I received my assignment, clinician,
client, and supervisor and can honestly say that I am excited to begin this leg
of my journey as a speech language pathology student. It will be exciting to
take a step back from my position as a graduate clinician with virtually no
preparation into a role where I can watch and learn while doing. My assignment
is a 47-year-old male with a diagnosis of anomic aphasia and dysarthria. I
immediately start thinking about my neural bases of speech and language course
last semester and everything I learned about upper motor neurons and damage to
the brain. I want to know so much about how this was sustained, if there was a
stroke involved and how long this individual has been in therapy. I learned
from reading the file that this is an individual who lives independently in
Stillwater. He has been in therapy at the university clinic for eight semesters
and. He is a Korean man adopted at age 7 to American parents. I instantly
thought about culture and wanted to ask so many questions about culture and
background without sounding “nosy.” After all, it is a part of my professional
duties. I learned from chatting with my graduate clinician, Kristin Van Ostran,
that he doesn’t retain much of the Korean culture because American parents in
Oklahoma raised him. I learned that he was a product of the special education
system as a youth and has learned how to cope with being an adult and thrive on
the job (he works as a bus boy at the country club in Stillwater). On the day
of my first observation I meet Ms. Payne in the observation room and she is
always so encouraging. She mentions that this client will be a good one for me
to work with and will give me many new experiences.
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