331: Being a Generalist SLP

Show Notes:

In this episode of SLP Coffee Talk, Hallie chats with Sarah Bishop—14-year school-based SLP, California Speech-Hearing Association president, and union rep—about why being a generalist is actually your biggest flex. Sarah shares her winding path to the field (spoiler: it starts with an art history degree and museum tours), why school-based SLPs need to stop apologizing for knowing a little of everything, and how to keep growing without losing your mind. This one’s for every SLP who’s ever felt like everyone else has a specialty except them.

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Here's what we learned:

  • Own the generalist title. Any kid walks through your door, you know where to start. That’s not nothing—that’s everything.
  • You will get things wrong. So will every SLP who’s been in the field for 14 years. Let it go and keep moving.
  • Connection is the intervention. Showing up, caring, and actually paying attention to a kid? That’s already therapeutic.
  • Find your people. You don’t need a huge community. Start with one SLP buddy or one district PLC meeting.
  • Know your role. Private practice treats the disability. You remove barriers to education. That’s a different—and equally valid—job.

RESOURCES

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https://speechtimefun.com/cfbootcamp2026

📘✨ Grab your copy of The Secondary SLP Roadmap here! https://www.speechtimefunpd.com/stf-book 

Learn more about Hallie Sherman  and SLP Elevate: 

Learn more about Sarah Bishop: 

📝 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sawahfwend 

JOKE OF THE WEEK:

Q: What do you call two monkeys sharing an Amazon account?

A: Prime-mates.

Where We Can Connect: 

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TRANSCRIPT

00:00:00 Hallie: Quick break, SLPs. The Speech Retreat is back. It's the virtual professional development event that is actually fun. Think about it. Raffles, laughs, a virtual photo booth, and real-world ideas that you can use the very next day for preschool through high school. Six different speakers that actually get it and are talking about topics that are relevant to you. Earn CEU's live, join PDH's on replays, and connect with a community of SLPs who love what they do. Don't miss it. Learn about the next event, the date, the speakers, and more at the speechretreat.com. 

00:00:43 Hallie: Welcome to SLP Coffee Talk, the podcast designed exclusively for speech language pathologists who work with older students, grades 4 through 12. I am your host, Hallie Sherman, your SLP behind Speech Time Fun, the Speech Retreat Conference, and the SLP Elevate Membership, and I'm thrilled to bring you conversations, strategies, and insights that will give you the jolt of inspiration that you need. Whether you're tuning in during your morning commute, on a break in between sessions, or even during a well-deserved relaxation time, I am here for you each and every week. Let's do this, SLPs. 

00:01:23 Hallie: Hey, hey, and welcome to another episode of SLP Coffee Talk. I don't know about you, but sometimes I feel like I am a generalist SLP because we need to work on everything. I don't feel like I'm an expert in anything. I can't say that like AAC or apraxia is my jam, and I know that you're going to love this conversation that I'm having with our guests here today. So, Sarah Bishop, welcome to the show. 

00:01:47 Sarah: I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me. So, I'm a school-based SLP. I just did the math before I started my conversation with you, and I just finished my 14th year in the public schools. I am a generalist, but I've also found some leadership roles in my school-based position. So, I am a school union rep, and I'm on our collective bargaining team, so I'm a voice for all of our special educators when we go to bargain. I know I'm from California, so not all states have collective bargaining, but ours does, and I am the current president of the California Speech-Hearing Association, and it sounds crazy for me to say that because my journey to being a speech-language pathologist was I wasn't even in speech pathology as an undergrad. 

00:02:30 Sarah: My undergraduate degree was in art history, and I had a minor in archaeology, and I wanted to work in museums, and I did work in museums, and the string that connects me is I really loved giving tours to children. I found myself in the education department, and I wrote tours, and I would guide the children on field trips and ask them questions about the art, and I realized that working in museums wasn't going to give me the pay that I wanted. I'd probably have to go get my PhD in art history. You know, it wasn't going to work out. 

00:03:04 Sarah: So, my mom is a speech-language pathologist, and the reason why she became a speech-language pathologist is my sister was a late talker. She didn't talk. She was three years old and didn't talk, so I knew that this profession existed. So, that's how I became a speech-language pathologist, but I'll backtrack a little bit. I was born overseas. My first language was Japanese and English. My mom is half Japanese, half, you know, American, and she grew up in Japan, and so that's where I grew up, too, to start. 

00:03:36 Sarah: And we moved to the States when I was in kindergarten, and so my mom didn't really know anything about what was available in the public schools, but she would take us to the library and to the park a lot. So, some really well-meaning SLP saw my sister in the library and went up to my mom and said, Hey, do you know that we have special education programs, and I think your daughter might benefit from it? My mom was so happy. She was like, Tell me all about it. Give me all the help I can get. 

00:04:05 Sarah: And she was just so impressed by the speech pathologist being able to play with her daughter and then to be able to tell her everything about how she communicates. And she was so impressed by that skill. She just thought, I want to have this job. I want to do this. She had no idea what it required, but she applied multiple times, didn't get into graduate school, but finally she did. She was a speech-language pathologist, and my sister is now a school psychologist. So, my sister got early intervention. She responded so well to therapy. She didn't even need speech therapy for a long time. She really responded well to that early intervention, and I'm so proud to say that my little sister's a school psychologist, too, and then my mom's a speech-language pathologist, and so that's my journey. It's a lot. 

00:04:55 Hallie: I love it, though. I just got the chills, and hopefully everyone listening got it, too, and I'm surprised that you didn't automatically go into the field, but I love it that when you wanted to work with children, you're like, okay, know that about it. This is what I'm doing. 

00:05:07 Sarah: I think it ties into the feeling that I have of, I'm a generalist. This wasn't everything… I didn't go all in in grad school. I kind of found the profession a little bit later. I took a year off between undergrad and grad school because I didn't really know what I wanted, and I'm just so grateful to have found this profession because in my work in my state association, I have met such amazing, smart, talented people who are specialists, and I think younger me would have felt intimidated or less than or just not as worthy, or it would have just been a big downer for me to hear how amazing all of these other people are. 

00:05:47 Sarah: But I've become so comfortable in myself and what I know I can do for my students that I just see it as such a great learning opportunity to be able to learn from other experts who are specialists because probably one of the most encouraging things I've heard from a friend of mine, who is a specialist in childhood apraxia of speech, and she says that anything that has to do with talking with your mouth, like that's her special, that's her area of specialty. She told me, Sarah, you have to be a generalist. If you were a specialist, you couldn't do your job in the schools, and that really hit me because I realized that that is my superpower. 

00:06:25 Sarah: I can do a little bit of everything. Any kid who walks through my door, I know where to start, right, and not an AAC specialist who knows everything about AAC or someone who is just a guru on R and articulation, they might not be able to just have a therapy plan ready in their back pocket for a kid if they were given a… you know, a mix bag of students who would need to be treated immediately. So I'm really proud, and I think that more SLPs should hear that. So if you're a school-based SLP and you're hearing this, I hope you can feel really good about yourself because I think usually being that generalist sometimes has that feeling of like, oh, I'm not perfect at something. I'm not really good at something.

00:07:08 Hallie: I love that. I love that mindset and that mindset shift, especially now as we're having a lot of new grads graduating, and right now they're looking into schools or should I do this and do that. And they're probably feeling also like, I don't know everything. How am I going to do this job? You basically said, we can't know everything. So how do you overcome, and what recommendations do you have if someone's like, okay, okay, I get it that I have to know everything, but I don't feel like I know enough? 

00:07:33 Sarah: So when I first started, I felt that way, and I think it's baby steps. And if you're a newer SLP, I would recommend starting to take professional development based off of the caseload you have right now. So when I first started, I had like three students at once who were stutterers, and I needed to learn very quickly how to work with them. So a lot of my professional development focused on those students. It can be hard when you're in grad school. If you go to a conference online or in person, you feel like you kind of want to take every single course, but once you actually start working, it's nice because the need will come to you. It will present itself to you. 

00:08:19 Sarah: So like personally for me with the population that I'm working with, I realized that I need more knowledge in childhood apraxia of speech and being able to differentiate that between that and a phonological disorder versus also this is something new I learned. And here's the other thing too, is I don't have any shame in telling you this. I just recently learned at ASHA about inconsistent phonological disorder. That's a new one. I hadn't heard about it before. I might be saying it wrong, but it's like inconsistent, and that's where… well anyways, that's something new I learned about. 

00:08:54 Sarah: And so it's just kind of like getting rid of the ego, getting rid of that feeling of shame like, oh, I didn't know about this before, right? And you're like, oh, I didn't hear because you work with middle schoolers, right? That's like your area of specialty. And I think also another thing that's really important that I kind of see that I don't want lost is like those critical thinking skills to be able to recognize in yourself what your areas of weakness or areas of need are because no one else is going to tell you. After you're done with graduate school, no one else is going to really know you well enough, right? Unless you can find a professional community where I would really encourage you to join a special group or your state association so you can continue to have those conversations with others. But those are some of the thoughts off the top of my head. 

00:09:44 Hallie: I love that. And like, yes, like our CS will have a mentor, but unless you ask for help and like ask a specific question, your mentor won't know every single thing about every single caseload – and what you don't know, what you don't feel confident in. So you have to look. I love that. Look at your caseload right now. And we are lifelong learners. Like you said, even in the schools for 14 years and you're still learning and recognizing as your caseload changes. 

00:10:08 Hallie: Like I know for me, I had an AAC student in the beginning of my career, which was on like a Dynavox. And then at the end of my career, having a student on an iPad, I had to learn again, the new systems, the new technology. And it was completely different. And even like those neurodivergent, neurodiversity affirming, like practices, like we didn't learn that in graduate school. Like everything is shifted from the way I was even taught. Like, so I love it that you said, like, keep learning and finding groups and mentors and things and people that you can learn from. What are suggestions if someone's like, I wouldn't even know where to start? 

00:10:51 Sarah: For like continuing education? 

00:10:53 Hallie: Yeah. 

00:10:54 Sarah: I mean, I have to be a cheerleader for all of the state conferences. 

00:10:57 Hallie: Go for it. 

00:10:59 Sarah: So like most recently, so since I live in California, I went to ARSHA, the Arizona State Convention, and that was a lot of fun. I had never been to a state conference outside of California because California one's just so big. So I know sometimes ASHA can feel really intimidating, but I would say to look at your state association, look at, you know, online trainings. So like even the retreats that you do or any other online ones.

00:11:26 Sarah: And I mean, I think like when I first started looking to, I know speechpathology.com and speechtherapypd are big ones also, but really like you kind of have to shop around and figure out what fit works best for you because every single group will give a different approach or a different style and you have to be comfortable and you have to feel like you belong in your learning too. Like principles of… if you go on Google, like principles of adult learning. A big thing with adult learners is they have to feel like the learning is meaningful to them. So if you feel like you're just sitting through a PD and you're just checking off a box, that's not the right PD for you. 

00:12:09 Sarah: You know, you need to feel like it's meaningful. And so if you're looking at one and everyone else is doing and everyone else is going to it, or, but you're feeling like it's not really matching your learning style or what you need, it's okay. You can look around. And the best way to do that is to engage with other speech pathologists. And I see a lot – like I was never really on Facebook, but I'm on Facebook now to be on the social groups, to see what everyone's talking about in my state association. I've always been really involved in that to be able to talk with other people. 

00:12:41 Sarah: But it's okay to start small, right? Like I'm really involved in a bigger way, but the way it started was I started a PLC with the speech therapists in my district. I needed a monthly meetup time to be able to talk with them and talk through cases. So that's even an easy start. Maybe your district doesn't have one, or maybe there has been one, but you never attend. You say that you're too busy to go, right? So you could do so many things. You can do big online conferences. You can find something online that fits for you, or you can just start in your district and make sure to go to the PLCs or start a PLC. 

00:13:16 Sarah: And then a PLC is a professional learning community. So that's something where you would meet once a month or every other month. Some teachers do it every week, right? For speech language pathologists, I don't think you have to do it every single week, but I really value those meetings with my peers in my district because then without shame, without feeling like someone's going to judge me because maybe I was doing something the wrong way, I have other people who can give me feedback. And if that… help makes anyone feel better, too. I've been doing this a long time. I still like to ask for feedback on what they think because we're working with humans. We're working with people. It's not like a black or white, yes or no. 

00:13:55 Hallie: And that's one of the things I love about the field, but also you could hate about it, too. I love that everything is so different and new and not every case is the exact same. But that's why even though you might have had a apraxia case in the past, it might be different now. Or there might be a new approach or a new research that has come out or the student is not responding to XYZ, so we need a new tool for the toolkit. So I love that. I love that. And what advice would you give to maybe a brand new SLP who's heading in, feeling overwhelmed, and they feel like they have to learn everything because they're like, I can't just pick one or two. I feel like I have to pick a hundred? 

00:14:37 Sarah: Well, someone else told me something. So many people have told me so many wise things. So I remember someone else told me that if you're working in the schools and you're helping a kid communicate, the fact that there's another adult with this child who just cares about them interacting and communicating, that in of itself is therapeutic. And of course, I don't want to simplify our jobs to just that because there's a lot to what we do. But that's my advice to the overwhelmed newer SLP who feels like they have to get everything right. 

00:15:18 Sarah: Because the other thing, too, is I have a spoiler alert. You're going to be doing things wrong. I realized that there were kids in the past who had childhood apraxia of speech, and I didn't have the training to understand that that's what they had. And so I probably wasn't giving them the right therapy. Or for stuttering, I know that the approach has changed moving forward. And so maybe there were some things that I was doing with those students that wasn't really best practice today. Or for the neurodiversity affirming approach, there were some goals that I probably had that really weren't the right thing to do. 

00:15:53 Sarah: So the best advice I can give is to not be so fearful that you could be doing something wrong because you probably are. I'm so bad. But you know, once you let that go, and you know that it's not going to be perfect, if you go and – really, actually what I really love about the neurodiversity affirming approach is it's really looking at connection first. And I feel like that takes a lot of the stress off of you as a therapist and you're just really connecting with the student. Continue to learn and to just let it go.

00:16:26 Sarah: If you realize that you did something wrong before in the past, and to have that open mind, because I think the hardest part is when I meet therapists who have done the same thing for the past 10 years and haven't changed at all. So if you're a new therapist, and you're hearing this, and you're like, Oh, no. That won't be me, then you're already doing a good job, right? And if you are going into your sessions, wanting to connect with your students and have a relationship with them, and you actually care about them communicating with you, and you're connecting with them, that's going to be so meaningful. 

00:16:57 Sarah: Because in the hubbub of the school day, like how many times do you think a child really gets that small group? Because honestly, for me, I try really hard to do small group therapy, like that small group of attention with an adult who's really paying attention to them and noticing the nuances in their behavior, and their facial expression and asking how they're doing, like that, it's so important. And the way I remember is I'll try and call parents every once in a while just to see how things are doing. And I'm thinking to myself, nothing I'm doing is working. I don't even know if this kid's remembering what I'm trying to work with them on. And then the parent will tell me, oh my gosh, he's talking about X, Y, and Z. And those are the goals that I've been working on with them. And whatever you're doing, it's really working because I noticed that. And I just… I could live off of that positive praise from a parent for the rest of the year. 

00:17:51 Sarah: So yeah, if you're a new SLP, you can do it. You really can. Like I want to be your cheerleader. That's… I think that's one of my big things too is I always want to cheer on other SLPs because we're so hard on ourselves. So just know that you're going to get things wrong and all you can do is be grateful that you've been allowed to work with these children, these students, and that they're able to come into your space and you're going to help facilitate their growth. Right? And I think that's the best you can do because you've gone through grad school. You've shown that you have the critical thinking skills. You passed the PRAXIS, right? You did it. You deserve to be here. Right? 

00:18:27 Hallie: I love that. Any last bit of advice for someone who is second-guessing themselves or not feeling adequate enough because they feel like being a generalist is a bad thing or anything that we have not covered yet on this topic that you'd like to share? 

00:18:42 Sarah: I guess, in my experience, I have always been in such awe of generalist SLPs. Working in my state association and being able to meet SLPs from across the whole state, all of us are amazing. All of us are so wonderful. There's a certain kinship, and I think you would get it with any setting that you work in, right? And that's why it's so important to find your community and the group that works with you. But in school-based SLPs, because we are in the trenches, we are working with the most underserved or most vulnerable populations. And so it's a really special group to be a part of. 

00:19:24 Sarah: Now, if you're feeling like you're not doing enough, I guess the best advice I can give is to kind of really be able to have that critical thinking and being a self-reflective person, right? And think, am I struggling because… why? Am I actually maybe missing a skill set that I need to learn? Or am I overwhelmed and burnt out at work? Because I know that it'll be summer very soon, and we're going to be done. But I know that when we get to the end of the year, I start to feel that way, right? 

00:19:57 Sarah: So I think the best advice I can give is be a self-reflective person and set aside your ego. And it's okay to not know something yet, because if you meet an SLP who says, a generalist, a school-based SLP who says, I already know everything about treating kids in the schools, they're a liar, right? It's not true. There's always something new to learn. So I think if you can be a self-reflective person and be a real clerical thinker and reach out. 

00:20:23 Sarah: I think that's another thing too, don't suffer on your own. I see a lot of new SLPs kind of suffering on their own and not reaching out and asking for help because they're afraid it's going to make them look bad or like they don't know what they're doing. But I would rather have an SLP on my team reach out and communicate with me as opposed to maybe continuing to move forward and doing something in a way that's inefficient or maybe not the best. And if they had just spoken up, all of us have so many resources and tools. So if you can find an SLP buddy, even if that's just your start, right? You don't need to have this huge community, but find one friend, that's something else you can do that's really actionable, I think. 

00:21:01 Hallie: I love that. And I just remember, like, more confident in myself has helped because like, I know I had one parent that questioned my clinical judgment and she was like, well, I'm going to take my child to a real SLP, like a private practice and get them evaluated. And I'm like, I am a real SLP, actually. Like, if you want to, you're more than welcome to spend the money, but I can give that same exact test that they're going to give, get the same report. Hate to break it to you. So just being able to speak up and advocate for yourself and your expertise, just because we're not an expert in XYZ, that doesn't mean you're not like equipped to be there. 

00:21:39 Sarah: I think the other thing too, that I'm a real expert on is I'm an expert on educational impact. So yeah, maybe you're going to go to a private practice SLP who's going to be able to give a really detailed assessment on whatever area of need the child's looking at. But my job as the school-based SLP is to help remove those barriers that are keeping the child from accessing general education. That's my role as a school-based SLP. And so I'm very good at that and being able to connect goals to the curriculum and participation in the curriculum, because I'm at school every day and I know what kids need to do. 

00:22:17 Sarah: Whereas in private practice, it's just about kind of treating the disability as it is in any area that you need to. But in schools, it's educational impact too. And I've had that happen to me before where I really didn't probably know as much as I needed to. And actually, one time I was really humble and I told the parents, you know what? I'll go to a professional development on this. Thank you for advocating for your child. I'll let you know what I learned. And that ended up working out pretty well. So I think the biggest thing that I've learned is just to kind of temper your ego and to be okay. You know, we're getting paid. We're just getting paid to show up.

00:22:56 Hallie: I love that. 

00:22:58 Sarah: You know, it's okay. Everyone's going to be all right.

00:23:01 Hallie: I love that. I feel like everyone listening, you guys, you need a bookmark of this episode. And when you're feeling down on yourself, listen to it again. It really… I love this conversation. Sarah, where can everyone learn more about you and connect with you? 

0:23:14 Sarah: So I am on Instagram, but I just have a private account. So my account, but you can ask to be my friend. That's a really easy way to get in touch with me. And my profile is @sawahfwend because I want to be your friend, but it's with a W instead of an R because [inaudible]. 

00:23:31 Hallie: I love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Well, I always end my episodes with a joke because it builds rapport and it's language-based. So if you guys like this joke, you can steal it and claim it as your own. If not, you can blame me. What do you call two monkeys sharing an Amazon account? 

00:23:48 Sarah: Oh, my gosh. I don't know. What do you call two monkeys sharing an Amazon account? 

00:23:52 Hallie: Prime-mates.

00:23:56 Sarah: That's a good one. 

00:23:57 Hallie: Thank you, Google, for providing that one for me. I can't even take credit for it myself. So thank you, Sarah. Everyone listening, go feel free to check her out and let you, or send me a DM and let me know what takeaways you had from this episode. Share it with your fellow SLPs, maybe your new grad friends. Maybe share it with your department about gathering, making a group together to powwow and learn and go find your state associations, join it, be active, see what professional development is available for you. And thank you so, so much, Sarah, for sharing your expertise, wisdom, and just passion for the field. So we are so grateful. 

00:24:32 Sarah: Thank you for having me.

00:24:34 Hallie: Of course. Until next week, everyone, stay out of trouble. 

00:24:42 Hallie: Thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of SLP Coffee Talk. It means the world to me that you're tuning in each and every week and getting the jolt of inspiration you need. You can find all of the links and information mentioned in this episode at my website, SpeechTimeFun.com. Don't forget to follow the show so you don't miss any future episodes. And while you're there, it would mean the world to me if you would take a few seconds and leave me an honest review. See you next week with another episode full of fun and inspiration from one SLP to another. Have fun, guys.

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