Never Stop Learning

Our professions being hybrids of many scientific perspectives, there is a lot for the professional to do to keep skills sharp and responsive to the needs of persons served. We find our roots in child development, psychology, dentistry, counseling, electronics, linguistics, gerontology, radiology and many other disciplines. I am not kidding when I initiate a marketing talk with anyone I see, and say that SLP's motto should be "everything but obstetrics".

A classic example of our diversity of perspectives on communication is found in the current issue of JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE and HEARING RESEARCH.  Papers on cognitive load, Parkinson disease, vowel acoustics, stuttering in children, early literacy, adult dyslexia, self-assessed hearing handicap and cochlear implants fill the pages. Before the journal had been transferred to a totally online platform, you needed a good meal before lifting its hard copy. It encapsulates much about the breadth of the professions.

We practitioners can therefore tack our professional sloops into the winds churned up by many theoretical storms: we can attend university or online classes; attentively fill auditoriums of continuing education events; seek out and digest books, journals, newsletters and blog posts; we can go to our local experts to build and reinforce our skill set.  If we have burrowed deeply into the work and discovered some things, we can even become the local experts!

 The clinician who spins and grinds with the daily grind of clinical work will soon discover, that there is so much learning to be done with every person you serve! That is, you get to know your clients and patients through their life history and their daily interactions with their environments - not just their needs for their treatment plan. This makes treatment functional and personalized, as medicine that takes into account a person's genetic predisposition is now termed personalized.

When a child after TBI wants to learn to eat a "Chicago hot dog" again, you train on component skills the teen needs to successfully swallow the ingredients and textures in the Chicago dog. Perhaps: the final session held at the ball park! If there is a senior with dementia on your caseload, whose best days including records made by Glenn Miller, having "Moonlight Serenade" in the air during a treatment session can make sessions golden.

Personalized therapy: it feels really good when the clinician does it right. Getting more and more mindful in treatment when you are learning a person's life for the best treatment plan, requires you never stop learning.