Are you confused about how to get started supporting students who are experiencing stress and trauma?
This quick start guide for SLPs can help you in your first step to supporting students with stress and trauma, and understanding how it impacts their learning. 

It can feel like a monumental task to support students experiencing stress and trauma. 

As SLPs, it’s crucial we know:

  • How to identify if our students are experiencing stress and trauma

  • Ways we can design our speech and language therapy sessions to support students 

  • Practical changes SLPs can make in sessions to facilitate student learning

  • If students are in stress, they are aren’t learning; so understanding stress and trauma will help our students be more regulated and learn more

  • We aren’t the only ones who can help. We can access other supports to students who need additional assistance outside of our speech and language sessions. This includes making referrals to social workers, counselors and other mental health professionals 


Are my students experiencing stress and trauma? 

  • 75% of students experience at least one traumatic event by age 16 (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration).  

  • 80% of students feel stress sometimes or often (Anxiety and Depression Association of America). 

  • A common myth is that stress and trauma happens less often in high-income populations, but this simply isn’t true. 

Given these statistics, it’s best to develop an equity-centered trauma-informed approach meaning that as SLPs we universally implement these practices. This guide can help you in getting started. We don’t need to figure out who is experiencing stress and trauma or what the specifics are. We aren’t “trauma detectives” and it’s none of our business. Instead, SLPs can recognize that most students experience stress and trauma and implement practices to support all students. 


Where do students experience trauma? 

Students can experience trauma anywhere - at home, at school and even in speech and language therapy sessions or in other therapies. Trauma isn’t something that only happens at home. Given this, educators and SLPs need to, at minimum, be trauma-aware. 


But we aren’t mental health workers. 

Exactly!

It’s not the responsibility of the SLP to provide mental health counseling. That said, as a trauma-informed SLP we can refer students to these supports. We can also provide a safe, comfortable learning environment for our students where they can best learn, and that means implementing Universal Trauma Informed Practices. 


What is trauma-informed care for speech language pathologists? 

Trauma-informed care for speech language pathologists is a philosophy and set of practices that SLPs can understand and implement. 


Can SLPs be trauma-informed? 

Yes. Being trauma-informed isn’t just for parents and teachers. Becoming trauma-informed isn’t something an SLP can do with a one-time training or by reading an article. It requires ongoing commitment and education. This guide can support you in getting started. 


What are more resources for SLPs interested in being trauma-informed? 

Download this quick start guide for how to get started. 


Some authors who write about trauma  include: 

Dan Siegel, David A Treleaven, Karyn B Purvis, David R Cross, Wendy Lyons Sunshine, Kristin Van Marter Souers, Pete Hall, Nadine Burke Harris, Alex Shevrin Venet.