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Hah ! Speech therapy was what I thought! I used to be an SLT, but you probably know more than me about a bunch of things, because it's been a while...
That's so cool! Did you have to go to university for that or was it an apprenticeship too? And US I assume? And what did you specialise in?
I'm super interested in neurology and voice therapy so I could see myself working in a clinic with dysphagia and aphasia patients, maybe also dysarthrophonia or Parkinson's voice therapy (Lee Silverman Voice Treatment, but I'm a little sceptical). The former wasn't really a focus of mine and a little scary given that you can literally kill a patient if you do your therapy wrong, but my last internetship at a clinic showed me how interesting the field is and how much quality of life is to be regained once you've treated the dysphagia. Didn't really expect that. We just got a new class about laryngectomy which is also super interesting.
It was a university degree in the UK , and then I worked for the NHS for a number of years (until I moved to France and a much more relaxing job teaching at a university). I mostly specialised in pediatrics, particularly ASD and other developmental conditions. If I'd stayed with adults I would have focused on Aphasia and acquired language disorders. I found neurology very fun, and the way that damage could reveal the maaany faculties required for effective communication was super intresting to me.
LSVT is certainly well-evidenced and I've seen it be very effective. But it's quite repetitive, so colleagues who did a lot of it sometimes complained of not getting a chance to be creative in their approaches, just having to stick to the protocol.
Dysphagia is a bit scary, but it makes such an incredible difference. Even many years after working with stroke survivors, every time I'm incredibly thirsty I think about the poor folks who were 'nil by mouth' and so desperately wanted a mouthful of water. Having a nurse swab your mouth is really not the same. Doing a swallowing check with them and giving the nurses permission to give them some fluids (even if they had to be weird and thick) completely transformed their day.
Good luck with your studies! It's a very rewarding career!
Ah, that's interesting. A common problem of studying logopedics in Germany that I've heard of is that you don't get enough time for practical applications of the theory you learn about, hence an apprenticeship is preferred to a university degree. How was it with your course of studies?
I'm also interested in ASD, specifically coupled with late-talking children. I don't think ASD is a separate subject in school but rather something a therapist needs to be interested in intrinsically and needs to learn about in additional trainings, but it's just fascinating how differently it manifests in people and what effect it has on their speech development and interactions with peers.
But I'm not sure if I really want to work with children in general. I'd rather focus on conveying specific logopedic goals to adults who come to therapy out of their own volition and interest in their own betterment instead of constantly having to think about how to motivate children, how to put a therapy goal into a certain game that interests them etc etc. It's obviously also challenging and difficult since you need a good feel for how to interact with children, but it's just not for me. Currently trying my best with two patients I have (one has DVD, the other has a couple phonological language development disorders mixed in with some problems with speech motorics), but it's just so much more challenging for me compared to the voice therapy I'm giving. Adults - that's where it's at for me.
Yea, LSVT is quite rigid, I feel like. It also goes against everything we've learned about physiological vocalisation which feels weird. I also don't like that they're kind of "cult-like" when it comes to advertising the effectiveness of their method in addition to the secrecy of the therapy itself. At least give a bit of an outline about what your method is about? Plus the costs... Sure, the course's costs would probably be covered by the practise or clinic I'm working at, but the fact you have pay for knowledge in the first place is just so annoying. I get that people need to be reimbursed for their work and need to earn money to live, but it's just so much money. But I guess it's worth it if you have a lot of patients with Parkinson's.
I hear you about dysphagia. I've had that same realisation in my last internship at a clinic. Probably around 95% of patients I've seen there had some form of dysphagia with varying degrees of severity, and it's awesome to see how much the work we do helps them. To me it feels like it's not a lot that we do outside teaching patients a couple swallowing maneuvers, stimulating their nerves with citric acid or spice, or adjusting their meal plan to something easier to process, but it's so much more to them.
Thank you! I'm in last year of studies, so it'll be quite stressful and challenging for the next half year or so, but I'm hopeful and happy to have found a profession that's so multi-faceted.