The Speechaholic
I dread coming up with names for things. I tried to start an etsy store a million times but always got stuck on the name. It took me a year to start this blog because of the name.
The Speechaholic came about because at the time that I started this blog I lived, breathed, ate and drank speech therapy. I had two or more jobs and loved what I did. I also talked... a lot... and so it seemed fitting. I was addicted speech therapy and speaking. My goal was to be the best speech-language pathologist in the world (then I lowered my goal to just the USA, and then even lower to just at my place of work) ;). I wanted to write textbooks and get my PhD. I wanted to change the world.
I knew I wanted to be a speech therapist since my junior year in high school. One of my elective classes was to volunteer at a special needs preschool (that happened to be housed on our high school campus). I was working with a little boy with Autism (who is probably about 18 now!) and one day his speech therapist came in to work with him. I loved how she interacted with him and how she explained her goals and activities to me. The next week I had come up with some new ways to work on her goals with him and she was impressed. She told me I should look into speech therapy and that I would be good at it. Before this, I thought I'd just be a teacher because I like helping people/kids learn and I didn't really know what else to be. This SLP (who's name I can't remember but I do remember her face) continued to encourage me through my junior year and by the end of the year I'd started figuring out which colleges had the best speech therapy programs.
The thing I love about speech therapy is that it combines science and language (and mostly no math!). I love that you needed to know everything from muscles and neuroanatomy to grammar and vocabulary. I love that you can work with a variety of ages and in a variety of settings. I felt like my brain was made for the field and it just fit me.
It has been a rewarding career with it's ups and downs due to paperwork and red tape, but overall I'm so thankful that I have the training and experience. Someday I'll pick it up again and maybe I'll still write a book or get my Phd. Maybe I'll still change the world... one kid at a time ;).
I think you can still be a speechaholic even if not employed as an SLP ;) Soon Pumpkin will be providing you with all sorts of opportunities for therapy activities... maybe even Candy Land! (Just kidding). But darned if I didn't calculate Toby's MLU a few times just for the heck of it.
ReplyDelete-Lisa
You sum up the reasons I love slp too. And I also had an experience with a boy with autism (who is now like 18) that pointed me in this direction after thinking I would just be a teacher. I find I love it when I am doing it but I also love being home most of the time. And yes, my kids have had lots of language samples done on them. Right now I am trying to decide if Claire's /r/ substitution/distortion is typical or not and whether it is interfering with her intelligibility. I think I need my slp friend to listen to her. :)
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