Speech Therapy Personal Statement

Speech and language services: This service can support people who have had a stroke and have problems with their speech.

Choosing a major can be difficult, especially when considering expanding your collegiate career from your undergraduate career. For myself, Speech-Language Pathology was a clear answer for me to pursue, especially since I have a desire to help change an individual’s life and make a substantial impact that can affect more then just one individual. From the start of my Speech-Language Pathology collegiate career, I have always been drawn to working with children and increasing their communication skills. Although, my passion for working with children does not stop with expanding their communication skills, but also to help them to become more confident and content with whom they are.

I hope this finds you well:) Time is flying by and finals are looming in my final semester of classes at the Bristol Community College in their Occupational Therapy Assistant program. Next semester will be all fieldwork and my first choice placement is Greenlock Therapeutic Riding Center. http://www.greenlock.org/. So close--finally!!

I would like to begin by saying thank you to all of the therapists and technicians from Sunbelt Apopka for making me feel welcomed. Also I thank the therapists for allowing me to volunteer and observe this summer. Out of all the places I could have had my first shadowing experience I am so glad it took place at your facility. This opportunity allowed me to learn more in depth about careers in speech, physical, and occupational therapy. I now know that speech-language pathologists are not limited to treating only speech problems; they are capable of treating patients with swallowing complications as well. As you guys may know, I am still indecisive between pursuing a career in physical or occupational therapy. Volunteering however did help me to better understand their differences and similarities. Both physical and occupational therapy focus on working with patients with their body movements. More specifically, physical therapists provide services in helping patients in restoring functions and improving their physical mobility. While occupational therapists work with patients to improve their ability to perform tasks in their daily living and working environments. Based on my observation, all these rehabilitation professions serve an equal importance in the healing process of a patient.

Language is beautiful and wondrous phenomenon. Not only is it a crucial component in everyday communication, but it also accentuates the culture of those that speak it. As a student pursuing a career in speech-language pathology, the aspects of communication, such as language, are the pillars of my future profession and will be deeply embedded into my daily life. There are many reasons I have chosen this path, but my childhood friend, Jasmine, can be accredited with my finishing decision to become a speech-language pathologist. When I was in elementary school, Jasmine was one of my closest friends, but I did not always get to play with her at recess because she frequently had to see an audiologist, or go to speech therapy. Jasmine had a congenital

I had a dream of a career that would allow me to utilize my skills, my motivation to help others, and would catalyze change. Speech-language pathology has allowed me to lead my life with purpose, the purpose of empowering others. This empowerment is gained by my assistance in overcoming speech related deficits and disorders as a speech-language pathologist

While I am learning an abundance of valuable information at Clarke, my background knowledge derived from my undergraduate studies. I double majored in Speech Pathology and Psychology at Brooklyn College because I believe they compliment each other well when it comes to the studies of speech. Different aspects of Psychology including cognitive science, neuroscience, and biology are essential in understanding speech disorders, language processing, production, acquisition, and comprehension. In my second year at Brooklyn College, I observed children at a nearby elementary school for 50 hours. During this time I observed how children at the kindergarten level interacted with each other. I shadowed the teacher in order to learn different teaching strategies that will be beneficial and applicable as a Speech Therapist.

How often do passion and profession come together? For me, being a natural communicator, I have always dreamt of being part of a multi-disciplinary team, improving the lives of others in both a direct and true-to-life level. With my sincere interest in people and curiosity of the mechanisms’ of the human body, having a simple conversation with my cousin is what made me fall in love with this career.

Speech and language specialists- This service supports people that have had a stroke or with people who have a speech impairment

When asked what I want to do with my life, my answer is simply to help others. Although this answer is one would expect to hear from just about anyone, I have always been encouraged by mentors and parents to do what I love. In my case, helping others brings me a great deal of satisfaction. The human body and how it is able to adapt has always been a fascination of mine, and from a young age I identified the health care field as an ideal fit for my interests in medicine, as well as my passion for helping others. With these two drives in mind, I found myself at the age of sixteen with a career goal in mind: Occupational Therapy.

During the 2011-2012 school year I began working in a new school in South Los Angeles. The neighborhood was rough riddled with gang violence and turf wars. To compound the stress of being in a new environment the speech therapist, Judeen, assigned as my supervisor was also new to the school site and had never worked at a school before. We were both overwhelmed with the amount of “catch up” work assigned to us. Services had not been provided for the 4 months prior to our arrival.

While I am considering how I want my future to look as a Speech Pathologist, I have also taken much time to think about where I want to end up geographically and what populations I wish to work with. Detroit has always been a city that has been very close to my heart. Detroit is where my family grounded themselves when they first settled in the United States. This city had given so much to my family. This gave me a desire to return to our roots in Detroit. It is also the disadvantaged populations and underfunded schools in Detroit that give me such a passion for wanting to work in this city. The lack of funding to the Detroit public schools infuriating to me as it limits the amount of services these students can receive. I find important to

When I came to SLU, I had trouble finding where I fit in. I tried club volleyball and Greek life, but I never felt that those places were where I belonged. Finally, I joined Alpha Phi Omega (APO), a service fraternity on campus, but I still was not as involved as I wanted to be. While APO taught me about the importance of leadership, friendship, and service, I knew I wanted to be involved in an organization that would support me professionally in my future career. Thus, when I started my junior year, I realized that the occupational therapy community at SLU was where I belonged, and Pi Theta Epsilon could provide me an opportunity to merge the two together.

A key factor to most of the maladaptive behavior performed by individuals is the inability to get a message across for their wants and needs through language. A few of my clients were non-speaking when I first met them. Their way of communicating was by whining or directing their caregiver to the item he or she needed. Consequently, many of the client’s goals were focused on increasing communicative language. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend speech therapy with one of my clients. Being present in these therapies, I was able to learn certain techniques to increase language, as well as techniques for phonetics, to be able to understand the existing language the client had. On days the client did not have speech therapy, I implemented the programs into the in-home therapies to increase the exposure, in hopes for better results. I also utilized the skills I learned on the other non-speaking clients I worked with but, modified their usage to adapt to the necessity of each

On Friday, March 31st I observed Northside Elementary School in the Brookville school district. I watched in a separate speech therapy classroom for students who also require special education. There was only one student who attended each session and the only professional in the classroom was the speech language pathologist, Miss. Haag.