Progress
Over the last few months, I have been taking various steps to get closer to my goal of applying for a Master's in Communication Sciences and Disorders. I truly believe that Speech Pathology is the ideal job for me, and it excites me to no end that I've found something I have such a passion and excitement for.
I've been volunteering for one full school day every week at an elementary school. I spend most of my time with a class of children who have various learning disabilities, ie. ADHD, autism-spectrum disorders, speech problems, mild intellectual dysfunction, etc. Some of the time is spent with individual kids who have speech problems. There are three of them, and I work together with a registered speech pathologist, doing corrective exercises with these kids. My favourite is a 7 year old girl who has major speech difficulties, like consonant assimilation. For example, instead of saying "pig" she'll say "kig" because she wants both sounds to come from the back of her throat. Or instead of saying "bake" she says "gake" for the same reason. It fascinates me that some people's brains are just wired differently, and something that seems so effortless is such a struggle for her. This week, she started making some real progress...it's going very slowly, but it's wonderful to watch and it gave me such a feeling of fulfillment, and I'm just ecstatic!
I've also been taking courses through the distance education program at the University of Guelph which is an excellent program. I'm incredibly impressed with it. I have exams next week, and we just finished a case study in which we had to diagnose someone, giving them a complete multi-axial DSM-IV diagnosis. The teacher just gave us feedback today, and this part really stood out:
You receive the distinction of being the first group out of hundreds of groups where every single group member worked hard, researched well, thought critically and contributed beyond participation expectations. To quote Adam Whibley "excellent collaboration!"
It was such a compliment to receive from a university professor and it made me feel really good :) My group really was a fantastic bunch of people to work with, and it's nice to have that recognized. But to be singled out of the hundreds of students that she's taught over the years...well...made me feel pretty darn special. Hehe.
Sorry to bore you all!
I've been volunteering for one full school day every week at an elementary school. I spend most of my time with a class of children who have various learning disabilities, ie. ADHD, autism-spectrum disorders, speech problems, mild intellectual dysfunction, etc. Some of the time is spent with individual kids who have speech problems. There are three of them, and I work together with a registered speech pathologist, doing corrective exercises with these kids. My favourite is a 7 year old girl who has major speech difficulties, like consonant assimilation. For example, instead of saying "pig" she'll say "kig" because she wants both sounds to come from the back of her throat. Or instead of saying "bake" she says "gake" for the same reason. It fascinates me that some people's brains are just wired differently, and something that seems so effortless is such a struggle for her. This week, she started making some real progress...it's going very slowly, but it's wonderful to watch and it gave me such a feeling of fulfillment, and I'm just ecstatic!
I've also been taking courses through the distance education program at the University of Guelph which is an excellent program. I'm incredibly impressed with it. I have exams next week, and we just finished a case study in which we had to diagnose someone, giving them a complete multi-axial DSM-IV diagnosis. The teacher just gave us feedback today, and this part really stood out:
You receive the distinction of being the first group out of hundreds of groups where every single group member worked hard, researched well, thought critically and contributed beyond participation expectations. To quote Adam Whibley "excellent collaboration!"
It was such a compliment to receive from a university professor and it made me feel really good :) My group really was a fantastic bunch of people to work with, and it's nice to have that recognized. But to be singled out of the hundreds of students that she's taught over the years...well...made me feel pretty darn special. Hehe.
Sorry to bore you all!