The experiences that are in my thoughts and close to my heart are the ones that have inspired me to start my private practice. My goal for speech and language therapy is to help children with mild to severe communication difficulties make connections with their family, friends, and the community. I want to work closely with the child’s family and team so that we can help their child improve their speech and language skills. I want to provide accent modification training to non-native English speakers so I can help them communicate effectively and progress in their profession. Speech Dynamic Solutions’ mission is to help people communicate effectively and make connections within their community.
I have many memorable experiences that make me love my job as a speech language pathologist. My first job was working in Japan. During this time, I was able to learn about different cultures and work closely with families who are non-native English speakers. This experience taught me the importance of providing cultural competent services and responding to cultural and linguistic differences. A few years later I worked in a center based program which allowed me to spend 2 days a week with 7 children who had multi-disabilities. I was involved in these children’s entire school day. This job made me see the importance of working closely with a team of teachers and therapists. I was able to see how I could help these children communicate in a large group, with their friends, in the lunch room, on field trips, etc. This environment was where I gained a lot of experience helping children initiate language using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). After leaving this job, I worked for a private practice and provided speech/language therapy in children’s homes. This was a wonderful experience because I developed a close relationship with the child and their family. I was able to share what we worked on in therapy with the child’s mom, dad, caregiver, grandmother, and even their brother and sister. Then I worked in a setting where I was a member of a team (a.k.a. “The Dream Team”) who collaborated about student’s goals, therapy, class activities, social groups and much more. I learned valuable information from special education teachers, occupational therapists, physical therapists, visual impairment specialists.