Clinic is always on my mind... even though we don't start clinic until our 3rd semester at Eastern, I think about what it will be like to work with a client, in particular a child in an SLP clinic setting. I have lots of experience working with kids: 5 years teaching English in South Korea, just over 2 years at a daycare, and now at the Children's Institute at Eastern. I'm sure it will translate at least a little if not a lot into the clinical setting, especially behavior management, but the paperwork, goals, and actual therapy...
These next two semesters are supposed to be preparing us for clinic, we have Clinical Methods in SLP this semester (my favorite class!) and next semester we will be taking Diagnostic methods which seems pretty comprehensive: procedures and routines used in the evaluation of speech and language disorders in children. Emphasis on familiarization with available evaluative tools, interviewing procedures, case analysis, test interpretation and report writing. I feel I should be well prepared to go into clinic, but... yeah, I think no matter prepared you feel, I'm sure the first time will be nerve-wracking.
Came across this blog post on tumblr:
It’s okay to suck: a story of my first client.
http://popslp.tumblr.com/post/33100986731/its-okay-to-suck-a-story-of-my-first-client
I just got to remember... it's okay to suck, at least at first.
UPDATE - 01/13/2018... Wow, 2018 already! Such a long journey from this post to where I am now... so the above link to "It's okay to suck: a story of my first client" no longer works and it looks like the post no longer exists so I wanted to say a few words (or more!) about being okay to suck.
From your very first client to your 100th to your 1000th and beyond, you will have times you "suck". This will happen less often as you gain more experience, but I don't think this feeling ever completely goes away. This is not a bad thing because we always need to improve and learn and grow.
No two clients will ever be completely the same. There will be times where you will be hit, spit on, kicked, yelled at, ignored, and you feel like all you are doing is trying to manage behavior. Sometimes just getting a child to even interact with you feels like it's impossible. There will be tears and screams (the clients hopefully and not yours... at least not until you get home!) and times where you feel like you are failing because the progress is so slow or there is regression or... yeah, you will have times that you feel incompetent. It happens to all of us and it's okay.
There are many frustrations in this field (hello redundant mountains of paperwork, never ending meetings, and a few other things), but there are also so many moments of joy. The AHA! moments, the smiles and giggles, the connections you get to make with our clients and if you are lucky, their families as well, all the little and big moments.
Just gotta keep growing and learning...
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