Summary

Summary:

As a Speech- Language Pathology intern at Alphabet Soup I had the opportunity to apply my academic knowledge to a more professional environment. Throughout the course of the semester I had worked in Rhode Island and in a rehab facility in Connecticut, so I spent a day at each office once a week. The RI office is located in North Kingstown and the other is in Glastonbury Connecticut.

Alphabet Soup is a private practice that provides personalized therapies for children from infancy through high school. My supervisor, the owner of Alphabet Soup, has two mission statements: "When a child succeeds in speech and language therapy, he is finally able to communicate, to say what he is thinking, and be understood" as well as, "When a child succeeds in feeding therapy, you no longer have to worry about the effects of your child not eating, you are able to start living your lives". She specializes in both Speech and Feeding therapy which explains why she has two different statements.

Her goals are to make sure that every child receives the treatment that they need to thrive no matter the severity of the issue. She deals with children who are diagnosed failure to thrive and have severe feeding issues, as well as children with more mild issues. She also treats Apraxic children who have more severe speech delays, as well as children with articulation and fluency disorders which may be less severe.

I connected well to her goals because one of the reasons I chose a profession in Speech-Language Pathology was to help people and aid them in improving their quality of life. I had seen how she worked with these children every day and she treated them as if they are were her own, she was very close with the families and was very involved in each family's struggle. I like how personable this career is and how you not only help the single child, but also help the family. From these goals I had created goals of my own in which I had strived to fulfill throughout the course of the semester.

Professional and Personal Goals:

My first objective was to create new materials to be used during sessions to stimulate cognition and language, specifically to go along with auditory processing. Throughout the course of the semester I had created several materials to go along with books, as well as activities in session. I had based these activities on research that I had completed on the topic of auditory processing. For example, I had created many sequencing exercises to go along with reading a story. Children with auditory processing have trouble with sequencing, so during session the children practiced reading the story and putting the pictures in the proper order to go along with it. Through these exercises I had learned that practice and repetition was helpful, as well as removing visual distraction. For example, if the child could not answer a question they could cover their eyes to help focus on the answer.

A second objective of mine was to learn techniques in oral-motor therapy for working with children. I had observed my supervisor's technique during session and had also researched methods of oral-motor therapy in addition to reading a lot about its controversy in the Speech-Language Pathology field. Throughout the semester I had witnessed these techniques truly work for many children. I had learned how the mouth is a muscle that must be strengthened in order to support the other articulators. Just like trunk stabilization is important for the disassociation of your limbs, mouth strength is important for the disassociation of your tongue and other means of intelligible speech.

This internship had given me much more insight into a typical day and what to expect during a session. I had learned a lot of new information, most that would never be part of an academic curriculum. I loved being able to apply what I had already learned as an undergraduate to a more professional setting.

I am interested in becoming a Speech-Language Pathologist and the office that I interned at has seen a large variety of clients with a large range of disorders, as well as feeding and swallowing disorders which is a newer field for Speech-Language Pathology. In the future I hope to work in a similar environment where I can constantly learn new techniques and improve the lives of children and families.