Phew! Looking Back Winter '13

Winter semester (otherwise know as the semester of a million group projects) was a busy one! I think the hardest thing this semester has been coordinating everyone's schedules to meet and get things get done.

Favorite things this semester:

Audiometrics -
*Presenting hearing conservation and ear anatomy to a 1st grade class. They were AWESOME!! I loved this experience so much and the kids loved it too.

Aphasia -
*Ummm... pretty much the whole darn class, but if I had to pick a couple of favorites I'd go with the aphasia observation that I did in Royal Oak and the AAC assignment I did at the Apple Store. I can't rave enough about this class. The prof of this class is a great teacher and I've learned a lot in this class. This is definitely emerging as an area of interest. :)

Diagnostics -
*Though scheduling has been a big issue with our clinic diagnostic, I really enjoyed this experience a lot. It was great to finally get some hands-on experience with standardized tests and work with a client!
*My observation at the Autism Collaborative Center - the SLP there is a graduate of EMU's SLP grad program and it was great to observe another alumni from my school out in the field. (First EMU alum I observed was up in the U.P. at Marquette General Hospital for some of my 25 hours of observation for my post-bacc.)

Early Intervention Language Disorders -
*This class has spent a lot of time on the back burner and has felt like a lot of review, but I've enjoyed some

Interests Part I

During class last week, one of my professors told us that SLPs cannot just be generalists and that SLPs need to choose a specialty/specific interests in our field.  It would be almost impossible to know everything there is to know in our field AND be proficient in it all as well.  I’m at the start of my grad school program and I thought it would be interesting to put down what I am interested in at this point in time.

Right now I am definitely leaning more towards the medical side of SLP and more specifically:

-Speech and language impairments secondary to medical conditions such as TBI (traumatic brain injury), stroke, cancer (and not just oral/laryngeal/brain… other cancers such as breast cancer, etc. and the effects of chemotherapy and radiology on memory and word retrieval), etc.

-AAC (augmentative and alternative communication).  While shadowing for my 25 hours in my post-bacc I observed a few different AAC systems such as PECS, a handmade eye gaze board, and sign.  There are so many different AAC systems to learn about, from the seemingly simple to the highly technological.  

I really can’t wait to get into classes and learn more about all of the above.  It will be interesting to see how much my interests change over the course of my graduate education or if my current interests do not change at all.    

Interests Part II in a semester or two!