Would you like a garden?

Regular readers of this blog, or of my other writings and presentations, know how enthusiastic I am about gardening in clinical speech-language therapy. It is fun. It's rewarding for clinicians who do the work, and for the persons enjoying the 'fruits' of the work. Though not expensive to carry out, the creation of gardening structures and the sweat equity you put into their use, can offer incredible returns on investment in a clinical laboratory to serve the persons you are entrusted.

Entertaining, innovative; providing multisensory stimulation; a haven from the clamor and buzz of modern life; and you can eat the toys! Like hippotherapy,  aquatherapy and corporate SLP, gardening can energize the SLP'S career - but I believe the gardening laboratory should be an experience that SLP's have from the beginnings of their career.

I would like to see a laboratory garden (or teaching, training, therapy or whatever kind of garden you call it) in every SLP training program: very simply put. You learn during your training to assess phonology; you learn to train phonatory function to help someone speak clearly in real life; you learn how to use FEES for swallowing - and you can also find 10 words that go with 'tomato', while growing Napa grape tomatoes.

The options for stimulating communication and thinking are too numerous to count now. Would this garden require an SLP student to develop a horticultural skill set, in addition to their professional training?  Not necessarily. But at least 4 options exist for starting and sustaining the 'therapeutic garden' for a university speech and language clinic, with various levels of start-up and maintenance costs. Are there other advantages to the new professional? To the training program? To other programs and departments at the school?

Yes, yes and yes. The new professional gains working experience in a real-life environment that is conducive to clinical magic. The training program has a recruiting tool, as well as a student training site that can be shared and coordinated with the help of other departments (e.g. life sciences, consumer science, nutrition) to achieve unique or unified missions.

In the state of Illinois, there are 15 college/ university programs that prepare future speech-language clinicians for the bachelor's degree or above. I look forward to reaching out to each program as an unpaid consultant during the program's summer term. The goals of consultancy are to identify programs committing to development of a therapy garden by fall 2016. SO - Illinois SLP training program directors: Do you want a garden?