Week #4-Free Post-I Seriously Love Speech Therapy

                                                     I Seriously Love Speech Therapy

I had a semester long internship at a place called the Abilities Center. Here is where I first made the decision I want to work with children with special needs. I went to observe there four days a week for three hours each session. This allowed me to see an extremely vast variety of children and cases. I absolutely fell in love with the children. This internship really set apart this career for me because I realized how vital communication is.

Imagine not being able to communicate your thoughts, needs, and feelings. This inability must be the most frustrating feeling. I saw the struggle in these children, but instead of anger they were determined. I learned more then just my love of working with these children, I also learned a bunch about my possible career.

Some really important skills I learned included:

• How to use different communication devices
• Uses of iPads to communicate
• Different tests used to help determine struggle area
• Some hand motion used for communication
• Various speech techniques

                                                   Above all else I was taught by my main sponsor: 

 What you learn in school is important, but not usually applicable. All these children are different and there is no way to teach how to handle all these different personalities. Let the client play,because through play work can be done, and this is entirely a different set of skills.                                                                                   

 This impacted me. It opened my eyes to see that I should do my best in school, but continue to work with children in order to keep up both set of skills. I want nothing more then to be great at my job, to improve these children life's. I now see in order to achieve this goal, I must work to be great in all areas of my field. 

Week # 4-Prompted Post

Communication Activity

I took part in an on campus, communication survey last Friday. I headed over to the Communication Arts and Sciences building early in the morning not entirely sure what to expect. Once I got there I meet with two other girls who were communication majors. The three of us were immediately taken back to the survey room by a man named Mr. Manata. He explained the survey we would participate in with his partner. They used clear  language to relay our directions. The entire event was well orchestrated and ran smoothly. In fact, the survey got out about 10 minutes early. 

The whole experience impressed me quite a bit. Due to the two instructor's promptness, I can assume they value organization.

 The interesting part of this prompt is to draw conclusions about their methods of communication. Going into the communication field, it only makes sense that most professionals are pretty good with communication. Firstly I'd like to note all communication prior to the survey was done over email. All three participants and two instructors were in the correct place, at the right time and date exactly. Clearly, great communication was used there. Further, I can infer we are all schedule oriented people. I can even go so far to stereotype and say that as a whole, people interested in communication are schedule oriented.Secondly, the directions given were extremely clear, although they were rather complex. Communicating these directions may have been difficult, however for the communication professionals it was made simple. I think it is fair to say communication professionals are good at communicating! 

Week #3-Prompted Post-Interview

Interview

This week I was able to interview a woman working in my perspective career field. Lauren works at a hospital called St. Mary's in the Human Resource department. This particular job intrigued me because it is a mix of two careers I could follow with a communication degree: working in a hospital (as a speech therapist) and working in HR. I was able to ask a few questions to which I received some rather interesting answers.

The following are not quotes from either of us, instead general ideas of the interview.

Writing Related Interview:

I started off with some writing questions. I asked what type of writing she does daily. Lauren writes a fairly impressive amount each day. She told me between emails to her department, charity organization planning, and human resource paper work she writes every day. 

I then asked Lauren how she writes. She related to me a few writing details including: typically she writes out what she needs to say, reads it and edits it for mistakes, then sends it to whomever it may concern. She told me that the number of times she revises her work and how formal she writes depends on who she is writing for.

Career Related Interview:

Next I got to ask a few career related questions. I first asked What she likes most about her job. She named a few different parts, however she said her favorite was probably helping with the charity organizations. She also said this was her least favorite part, in that it takes a lot to organize.

I briefly asked Lauren if she liked working in HR. It seems as if she does enjoy it. She hinted that she dislikes working in the HR offices though because they are n the basement next to the morgue.

I asked if there was anything she wished she knew when she entered the work force. She quickly replied that she enjoys her job and that her best advice for me is to just make SURE I knew what exactly my job was to be before taking it,

Lastly I got to ask what types of upward movement there is in her HR position. She told me she already completed most of it. For her, she now likes her current position and intends to finish her career there. 

I learned valuable information from this interview. The advice that will stick with me is to know what I am getting my self into, before jumping in. I thank her for the opportunity!      

Week # 3-Free Post-Internship

Internship-Swallow Testing

I interviewed a woman who works at St. Mary's hospital for my prompted post. I had her connection because I did a semester internship with her. During this experience I visited various parts of the hospital daily. The department I found most interesting was of cores the speech department. Here I got to observe swallow testing for the first time. Swallow testing is to process of diagnosing problems with a client's swallowing. For example, if the client notices that when they swallow, they have the need to cough after, they can go in to diagnose the problem.

When I was observing, I saw a variety of clients. I am going to describe one of their appointments to explain the swallow test process.  

First the doctor prepared a few different textured mixes with barium.

Starting with the least thick substance (about the consistency of water), the doctor has the client take swigs. While the client drinks, an x-ray camera records it. The doctor then watches the film to watch for any problems. 

They repeat this process several times with different consistency. 

The most memorable client I observed had some type of throat cancer. The client no longer had the cancer, but had to go in for regular check ups. Something about the cancer caused liquid to spill into the clients lungs with every swallow.

The image of the liquid dripping into the lungs from the throat really struck an interest with me. Today I watched a few different videos like this. If you're interested, I linked the video below.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf2kRD85zvc    

Works Cited

 My Parkinsons Diary, prod. My Barium Swallow Test. YouTube.

          YouTube, 5 May 2010. Web. 16 September 2013.

Week #2 9/12-Free Post-More A Blog On A Blog

                    A Blog On A Blog

I read a blog directed toward parents with children who have speech difficulties to determine the purpose 

and audience.  As I "Play On Words", I found some really interesting information about speech therapy. The author of the blog is a woman named Sherry Artemenko. She is a ST, who goes into the homes of children who need extra speech help. Her blog tells all about her experiences. What I found most interesting was all the different games she uses to help the children. Sherry talks about different toys the she adapts to work on speech skills. For example, she uses a tea party set to help children work on colors, matching, and pretend play. This is interesting because it shows that with a little creativity, almost any activity can be transformed into a speech tool. This blog actually inspires me to think about different games that can be changed into speech techniques. You can find her blog at http://playonwords.com/. 

Works Cited

Artemenko, Sherry. "Play On Words." 9 Sept. 2013. Web. 10 Sept. 2013.

   

Week #2-9/12-Prompted Blog-Considering Audience and Purpose

                                                 Audience and Purpose
 The two most important features of writing are the intended audience and purpose. It is also interesting to look for the audience and purpose while reading. I found a formal article written by a speech therapist (http://ajslp.asha.org/cgi/content/abstract/22/3/503) and a blog about speech therapy (http://playonwords.com/blog/), in order to compare their audience and purpose.

   The article I found is from the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Speech Sound Disorders in a Community Study of Preschool Children was written by professionals in the speech therapy field. The purpose of the article was to tell about their study of children who were identified as having trouble with some speech skills. This purpose made the article rather formal in structure and tone. The audience was the readers of the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Because most of their intended audience is speech professionals, the writers did not 'water down' any of the information. 
   
    The blog, Play On Words, is different then the article in several key ways. First, the purpose of the blog is to give advice and update care givers for children with speech difficulties. Further, the blog is directed toward parents of children who need more speech attention. Although the intended audience is parents, the actual audience is much larger because any one on the internet can read the blog.

   The audience and purpose is incredibly important to understand while reading. The audience can make the difference between a very casual and an extremely formal writing style. Similarly, the purpose determines how organized a writing can be.           
                                                                Works Cited
McLeoda, Sharynne. "Speech Sound Disorders in a Community Study of Preschool Children- McLeod Et Al. 22 (3): 503 -- American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology" Speech Sound Disorders in a Community Study of Preschool Children -- McLeod Et Al. 22 (3): 503 -- American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. N.p., Aug. 2013. Web. 10 Sept. 2013.

Artemenko, Sherry. "Play On Words." 9 Sept. 2013. Web. 10 Sept. 2013.

Week #1-9/5-Free Post-10 Questions Follow Up

After leaning that a text book could not answer all my questions about communication, I decided to try and look else where to answer them. First, I looked to the internet. There I found answers to many of my career-related questions (correlates to previous post). 

Career-Related Answers: (internet)
7. Speech therapy/pathology careers can be enormously different. A job can be anything from helping an infant learn to eat and working with special-needs children on speech to swallow-testing adults and assisting stroke patient.
8. A communication degree can be extremely broad and in this case that is a good thing. It will be important to choose the correct minor to compliment communication. However, a communication degree from Michigan State will prove useful for a career in speech therapy.
10. Communication careers can be so different, that listing all of them would be impractical. Some examples are human resources, public relations, and of cores speech pathology.

I then had to ask an academic counselor to answer my last question.
Career-Related Answers: (counselor)
9. There are many routs I could take to become a speech therapist. The most likely for me would be a standard four year undergrad majoring in communications and then a two year graduate program in speech and language pathology.

Learning all this new information has made me even more interested communication. The answer that is most interesting to me is just how vast a career in speech can be. Now that I know all my possibilities, I am starting to decide which job would be the right fit for me. I am now leaning toward working with children with special needs. To me, that would be the career that is most rewarding. I am excited to continue learning about all these possibilities.      
 

Week #1- 9/5 -Prompted Post: 10 Questions: How Effective Are Text Books?

Before even touching a textbook, I came up with this list of ten questions I had about communication. I have sorted them into two categories as to better analyse them.
Informational Questions:
1. What is interpersonal communication?
2. What are all the types of communication?
3. How does communication vary based on age?
4. In what ways does technology effect communication?
5. What makes a person competent at communication?
6. How can I better my communication skills?
Career-Related Questions:
7. How varied are speech therapy careers?
8. How does a communication degree directly correlate to speech therapy?
9. How long should I attend school, to be considered competent in the speech therapy work force?
10. What types of careers are there in the communication field?

Wondering if a text book is effect in answering all questions for a beginner, I attempted to find my answers only using Interpersonal Communication, by Sarah Trenholm and Arthur Jensen. I found that while all my informational questions were answered,  none of my career-related questions were. This means that a text book is only good at delivering unchanging facts.
Informational Answers:
1. Interpersonal communication is communication between two or more people, usually face-to-face.This is also called dyadic communication.
2. There are many types of communication and the lists changes with time. However the main types are intrapersonal, small group, organizational, face-to-face public, and mediated public (or mass).
3. Communication varies due to age. Typically, younger humans are better at simpler communication, like message competence.
4. Technology effects communication in every way. Negatively, easy access to non-face-to-face communication can enable people to have poor communication skills. Positively, easy access to technological communication can help communicationally incompetent people to work on their skills.
5. To be competent at communicating, you must have interpretative competence, role competence, self competence, goal competence, and message competence.
6. To better communication skills, the text book mainly says to simply practice.

To find the answers to my career-related questions I will have to use other resources. I know see that although text books can be a useful resource, to better start learning a subject it is important to look at resources like internet articles, news papers, already employed professionals, and counselors.

Works Cited
Trenholm, Sarah, and Arthur Jensen. Interpersonal Communication. 7th ed. New York: Oxford UP,      2004.
Picture:
"Google." Google. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Sept. 2013.