Mr. and Mrs. Adkins
1027 10th Ave.
Huntington, WV 25701

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Adkins,

First off let me start be thanking the both of you for letting me work with Tyler’s teacher to ensure his progress in school. Since I don't work in the school system as a Speech-Language Pathologist it's not that often that I get to work with teachers. I’ve really enjoyed being able to work with everyone to make this as beneficial as possible for Tyler. After all it’s Tyler that we’re all concerned about. Throughout the course of this letter I will fill you in on some things that have been going on at school that we've planned to hopefully stop the name-calling and other acts.

As per my email correspondence with Mrs. Adkins I promised that I would keep you informed of Tyler’s progress in school. As well as what Tyler’s teacher, Mrs. Hughes, and I are doing to improve Tyler’s self-esteem. So far we have come up with a really good idea if I do say so myself. Our plan is to put Tyler in a comfortable situation where he might perform at his best ability. This way the children will be able to get to know Tyler better and see that even though he is different he's still just like everyone else. You see sometimes children pick on those who are different from themselves. We believe that because Tyler stutters, some of the children are viewing him as different. Hopefully after we put our plan into effect we can changes those views.

Here is an example of one of the many ideas that we have. Since Tyler is a wiz at English we’ve decided to have the children break up into groups and revise each other’s papers. This works well since Mrs. Hughes just had the children write a paper for class. We’re going to put Tyler in a group that he will be able to help by showing them correct grammar rules and such. This will not only help Tyler become more confident and feel better about himself but it will also help him improve on his communication skills in social settings.

As you can see our plan was set out very strategically. This is just one of many ideas Mrs. Hughes and myself have come up with. However, we’re going to try this one out first and see how it goes. This way we will know what areas we need to improve on. After that we plan on doing things like this quite frequently. We hope to keep Tyler involved in all of the activities, that way he becomes more comfortable with the other children and vise versa.

We feel very strongly that after the children become comfortable with Tyler that the name-calling and other acts will stop. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to contact Mrs. Hughes or myself at anytime. We’re also open to suggestion and welcome them. Once again thanks so much for allowing me to have this opportunity. I feel that this will turn out well for everyone.

Sincerely,

Cheryl Livingston, MA, CCC-SLP