In our ‘About Us’ section, Alaina and I mention that we practice privately in the East Metro area of the Twin Cities. A detail that we did not include in this section is that I am starting the PhD program at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, starting this spring. As I applied to the PhD program, and now, as I embark on the next few years as a doctoral student, I have been thinking about the intersection of classroom knowledge and clinical skills.
Clearly, there is a certain amount of knowledge that is
critical as one begins her career as an SLP.
But there is also a great deal of experience that drives one’s knowledge
and intuition as a clinician. This is not to say that we intuit an interpretation of
standardized test scores (as an example).
However, therapy designed to improve communication abilities should have genuine and humane characteristics. Perhaps we may be more successful at cultivating these components through empathy and thoughtful reflection. It seems reasonable that the connection we are able to establish with individual clients can be considered a powerful clinical tool, influential in our practice and our ability to help them achieve goals and learn new skills.
However, therapy designed to improve communication abilities should have genuine and humane characteristics. Perhaps we may be more successful at cultivating these components through empathy and thoughtful reflection. It seems reasonable that the connection we are able to establish with individual clients can be considered a powerful clinical tool, influential in our practice and our ability to help them achieve goals and learn new skills.
I did not learn that as a master’s student, and I wonder, is
it possible to model that value to students as they prepare to become
clinicians? I recently read an article (Everyone’s Developmentally Delayed, Starting with Us) about how faculty members who teach at the college/university level should have
better knowledge about reaching all different types of students who are at
varying developmental stages (to help more students be more successful
academically and to increase student retention). In the article, Tom Bissonette discusses the idea of being ‘vigilant lifeguards for (our)
students.’ Given, Bissonette discusses
different areas of development (e.g. social, intellectual, emotional) within
college students (particularly when they first begin post-secondary study), and
I have posited the question of modeling clinical skills (to master’s students
studying to become SLPs) within their graduate-level courses. Nevertheless, I am interested in the idea of
modeling clinical skills while providing explicit instruction during knowledge
based classes.
I have found my most successful moments as an SLP to be
those in which I am most flexible and dynamic in my teaching methods. I have observed the individuals with whom I
have worked to experience the greatest amount of success toward reaching their
objectives when our communication (what they are working on) is grown out of an
authentic connection. Sure, articulation
cards are helpful tools. But, in my
experience, they don’t get individuals to work particularly hard.
I wonder how as a professor (someday. . .) I may model the
importance of developing authentic connections from which communication can be
grown. I don’t mean to say that the
professor-student relationship is a therapeutic one, but as therapists we are
in the business of teaching new skills. Graduate students are meant to learn
knowledge, but they are also expected to learn clinical skills. I have to believe that at least some of these
skills could be cross-trained (read: modeled) in the classroom.
