Before starting college, I hardly knew anything about speech therapy. I knew some kids needed help saying their R’s or S’s, but I didn’t know how much studying and theory goes in to the idea of speech therapy, or how broad of a field it really is.
My grandpa was diagnosed with ALS about 5 years ago. ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that leads to death in nearly all recorded cases, with the life expectancy being 2 to 5 years after diagnosis. The disease attacks a person’s nervous system, eventually rendering the individual immobile. Before his diagnosis and before noticing some of the signs of the disease, my grandpa loved to walk his dog, hug his grandkids, and golf. ALS took these things away from him. It also took away his ability to communicate effectively. I remember sitting on the couch next to him watching TV, and it took him a solid minute to say a simple word because his muscles just couldn’t line up with his thoughts. I wanted so badly to help him in any way. I wanted to be able to talk to him like I was able to a year before. I wanted to do something about the horrible disease that was making it nearly impossible for my grandpa to talk.
It was at this time in my life when I decided I wanted to study speech-language pathology. Every person has the right to communicate. When anything, whether it be a disease like ALS or a simple speech impediment, gets in the way of someone’s ability to communicate, there should be options for that individual to get therapy or assistive devices so that they can say what they need to say. So they can tell their families they love them, or ask for help, or tell a joke.
Studying speech-language pathology means studying hearing and balance, the development of language in children, how to phonetically transcribe words, and countless other subjects that must be mastered in order to be successful in the job. Upon graduation, speech pathologists can work with kids in the school system, in a clinic with a wide variety of patients, with the elderly in a retirement home, in a hospital with rehabilitation patients, or any number of options.
Speech pathology is about more than refining syllables or teaching kids how to say certain sounds. It’s about helping people communicate with loved ones, relate to others, and live the lives they deserve to live.