How I Became A Speech-Language Pathologist

January – from Janus, the Roman god of two faces, looking backward and forwards, probably a prototypical visage for the gardener; another year of growing ends while a new one begins. Gardening is a “yearlong” or continuous cycling of growth and decay; the veteran gardener knows that there is no absolute end to a growing season, but instead there are transitions upon transitions.

A blizzard big enough to leave 23 inches of fine white powder about homes and businesses, is nonetheless paying it forward by providing the ground water as solace for the next season. January is a beginning, yet only an arbitrary beginning. We could be starting the calendar year in November, or even in July.

 But I digress; we have our start to the gardening year in January. We also have now, the start of my story of how I began my career of speech-language pathology (SLP). It was nothing I had ever expected in my quest for a job and a future. But like the gardening year, we don’t know what will be the end of a career until it is the end. Yet In the spirit of this opening, it is also the beginning. Where to start??

I became a speech-language pathologist because – how to say it simply? – It is the helping profession that taps my skills better than any other. I had known I would be in an important profession from an early age. But, Fred Mc Murray couldn’t turn me on to aeronautical engineering, even after I had watched seasons of MY THREE SONS. Neither could Robert Vaughn make me into an espionage operative, after THE MAN FROM UNCLE grabbed my attention for guns and geek stuff. Dick Tracy: could he have helped make me a copper? I flashed my Dick Tracy Fan Club badge to almost a hundred members of a receiving line, after a family friend was married. I was about six, and the receiving line was not impressed.  Nurses are thick among my family members: older sister, cousin, aunt, maternal grandmother...but i neither saw myself as either nurse or physician...In real life, I had changed majors from chemistry to English in my sophomore year. The prospect of a double major in English and history did not dilute the anxiety I felt for the future I had to make.

What made the choice of a career doubly HARD – was that I did well in everything in school, and found that, strictly on the strength of an academic transcript, I could have gone in so many career directions. A depressing situation – but when I had attempted to push through for a BA in English and a secondary teaching certificate, I had learned I had to address a personal problem that had bound my energy and outlined my personality since grade school. I had to undertake treatment for my stuttering. Teacher education students had to pass “general speech”, and my initial presentation to that class bought me little more than notoriety. Get it fixed or your career options have been narrowed, I thought.

The summer session brought my miracle. SLP services had not been available in my local school system. When the evaluation was completed at the university clinic, I was told I had a mild fluency disorder. The feelings I had about myself, and about my ability to communicate and assert myself - they were not mild. I was a Janus creature in my own right. Could I stop being pulled by habits, attitudes and the weight of my past,  learning instead to face only forward, with courage and confidence?

 I learned fundamentals of controlling fluency, and desensitization to speaking situations, then - it was all about putting the skills to work. I acted in a play that same summer! When I found I could change myself and be a bigger me, it seemed natural that - I could learn to do this for the benefit of others. The B.A. was followed by acceptance to a master's degree program in communication disorders, on the same campus.

It was only the beginning of how the career shaped me, and vice versa. More later, on how this SLP career has evolved.