You, Me, and SLP

Long, long ago, in the days before e-mail and instant messaging, I once heard someone say that a baby is like a computer without a printer. There is a lot of processing going on inside, but they aren’t easily able to share all that information.

I think about that baby a lot because, in my work as a speech and language pathologist, I see people every day who are struggling to communicate. Here’s the thing: It’s not only my clients who are learning to share their thoughts effectively. It’s also their loved ones, parents and caregivers who want to make themselves heard but don’t necessarily know the best way to do it.

There are lots of reasons, on paper, that a person may be referred for speech language therapy; language delays, speech sound difficulties, stuttering, and social skill difficulties are just a few. But when we reduce communication issues to a catchphrase, and if we focus only on resolving that single issue; that is, when we focus solely on the way the message is getting out (or the ‘print quality’), we might miss the opportunity to treat the whole person and read their actual message. Each one of us is multidimensional, and speech difficulties are just one of the things happening in my client’s life—or the lives of the people around them-- at any given time.

I’m not trying to say that, in my role as an SLP, I can fix or even address every one of my client’s needs or address every facet of their lives. However, I do try and approach my work holistically and from a place of empathy —not just for the clients themselves-- but for the people around them whose sense of love or concern or duty towards the smaller folks in their lives brings them to my doorstep.

One of the things I want to accomplish in this blog is to introduce you to some of the methods and products that I use in my everyday life to keep me grounded and growing (and no, that’s not a contradiction in terms). My content isn’t sponsored, and everything I recommend comes straight from my everyday life. If that changes, I promise to let you know.

Some people might say that the job of an SLP is to teach kids how to say things clearly, which is true, but ultimately, I don’t care if your printer is laser, inkjet or dot matrix. My mission is to help people, big and little, communicate fully, authentically, and with love.