In searching for my topic, I found this article. This is exactly what I am looking for. This speech-pathologist is using various forms of dance to help children with the physical aspects of speech therapy and it has been shown to be helpful. Dance does use a lot of motions that move across the midline of the body, so that would be extremely beneficial in improving cross-brain functions. It may also seem counter-intuitive, but dance lessons do improve sense of direction in students with dyslexia. This article supports my theory that using dance as a part of speech therapy is very helpful for students with speech-language disorders.

My Driving Question: How can dance help students in speech therapy?

In my EDIT 2000 course that I am taking this semester, we were given the option to start a 20% Project. The idea was taken from Google engineers who were allowed to spend 20% of their time working on a pet project separate from their area of work. As we learn about how to use technology to teach our students and to learn ourselves, I will be devoting time to my own question I want to pursue.

I took ballet for many years before coming to college and I can honestly say that dance is one of my passions. From time to time, we would learn a dance choreographed in ASL, which I always though were very fun and we'd learn bits and pieces of a different language. Once, we even had a student who was deaf perform an ASL dance with us. This really got me thinking about how other Deaf people learn to dance. A quick Google search will turn up thousands of videos of Deaf dance troupes and their performances and also articles on how dance teachers will help their students learn choreography. Dancers who are deaf are not uncommon and can be just as talented as hearing dancers.

I want to be a speech therapist when I graduate so I will be working with students with hearing impairments as well as students with speech-language impairments. I want to spend time researching how dance and dance therapy can be combined with speech therapy to help students. I will be looking for people who have used dance as a part of speech therapy and how it can help students.