My SLP flyer from Intro. to Clinic class

What does a speech-language pathologist do?

Speech-language pathologists evaluate and treat speech, language, communication, and swallowing disorders.

Aren't speech and language the same thing?

Nope! Speech refers to spoken communication, like greeting your neighbor on the sidewalk. If you write your neighbor a letter, you're using language, but you're not speaking it. A person can have problems with speech, such as making certain sounds, but not with language. Speech-language pathologists, or SLPS, can help people with both.

How can you have a swallowing disorder?

Swallowing is actually a pretty complicated activity that involves lots of muscles working together. If the timing is off or a muscle is weak, a person can swallow into their lungs and get some nasty respiratory infections. An SLP can spot this problem and help correct it.

I remember SLPs from grade school, but I don't want to work in a school.

Schools are just one of the many settings in which an SLP can work. Nursing home patients often need speech services after a stroke to help them re-learn how to speak or swallow. You can work with infants and toddlers with speech and language difficulties before they reach school age. Hospital patients may need speech services, including pre-mature babies, patients with brain injuries, and stroke victims. There are many therapy organizations that offer speech services, and you can even open your own private practice. Hospice organizations may employ an SLP to help a terminally ill patient communicate his or her last wishes and enjoy favorite foods. You can teach future SLPs in a university setting, or conduct research about new practices in the field. There is an incredibly wide range of opportunities from which to choose!

I had no idea you people were so versatile.

Yeah, we're a pretty talented bunch!

Is it hard to get a job as an SLP?

It is exactly the opposite. According to the American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association (ASHA), the profession of speech-language pathology is expected to grow faster than normal until at least 2014. Medical science is growing tremendously, and pre-mature babies and accident victims have a much higher survival rate, and they often need communication assessment and/or services. There is a greater awareness of the importance of speech and language, not to mention federal laws that mandate providing speech and language services to children who need them, and so more problems are being noticed earlier. The population of elderly adults is also increasing, and the risk of hearing and/or communication impairments in persons of advanced age can be considerable.

I bet you have to go to school forever, don't you?

Not necessarily! Although you can get a doctorate in speech-language pathology if you choose, you can practice with a Master's degree. If you go to school full-time, you can complete the program in as few as 5 semesters. You can also take classes online.

Wow! I can get my Master's degree without leaving my house?

Why would you want to do that? The clinic hours are the most fun and instructive part of your educational experience! All four hundred of 'em! I know it sounds like a lot, but since our profession covers such a broad range of populations, you need to be prepared for the challenges that face you when you begin to practice on your own. You will work with clients of all ages and needs. You will have a fully-trained supervisor checking up on you and providing you with guidance and feedback. Your first year in the field is called your Clinical Fellowship year, and another SLP will be checking up on you and observing you periodically in case you have any questions or concerns.

Well...okay. I'm interested.

Of course you are!

How do you I find out more?

I'm so glad you asked! The American Speech, Hearing, and Language Association (ASHA) is the number one resource for speech-language pathologists. This organization sets the standards for the speech-language pathology profession. ASHA gives you a license to practice, defines the scope of practice for SLPs, defines a code of ethics, and holds you accountable for unethical and unprofessional actions. It's also a resource to find and network with other SLPs or SLP students and to find out the latest research in your area of interest. Their website is www.asha.org.

I know someone who might need the services of an SLP. What should I do?

http://www.asha.org/public/speech/ is a section of ASHA's website designed for public use. It answers four basic questions: "What's 'normal'?, "What if my loved one has already been diagnosed?", "What if I have concerns?" and "Where can I get help?" I would especially recommend http://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/default.htm as a resource for a concerned parent of a child. Children develop at different speeds, and sometimes parents can worry when the neighbor's daughter is talking more than their son and both children were born on the same day. Most of the time it's completely normal, but when in doubt, always ask the communication expert and speech professional: the speech-language pathologist!

This is based on what I hear a lot of time when I tell someone I'm going to be an SLP. When I tell them I'm interested in working with children with autism, I get, "Oh, like Rainman?" I've never seen Rainman. I really need to get around to doing that. I do try to tell them that all children with autism are very different and Rainman is not the status quo by any means.

Another Semester, Another Round of Classes

The new semester started Monday, and thus far it is very promising. I have Intro. to Clinical this semester, so I will do observation hours. I'm really excited about that. XD I got Language Instinct by Stephen Pinker for Christmas, and I'll compile some quotes from that into a post here soon. I will probably have lots to write about this semester, what with observation hours and all, so yay! Synapses are forming already, or at least re-forming as I remember phonetics. XD

I'm done!

Just got through finals week. I am so, so ready for a break. Then again, I saw a month-old wee one on Wednesday and was stroking her cheek and the bottom of her foot to check her reflexes, and I was really excited when she held my gaze, so while I am ready for a break the language nerd is strong within me. I had no idea what I was getting into when I started this program, but I feel like this is where I am meant to be.

A Psycholinguistic Field Day

At first you might look at this and think, "What in the world...?"
In sign language class last night, BG wrote this up on the board as an example of an 8 1/2 year old deaf girl's written communication. It is very difficult to learn how to write when you cannot hear; you can't connect the letters with sounds and you can't sound out words. All words are sight words. Janey (name has been changed) is learning American Sign Language, which has a syntax very different from that of English. Meaning is conveyed through the location of the sign relative to the body and the face, the facial expression, and the position of the body, hands, and arms in space. Janey was trying to express meaning in writing, and all she had was ASL. She did not know the English words for what she was trying to say. Therefore, being a truly creative language learner, Janey took what she does know (ASL) and translated it into a written medium. The first line means that the girl scouts meet in the cafeteria. The "CVC" does not stand for consonant-vowel-consonant (as I originally thought; thanks Dr. Fallon! ;) ) but represents the sign for cafeteria. You cup your hand into a C, touch one side of your chin, and then touch the other. The "V" is representing the chin, and the "C" is representing the hand of the hand. The second line means "All the children settle down". If you go here: http://www.aslpro.com, click on Main Dictionary, "S", and then scroll down to "Settle", you can see how Janey made a graphic representation of the sign for "settle". The smiley face is meant to represent the children. Wouldn't it be interesting if ASL came up with its own written language in this manner? BG says that deaf children often come up with graphic representations of signs for words that they do not know. I think it shows a lot of resourcefulness on the part of these children, and their determination to get their meaning across. I don't think most people think like this. I found it fascinating.

Procrastination

Any student of any sort can tell you of the wonders of procrastination. You discover so many wonderful things! My favorite vehicles for putting off my work are boingboing.net, craftster.org/forums, and youtube.com. I also email my fiancee (because I am engaged now, which is crazy) incessantly. Lucky man. ;) This month I am also writing a novel for National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo.org). 50,000 words of one story in 30 days! Madness! I'm at 19,939 at the moment, so I'm about 2,000 words behind where I should be, but I'm not too worried about it. I'm going to try to catch up today. It's been fantastic for keeping me in touch with my creative writing side, which apparently has NO PLACE in the SLP world. Fortunately I plan to write books for my kids. Take that, soap notes! (No, I don't know why they call your write-ups from a therapy session soap notes. I guess that's why I pay them the big bucks, so that they will reveal such mysteries to me.) I'm writing the novel online using Zoho writer, and if you want to read along shoot me an email at little.birdy@gmail.com and I will give you read/write permission. If you create an account with them (it's free), then you can edit my story and leave me comments. Keep in mind that I'm going for quantity rather than quality at this point; the idea is to get it all down without worrying about how good it is, and then going back and editing it later.
So that is what I'm doing these days to procrastinate.

Compare and Contrast

I am so unevenly distributed in Language Development class. It's an online class, and I'm not good at keeping up with those, but an aspiring SLP's gotta do what an aspiring SLP's gotta do. I'm behind in the reading and the lectures, but I already got my language sample for the project that isn't due until November 13. Go figure.
I will call the 2 1/2 year old whose language I sampled J. I know, me and J names! He seemed to be right where he was supposed to be linguistically and cognitively. I had a tape recorder, but I was writing things down as well. I was amazed that when I took my attention off of him to write something down, I didn't lose him. He was perfectly willing to engage with me when I was done writing. The last time I did something like this was with Joey in his scattered phase, and if I took my attention off of him to write something down he was off on the other side of the room talking to himself like there was no tomorrow, bless him.
His sister (whose is maybe in 1st grade) was out there too, and was able to provide some translation services. I've noticed before that older siblings understand their younger siblings' early speech better than their parents do. I wonder if anyone has done research on that? At one point I was talking to J's mother while J and his sister played on the swingset. The sister, trying to be helpful (and I suspect get some attention ;) ), kept hollering across the yard, "J said 'swing'! J said, 'leaf'!" I made sure to say, "Thank you! I'll be sure to write that down!" and actually write it down, even though I hadn't heard it myself and I don't know if I could actually count it.
His well-meaning mother kept telling J to "talk to Miss. Katie" and bringing out books for him to look at, but I got the longer utterances from him when he was riding around on his bike. Child-directed play is a hard concept to grasp and I didn't quite know how to tell her that I was supposed to be getting as natural a sample as possible. She was so enthusiastic and seemed to want to show off her son's language abilities, so I let her. I assured her that he seemed right on track and even a little ahead to me. If I do much more of this, I need to find a better way to prep my parents.

Bits and Bobs

I am so bad at anatomical diagrams. I expect them to be literal representations of the structure in question and to include all of the relevant parts to scale, and they never are and they never do. I cannot reconcile the various different views of a structure with each other, especially not if it is a brainstem with lots of wiggly little nerves sticking out that I need to label. I shake my fist at you, little wiggly nerves!
Whenever I leave sign language class it feels strange to be communicating without moving my hands. On Monday BG (my professor is BG to many of the deaf with whom she works, so she is BG to us as well) told us how she taught two little deaf ones how to trick-or-treat. They said "BOO!" instead of "Trick-or-Treat" because it is easier. In the past they had always sort of followed along with the other kids, but she taught them that people were giving the kids candy so that the kids would not trick or scare them. They took turns playing different roles, and when it was one of the deaf kids' turns to answer the door, they had to knock on the glass so the deaf kid could see that someone was there. BG pointed out that the deaf do not always realize that actions cause noises, so they might ring the doorbell until you come to the door because they think that is how it works. They don't realize that the doorbell is making a noise. I love sign language. There are no secrets, and it is very expressive and fun. I hope I can take the second part of it, although I seriously doubt I'll have room in my schedule. Ah, well.
I continue to chomp at the bit and want to work with the little hearing/speech/language impaired children of the world. They are such darlings, and they have so much to offer, they just don't know how to communicate it! My friend Samantha just got back from Mexico and she fell in love with 29 boys at an orphanage. She would tell them (in Spanish), "Tell me what you want! Use words!" and they would just yell and point. She told me that they were so bright, but they didn't know how to express it, and the nuns (God bless them) did everything they could for the boys but they were all so needy that it was hard to give all of them the attention they needed. Sam hopes to go back to Mexico next summer and visit the orphanage again, and I told her I would get her some behavior management resources in the meantime so she could build an effective Spanish vocabulary to help them. I think that people who fall for the hard cases should always be supported. There are so many hard cases and so few people who fall in love with them.