As student and eventually professional, you'll want to be associated with some organizations or charities. These will most likely have some relation to your field; such as, if you're a doctor you might join Doctors Without Borders, or if you're studying Political Science you are probably involved with Student Government. There's many possibilities for you to get involved with, whether you want to volunteer some of your time or simply become more educated about your field/community. Here's a list of possible ones you might want to be involved with as a future/ current SLP. :) I've listed them under "Semi-Mandatory" for ones you will need to join, or most likely should join, and then "Optional" for those you don't need but can do based on your interests and intentions.
SEMI-MANDATORY:
-ASHA ( American Speech-Language-Hearing Assoc.) - for SLPs, Audiologists and Speech/Hearing Scientists
-NSSLHA (National Student Speech-Language and Hearing Assoc.)- for undergrad/grad students studying CSD/SLP.
** there is a national chapter, and probably a local one at your school
OPTIONAL:
-Linguistics, Psychology or language club. These are all related to SLP
-Volunteer Clubs (ie. Project Sunshine, Circle K, etc)
-Special Olympics
-Tutoring/mentoring program, like AmericaReads or JumpStart
-Non-profits for Apraxia, Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Veteran Services, Operation Smile other diseases related to SLP
-Participate in walks for Apraxia, Autism...
-Multicultural club/organization
-state NSSLHA/ ASHA
-charities for speech, behavioral, mental disorders
This isn't an extensive list, just some ideas that came to mind... if you can think of any more, let me know! :) I'll certainly add them and give credit!
What'd Ya Say? Wednesday: Speech Accent Archive
30 January 2013
Hey all, I've found this nifty little ditty while rummaging through the internet the other day, and I think it's great! This will come in handy for anyone working with a bilingual, multilingual or foreign speech therapy client. It's called the Speech Accent Archive, and it has a few forms that you can use to find out more information on foreign languages and pronunciation... it even gives the PHONETIC inventory for each language (and there are lotsss of languages on this site. I probably haven't even 80% of them.) Of course, American Sign Language doesn't have a phonetic (sound) alphabet, but it is listed on this website under the search page.
One of the neat things this website has, is the ability to browse. You can browse by speaker/language, the region of the native language or you can look up the language's native phonetic inventory... which I think is very helpful, especially in accent modification!
Under the search area, you can even put in the onset of the speaker starting English, what language is native to that person, how that person learned English (naturally or academically), how long the client has spoken English, if they have any generalizations, etc.
The resources page also has some 'phonetic generalizations' that would be helpful for Speech-Language Pathologists working with clients of native languages other than English.
Definitely give it a look at. Even if you just want to play around! (The linguist in me is giddy with this new find!)
One of the neat things this website has, is the ability to browse. You can browse by speaker/language, the region of the native language or you can look up the language's native phonetic inventory... which I think is very helpful, especially in accent modification!
Under the search area, you can even put in the onset of the speaker starting English, what language is native to that person, how that person learned English (naturally or academically), how long the client has spoken English, if they have any generalizations, etc.
The resources page also has some 'phonetic generalizations' that would be helpful for Speech-Language Pathologists working with clients of native languages other than English.
Definitely give it a look at. Even if you just want to play around! (The linguist in me is giddy with this new find!)
SLP Skills Saturday: Desire to Learn
26 January 2013
I've decided to add a themed day to my blog. The new themed day, "SLP Skills Saturday" will be a feature that will highlight a different personality trait or characteristic that I think SLPs (and soon-to-be SLPs) need. Hope you enjoy, and don't forget to follow me or like/comment/share my posts! I love it, and it'll help me make this blog better. :)
A big aspect of this job is learning, whether it be in your undergraduate, graduate or professional years. This job necessitates a broad scope of subjects to be a licensed SLP, which means that you have to be as well-rounded as possible.
In your undergraduate years you have to study a variety of areas-- biological sciences, physical sciences, statistics, communication sciences/disorders, language development, psychology... just to name a few. So, if you thought you could become a SLP without having to take a biology-related or chemistry/physics... think again. You'll especially need physics for later classes in hearing and speech sciences where you calculate the frequencies of sounds and such.
As for your graduate studies, you'll do some of these classes more in-depth. So be prepared to build a solid foundation in your undergraduate years to build upon. Of course you'll also be studying specific disorders related to speech and hearing, and applying them in your clinical sessions. That leads to another thing: be prepared to do clinicals. Think you can be licensed without getting supervised training? Then you might want to look for a different profession. You need many hours (think hundreds, not just tens of hours) of supervised clinical experience in which you will be critiqued on your lesson plans, evaluations and treatments. If that's not how you want to learn and get accredited, this might not be for you.
Lastly, all SLPs are required to continue learning even after they have graduated and gotten their CCC's. You're required to take a certain amount of Continuing Education Units (CEUs) EVERY year. This is to keep you up-to-date on new things happening in the field and to keep you well-rounded (of course, you can probably take some credits in your specialty too. SO maybe not completely well-rounded.) If you don't want a job that requires you to keep learning each year to stay licensed, then you might want to look elsewhere.
Hope you found this helpful and it wasn't so negative! Haha. I didn't mean for it to seem like "don't do this if...", that's just the way this one turned out! Look out for the next "SLP Skills Saturday" in two weeks! (Maybe next week... I'm liking this idea!)
A big aspect of this job is learning, whether it be in your undergraduate, graduate or professional years. This job necessitates a broad scope of subjects to be a licensed SLP, which means that you have to be as well-rounded as possible.
In your undergraduate years you have to study a variety of areas-- biological sciences, physical sciences, statistics, communication sciences/disorders, language development, psychology... just to name a few. So, if you thought you could become a SLP without having to take a biology-related or chemistry/physics... think again. You'll especially need physics for later classes in hearing and speech sciences where you calculate the frequencies of sounds and such.
As for your graduate studies, you'll do some of these classes more in-depth. So be prepared to build a solid foundation in your undergraduate years to build upon. Of course you'll also be studying specific disorders related to speech and hearing, and applying them in your clinical sessions. That leads to another thing: be prepared to do clinicals. Think you can be licensed without getting supervised training? Then you might want to look for a different profession. You need many hours (think hundreds, not just tens of hours) of supervised clinical experience in which you will be critiqued on your lesson plans, evaluations and treatments. If that's not how you want to learn and get accredited, this might not be for you.
Lastly, all SLPs are required to continue learning even after they have graduated and gotten their CCC's. You're required to take a certain amount of Continuing Education Units (CEUs) EVERY year. This is to keep you up-to-date on new things happening in the field and to keep you well-rounded (of course, you can probably take some credits in your specialty too. SO maybe not completely well-rounded.) If you don't want a job that requires you to keep learning each year to stay licensed, then you might want to look elsewhere.
Hope you found this helpful and it wasn't so negative! Haha. I didn't mean for it to seem like "don't do this if...", that's just the way this one turned out! Look out for the next "SLP Skills Saturday" in two weeks! (Maybe next week... I'm liking this idea!)
What'd Ya Say? Wednesdays: Music and Speech Therapy
23 January 2013
I recently came across the article "Musical Strategies" that was archived from the magazine Advance. It was published in November 2012 and written by Louise Patrick, PhD , detailing the incorporation of music into children's speech therapy programs. 
Despite the ever-growing reductions in education funding taking out extra programs like music and art, there is a greater need for children to receive therapy within the school system. Without a doubt, this includes speech therapy. But how can SLPs keep children entertained while learning and expanding their speech abilities? One idea, brought up by Dr. Parker, is the possibility of bringing music into it; after all, children love music.
She brings up a good point that children don't necessarily need to know the lyrics; they just need to have a basis of sounds which they can mimic to practice sounds found in language. One such example was that of animal noises. They have different contour patterns and inflections that children can use as a foundation for when they start building morphemes and utterances. So, they don't actually need to learn the words, rather the shapes of the sounds that form the words, which can be facilitated through musical lyrics. But, she also notes that we can use "snippets" from songs to help provide them a repetitive pattern to echo back and build on. This is especially helpful for special needs speech therapy clients.
Another idea is to use songs that pay tribute to a particular sound or phoneme that you want to emphasize. For instance, she mentions using the song Miss Mary Mack, as it includes something physical (clapping) and focuses on "m". Focusing on a phonological aspect and adding other motor or cognitive tasks can help a child flourish and maintain their attention on the activity more. And of course the music just adds more fun!
I think one of the best parts of this job is the ability to be creative with therapy plans. Adding music is an innovative idea that can help speech therapists in their quest of helping others find their voice. This can prove especially helpful with groups of kids, as they all can sing together and support one another. Plus, who doesn't love music and some silly dancing or lyrics! Speech therapists should try to find a way to incorporate this into their program, whether it be at schools or even medical facilities! Just look up "music therapy" images on Google, and you'll find a plethora of hospital and elderly patients utilizing music therapy (whether speech-related or not).
If you'd like more information about her ideas for music and it's role in speech therapy, then check out the article right here.
Despite the ever-growing reductions in education funding taking out extra programs like music and art, there is a greater need for children to receive therapy within the school system. Without a doubt, this includes speech therapy. But how can SLPs keep children entertained while learning and expanding their speech abilities? One idea, brought up by Dr. Parker, is the possibility of bringing music into it; after all, children love music.
She brings up a good point that children don't necessarily need to know the lyrics; they just need to have a basis of sounds which they can mimic to practice sounds found in language. One such example was that of animal noises. They have different contour patterns and inflections that children can use as a foundation for when they start building morphemes and utterances. So, they don't actually need to learn the words, rather the shapes of the sounds that form the words, which can be facilitated through musical lyrics. But, she also notes that we can use "snippets" from songs to help provide them a repetitive pattern to echo back and build on. This is especially helpful for special needs speech therapy clients.
Another idea is to use songs that pay tribute to a particular sound or phoneme that you want to emphasize. For instance, she mentions using the song Miss Mary Mack, as it includes something physical (clapping) and focuses on "m". Focusing on a phonological aspect and adding other motor or cognitive tasks can help a child flourish and maintain their attention on the activity more. And of course the music just adds more fun!
I think one of the best parts of this job is the ability to be creative with therapy plans. Adding music is an innovative idea that can help speech therapists in their quest of helping others find their voice. This can prove especially helpful with groups of kids, as they all can sing together and support one another. Plus, who doesn't love music and some silly dancing or lyrics! Speech therapists should try to find a way to incorporate this into their program, whether it be at schools or even medical facilities! Just look up "music therapy" images on Google, and you'll find a plethora of hospital and elderly patients utilizing music therapy (whether speech-related or not).
If you'd like more information about her ideas for music and it's role in speech therapy, then check out the article right here.
Unique SLP Opportunities
22 January 2013
Now, you probably have heard of the typical settings in which Speech-Language Pathologists work through your research of the profession. Time and time again you've become aware that most SLP graduate students often face the ultimatums of either Medical vs School and Adult vs Child speech therapy. After all, there's countless blogs written by and for those specialties. And don't get me wrong, they are a big part of this career, especially the one about Adult vs Children. But what if I told you a little secret? There's actually other possibilities within this field that you can go into! Of course, you'll still come across those decisions, but they don't "have" to be in those settings... ready to listen? You better keep these a secret...
-DIALECT COACH: Have you ever envisioned yourself strolling down the streets of LA? Well, now you can do that, and possibly meet actors without having to act yourself! Many actors have to go through accent training for films to gain that southern drawl, new york dialect, or even just to lose their natural one... and guess who has the phonetic knowledge to teach them? SLPs!
-VOICE: If someone like say... a singer is having voice issues they may see a doctor. They also might go to a SLP. Part of our training is in voice disorders, and that gives us the necessities to possibly help them recover for/from tours!
-ACCENT REDUCTION: Very similar to being a dialect coach, but more for assisting foreigners lose their accent so they can assimilate more into American culture. So, if you've always wanted to mingle with foreigners, whether if it's in the USA or abroad at a language school/ accent center... this could be a viable option!
-TRAVEL SLP: Not sure if staying in one facility is the best thing for you? Would you rather be jumping between different facilities and having a broader range of clients? There's plenty of opportunities for people to be travel SLPs around the USA, just look on some job search engines!
-TELEREHABILITATION: Perhaps you'd rather not face the hustle and bustle of a commute. Maybe you're a stay-at-home parent that would rather work from home. Or you possibly want to reach to clients that don't have a clinic near them that need speech therapy. It can also be that you want to live abroad, but still have clients from home. All of these are possible reasons why doing telerehabilitation is an interesting choice. It's gaining popularity, especially with products like Skype making this much easier!
-VOLUNTEER/NON-PROFIT: Another possibility is for those that want to take their practices to another level and donate their services to those in other places that lack the supplies and ability to provide speech therapy. There are several companies that take medical personnel abroad, or even domestically, to help these areas in need.
-SPECIALTIES/OTHER: Of course there are plenty of other options, such as specializing in a special aspect of SLP. One example could be stuttering... did you know that Samuel L. Jackson himself, as well as King George VI of Britain both had stuttering issues? ... And guess who helped them over come that. I think you already know the answer ;)
-DIALECT COACH: Have you ever envisioned yourself strolling down the streets of LA? Well, now you can do that, and possibly meet actors without having to act yourself! Many actors have to go through accent training for films to gain that southern drawl, new york dialect, or even just to lose their natural one... and guess who has the phonetic knowledge to teach them? SLPs!
-VOICE: If someone like say... a singer is having voice issues they may see a doctor. They also might go to a SLP. Part of our training is in voice disorders, and that gives us the necessities to possibly help them recover for/from tours!
-ACCENT REDUCTION: Very similar to being a dialect coach, but more for assisting foreigners lose their accent so they can assimilate more into American culture. So, if you've always wanted to mingle with foreigners, whether if it's in the USA or abroad at a language school/ accent center... this could be a viable option!
-TRAVEL SLP: Not sure if staying in one facility is the best thing for you? Would you rather be jumping between different facilities and having a broader range of clients? There's plenty of opportunities for people to be travel SLPs around the USA, just look on some job search engines!
-TELEREHABILITATION: Perhaps you'd rather not face the hustle and bustle of a commute. Maybe you're a stay-at-home parent that would rather work from home. Or you possibly want to reach to clients that don't have a clinic near them that need speech therapy. It can also be that you want to live abroad, but still have clients from home. All of these are possible reasons why doing telerehabilitation is an interesting choice. It's gaining popularity, especially with products like Skype making this much easier!
-VOLUNTEER/NON-PROFIT: Another possibility is for those that want to take their practices to another level and donate their services to those in other places that lack the supplies and ability to provide speech therapy. There are several companies that take medical personnel abroad, or even domestically, to help these areas in need.
-SPECIALTIES/OTHER: Of course there are plenty of other options, such as specializing in a special aspect of SLP. One example could be stuttering... did you know that Samuel L. Jackson himself, as well as King George VI of Britain both had stuttering issues? ... And guess who helped them over come that. I think you already know the answer ;)
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