don't think about the language part or the cognitive and how all that works together. So when we look in the school setting, their research and you can look like there may be an over diagnosis or overrepresentation of black children in special led programs.
But also there's some research that suggests that there is an underidentification of people of color with speech and language disorders, because when you look at individuals that are incarcerated, often there is some evidence that there is a disability, whether it's diagnosed or undiagnosed, that there's something going on there. So there's two schools of thought there, you know, and both could be true in different contexts. That's the same time.
But I think just the awareness and the acceptance that my child may need to get help. And we're talking about children here, because on the adult side, there are things that happen like stroke, close head injury, traumatic brain injury, which then you're in a medical setting where these services speech OT or PT are presented to you based upon your needs, but when we're talking about children and youth sometimes there's acceptance. There's also I think we're coming out
of this. The stigma associated with someone that may have a disability, that a communication disorder is part of this. And I was just thinking about yesterday. I was in New York and I saw Purpose and it was there some underlying issues in the play about people not being diagnosed about ural divergence and wanting to keep that hush hush about what my child may be experiencing. So I
think there's that shame sometimes in that stigma. But the more that we're aware, the more that there's awareness of individuals across the board with disabilities, the more acceptance there is, and the more acceptance there is to get help and not feel that shame because my child is not perfect, so I kind of want to keep it hush. And I saw I was a girl Scout leader and when my kids were younger, and I would have parents that would not want to identify and they didn't have to,
that was their choice. But being in the field, it's like I knew how to deal with that, but other leaders, when it's not identify, may not and you're taking a child out like on a camping trip or something like that. And there are things that could be really helpful if you knew, and that you can make accommodations for and
make it work. But just hoping that the more awareness of people with disabilities and you know, including the communication disorder and the fact that that doesn't mean that something is wrong or is that you can't fully participate in society, I think is key.
Yeah, yeah, you know. And as you're talking, I'm thinking about like my two little ones, Like when I would be filling out paperwork at the pediatrician, I remember questions
around like have they shared their first words? And like they are all these milestones, and I'm thinking like beyond like your pediatrician, and maybe if like a teacher or somebody recognizes, like, hey, there may be some calls for concern here, like what kinds of things should parents or caregivers be paying attention to well on the look up for that there may be something going on that might require some additional treatment.
This is a great question too, because I don't have grandchildren right now, but a lot of my friends are having aired first grandchild, and I get a lot of cause about hey, can you come over and observe or this is going on, and sometimes it starts with the grandparent, you know, but and I haven't done that throughout my career. But being aware of what the developmental milestones are, knowing that a child's development and acquisition of sounds could be
through like age six to eight. So s is a later developing sound or thch is a later developing sound. So if they're using an easier sound to produce a word than you know, rabbit for rabbit, then that's okay, Like that's okay, They're not expected to produce that sound yet. So being aware of what like milestones are, especially for sounds, that's like one of the biggest one. Also not comparing. We hear this throughout life. Right, she has a cousin the same age and she is talking so much better,
but then also realizing that she's more repeating things. There is nothing wrong, but it's just not the same. It's hard not to compare, but every child is different. So just knowing what the milestones are, just making sure that you are asking questions. And in a couple of these scenarios, teachers have said or daycare like, hey, what does so and so speech sound like at home? Or how are
they talking at home? Also in two days world, when we're thinking about children that maybe three four thinking about COVID babies, you know everybody was isolated so during that time, and you hear a parents say, oh, she was a co baby. So not saying that things are delayed, but we know that when children are around other children, they begin to pick up things, they begin to communicate on
their level with their peers. So that's another thing. Being involved in play groups and talking to other parents, not in a comparison way, but just to get information. But of course all the things we hear about, continue to read and expose your child to opportunities in everyday life, going to the grocery store, talking, playing outside, just natural things beyond technology and screen time. Not saying that that's bad, but just early on putting limits on it and knowing
what to do. But it's just more being aware. And if you do, don't wait, because for a child time three months seems like half a year or a year in growth. So if you do have concern, don't wait. There's child fine in every state, every county which you can call, and if you don't know where to go, help to get started with Hey, I have these concerns, and how do I get started to figure out if I need to do something further to give my child the support they need.
Our speech and language pathology is typically covered by insurance.
So yeah, so that's a good question. So yes, if there is a disorder, and so that's going to be the key thing if you go the private route. So that's why I encourage parents when they do if their child is under five, to use the resources like child Fine and Early Start or whatever it's called in your area, because you're entitled to those services through the school system. So that's the place that I would always recommend that
people start if your child is diagnosed. And each county, each state has their own criteria of how they determine eligibility. So if your child is determined eligible for services and I'm talking about now speech, occupational therapy, physical therapy for the birth to five, then you can get those services through the school system and for zero to two in the home, so they can come to your home or
community based setting to provide those services. Some parents want to go private services might be limited through childflying based upon the eligibility criteria and the percentage that they may see a delay. We talk about delays in those early years versus disorders if there is some evidence of hearing loss of course there and hearing laws we know can delay language acquisition, the acquisition of sounds. You don't get the feedback like everybody gets, so you're not really sure
when the sound doesn't sound right. And that's for adults too, so that would be covered. Of course, there's a whole process this, but usually when it comes to insurance, there has to be a delay or disorder identified and whatever that eligibility looks like for that insurance carrier. M.
So you've already talked a little bit about like the different dialect we may have because we maybe grow up in different regions. Right, How do you differentiate the difference between like a dialect or somebody's like natural way of speaking versus somebody that's something that's a delay or a deficiency.
Yeah, so good question. We talk about delay or disorder. We also see this in individuals whose primary language may not be English, so it's important to know sound like how they're functioning in l one the primary language versus the secondary language. But also when we're talking about a dialect, so speaking a second language, is different. But when we're talking about a dialect, it's important to know what the features are to know if it's a difference or versus
a disord. So also just because someone doesn't sound like us, or they move to a different region and they sound different, does not mean that it's a disorder. And when we're talking about school age, how is it affecting their academic performance? That's gonna be really important. So we all know their Southern dialect. There's New England dialects, there's dialects. I came from California to Howard. I went to school in a valley, so I was I had valley speech. That's what they
told me. But also when I was at Northridge, parents would bring their kids into the clinic wanting this valley speech worked on and stuff. So that was like I was a student then, But I do remember that. But different regions, different areas. Even here in the DMV, you're gonna hear different what we call prosodic patterns, tone, maybe even different morphological patterns. We see that in African American English. There's also Southern White English. There's so many different ones.
Is it affecting your academic performance? Is it affecting your work performance in some way, and that could be objective, you know, how your speech is, but it's really up to how is the listener perceiving and are they perceiving a difference based upon what they sound like, and are they really having trouble with understanding or is it just they may not like the way the person sounds or it doesn't sound like.
Them mm hmmmmmm. You know, as you're talking a to Ellice, it reminds me of the importance of having a variety of practitioners in the field because there's so often a connection between like what the presentation of a voice sounds like, in connecting that to like intellect in ways that are not accurate, and it sounds like that is what you're speaking to.
Yes, And just because someone has a disfluency let's go back there, or someone doesn't sound like you, does not mean that it equates to intellect, you know, And I
think that over time that's what has happened. Sometimes it's the majority, and the majority wants people to sound like what they sound like, and so therefore they perceive it to be People are less educated, and there are studies where there's unfamiliar listeners and people listen to just a recording or a voice and they rate maybe their education level or a number of things. And of course those that don't sound like the majority or maybe rate it lower.
But when you look at qualifications, they could be higher, you know. And this is like in a study, but it's just rating people based upon how they sound as opposed to to who they are and what they bring to the table.
Right, So, I wonder if you can talk about how growing up with a speech or a communication disorder impact somebody's mental health. I'm thinking things like self worth. You already mentioned a little bit about anxiety, Like what does this do for somebody's vision of themselves?
Yeah, so it can cause people to feel less than not comfortable with themselves. They lack confidence. And it could also be communication disorders, but other disabilities like ADHD. We talked about disfluencies. It could bring upon anxiety. People that may have issues with processing or social anxiety and they go into a room and we all know people stand
up to start to speak and you just freeze. I know there are some people that may have OCD that also can bring about some of these disfluencies or or a lag in their communication, their responsiveness because they're processing, they're trying to get their thoughts together. That also happens
with we said with people with disfluencies. They need that minute, or they're in a situation where they are traumatized, there's people there they may for whatever reason, all of these things plan to come into play where you're not getting enough sleep or you're not functioning at your best, and then you go into a situation and you're like frozen
or you're tired, you're not getting your words together. So all of those things can come into play for individuals that may have a communication disorder and just not feeling real confident or I don't sound like this person, or people use big vocabulary or words and you may think my vocabulary is not the same. So therefore I'm not going to show up as I can because I'm not measuring up to others that may be in my environment. And that can be how you think about it, but that is not always true.
What might it look like for an adult to work with a speech in language pathologist, Like is that an option? Like maybe you didn't realize as a child that there were these concerns, but you realize it as an adult, does it make sense to work with a speech in language pathologists then or is there some different treatment railte.
At that point? As an adult, it's elective unless you had like post stroke or we're talking about traumatic brain injury, Parkinson's dementia, things like that. But yeah, like as an adult, it would be elective therapy. You know, it would not I'm not saying it couldn't be approved by insurance, but this is something later on. So but it's pretty much
going to be elective therapy. And yes, it's finding out what is it that you want to achieve, What is it that you feel that you you want to address, or what responses are you getting from your communication partner that you feel that you may want to change, And so looking at it that way, and like I said, it's elective. So it depends upon the person and some of that. Like we are not counselors, but we're trained
in some aspects of counseling. You know, usually there's a counseling course that the program that you have to take because it is getting at that root and building confidence. So some of my adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, which is different that I work with those that are able to use some language, we work on confidence and
we go out in the community. We may go to a place to order practice ordering food or asking questions in the community and getting them comfortable in the community around people, and just the feedback that they're getting once people realize, Okay, this person may not communicate, but they're here and they're a consumer and I want to help them.
And so what ends up happening is that the adult with the disability is getting positive feedback and that's building their confidence to make them want to participate more in the community and use their communication skills.
More from our conversation after the break are other strategies for building confidence that you can share with people who maybe you're wanting to work on this.
Just self acceptance, like this is who I am. Sometimes I think about it like I wore bracest I have a gap. That's who I am and I love it now. And my mom would say, oh, you didn't wear your retainer. You didn't wear your retainer. But I don't want to close the gap. Some people might and that's their choice. But I'm confident in my smile and how my gift shows up in my life. If my personality. So the
same with your speech. And that is also if you just wanted to be confident in however you speak, if you have a Southern dialect, if people tell you, oh, you sound like whatever it is, you sound like, you don't sound black. We used to hear that a lot on the telephone, you know, on telephone you come in, it's like, oh, you didn't sound like It's like asking questions like, well, what does that sound like to you? And just being comfortable in who you are and just
knowing that we are all uniquely and wonderfully made. But if you do choose to address your communication different then that's your choice and you have a choice. But a lot of it is building that confidence with self acceptance only that everyone is not perfect everyone, just like we say everybody. Life is not how it is on social media, So just how people show up and present themselves that this is who you are and embrace who you are.
Yeah, so what does treatment typically look like, doctor Ellis, Let's say that you are working with maybe a child who has some disfluency. What will treatment look like and how might that be different working with kids versus adults?
Yeah, so with children, there's different exercises. We talk about breathing, depending upon if the child's ready for breathing exercise. Also taking words, breaking it down one syllable at a time or is that phone name? Also identifying which are there particular sounds that they're more just fluent on than others, having them being maybe some voice recording, having them listen and differentiate, because once you're aware, then it gets a
little easier to work on. So differentiation and when something may sound disfluent and when it's more fluent. So just building some self awareness so then they're able to kind of listen for that and address it. But kind of very easy. Working on rate. If they're a fast talker, that may result in some disfluencies, then working on the rate of speech. So it depends upon what areas of
disfluent speech they have. So now when we talk about adults, it may be starting with some history and knowing when this first start, trying to see if there is something there that may have triggered, and then having the adult think of when are your most disfluent moments, So being able to identify when are they most disfluent and if there are certain situations, so being situational awareness and working on those types of things and then moving more to
exercises that will help them easy talk, flow, doing breathing before going into a sentence, if it's a certain sound. A lot of times it's looking for the right word, so you're trying to process and which may be causing some dysfluency. So it's coming up with strategy. So that's how it might differ from a child versus an adult.
And what kinds of things can loved ones do to support somebody who maybe has a communication difference.
Yeah, just embrace, don't think about stigma, don't think about shaming. Rushing.
That's another thing. Giving people their time and their space, not finishing their sentences, So giving them that time to communicate, talking with them about how they feel and asking how they can support them, not ordering for them or when you go out, not being their spokesperson, but also letting them have the opportunity and also making sure that other family members and friends and support are also giving them that same opportunity because a lot of times we just
want to hurry up, So let me just hurry up in order for you, let me just finish your sentence. But we've probably seen scenarios where with children when a sibling when one is learning to talk to the other, as the interpreter for the child to the parent, Oh he said blah blah blah blah blah, and that's natural as a kid. But if that happens, it's like, oh, thank you, thank you for helping out. But let's hear from but you know, making it a very normal process.
Let's hear what he has to say. And being inclusive to not leaving someone out because you think that they're not going to respond in time or they're just being passed over like they may not have something to say.
Mm hmm. What strategy do you think you can offer it for? How to to create an inclusive workspace for people who may be have a variety of differences of communication.
Yeah, being accepted of everybody's communication style, including everyone in opportunities to present or speak or be a part of a team a presentation offering things I think about universal design, like what helps someone helps everyone? So can you use close captions when there is a video? How are you presenting information? Are you considering people that learn better auditorily
and visually? Are we asking questions on how the staff are in the workplace, how people may get their information better, people having opportunities to process what you've presented. So if there is professional development, it's like how fast are you expecting to implement these strategies or new work processes and are you giving people support to making sure that they
know how to implement that. So I always like to talk about just like the universal design, like the door that automatically opens that may help someone with a physical disability, really helps everyone. So when we think about the whole and just listening and asking those questions and making sure that individuals with disabilities are present in your workplace. So I do a lot of advocacy work with ableism and presentations with another colleague and also agencies for employment in
the area that help people get employment. So thinking about things like I know the employment agencies do this when we present together. They talk about crafting a specialized interview, so making sure that people have time and the interview, you know, if you provide an an hour or how you present the information. Also giving the individuals the opportunity to do a day of work, so can they come
and do a half day of work. So these are things I think about that we talk about when helping individuals with disabilities seek and get employment, but really are helpful for everyone. Like a job interview can be an hour, but what does that look like if someone were to do some work for half a day. I mean, they're going to show you more that what they can do
than in within that hour and on their resume. So just making sure that you have these opportunities that are inclusive with COVID and using more technologies and flexibilities and schedules. But when we consider that for everyone, then it can benefit. But definitely looking at the accommodations and needs of individuals with disabilities. The same with standing desks. I remember you had to get an accommodation for a standard desk when I was in federal service. But now that's just like
routine because we know that standing is better for us. Right, So it's those types of things that universal design that can help everyone.
What kinds of accommodations do you want to make sure that college students are aware of, so any communication accommodations that they can use if they have a speech or language disorder.
Yes, making sure that when you hit campus that you are going to the if it's the Office of Disabilities or whatever that office is called on campus that you are getting your accommodations, do not wait until you need them. And I say that because often what happens is students don't want to identify. Right it's a new environment and they just don't you know, they are making friends or
they don't want to identify. But when you do that, it's on the record, and then they get into class situation and then they tell the teacher, oh why or the professor I need but I have this disability. I need accommodations. Well that's all find and good, but unless they're getting some instruction from that office, they're not going to be able to adhere to what you say. And then often what happens by the time you do decide
you need it. If you go and your documentation is outside of a it used to be a three year period, then you may need a whole nother assessment. And now if you're away from home, you're in a different place, you're having to navigate that on top of getting the accommodation. So that's why I try to tell the students and advocate go to the office and get that letter or whatever that looks like, and make sure your teachers are informed.
It's better to have it so you can use it when you need it instead of trying to go through the process as you're taking the test, or as you're falling behind, or whatever the case may be with your assignments.
Ata Ellis, this has been so incredibly helpful. Can you share with us where can we find you? What is your website as well as any social media handles you'd like to share.
My company is not on social media. I do have a website aurorasun Services dot com that's just about my private practice and consulting some of the type of the work I do. I'm on LinkedIn under Don Carrol Ellis. You'll see speech language pathologists. Also the Dream Center, which I'm the associate director. The Dream at Dreams Tha Center is on Instagram. They're also on Facebook and social media. So if you want to find out more about Dream.
If there's any faculty, we support university programs at MSIs, HBCUs and tribal colleges that prepare personnel under IDA, so the Individuals with Disabilities Education Acts, so that's psychologists, social workers, speech language pathologists, occupational therapists, special led teachers. So if there's a faculty out there who wants to write a grand who's interested in finding out more about that. There's personnel shortages and especially shortages of persons of color in
all of these fields. So and that's in the statue, which is why why we're still funded that we want to fill that gap of personnel shortages and also make sure that we're feeling those training personnel from underrepresentative groups.
Will be sure to include all of that in the show notes so that people know how to reach out to you they're interested in learning.
Yeah, and another thing I would say, the American Speech Language and Hearing Association has lots of tools and resources for parents, and this is open to the community, not behind the member wall, but for parents that want to just know more about how my child hears and talks and those sorts of things. All of that is a available at ASHA dot org and you can research information about communication disorders across the lifespan.
Perfect thank you for them. I'm sure lots of people will appreciate that resource. So one more question for you that's not super related to the topic, but still something we length to know. What's one piece of advice that you would give to your eighteen year old self.
Oh wow, just really to embrace who I was becoming. There wasn't not a lot of people like me, and there still isn't in the field. Even though I learned how to sign at Bakersfield College when I was eighteen and then went to cal State Northridge where there's the National Center for the Death. There's a lot of a big population of deafness, which all that experience led to
me being on faculty at Galadat. But just embrace who I was becoming and knowing that I belonged in those spaces where there were not people like me.
Thank you for that. I'm so glad Doctor Ellis was able to join us and share her expertise for this conversation. To learn more about her and her work, visit the show notes at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash Session four fifty three, and don't forget to text us episodes to two of your girls right now and tell them to check it out. Did you know that you could leave us a voicemail with your questions or suggestions for
the podcast. If you have books and movies you'd like to review, or topics you like us have discussed, drop us a message at Memo dot fm slash Therapy for Black Girls and let us know what's on your mind. We just might feature it on the podcast. If you're looking for a therapists in your area, visit our therapist
directory at Therapy for Blackgirls dot com slash directory. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Therapy for Black Girls and come on over and join us in our Patreon community at community dot Therapy for Blackgirls dot com for exclusive updates, behind the scenes content and much more. We can't wait to see you inside. This episode was produced by Elise Ellis, Inde Tubu and Tyree Rush. Editing was done by Dennison Bradford. Thank y'all so much for
joining me again this week. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take good care.