The Life of an SLP

If you have read my "About Me," you know that I'm a speech-language pathologist (SLP), or in laymen's terms, a speech therapist, for a school district. I absolutely LOVE my job! I feel truly blessed to be able to make a difference in children's lives. Some may think that the work in schools is a little monotomous, but the kids make the job fun and exciting! Here's just an insight on my job:

• I have a caseload (or the # of kids I see a week) of 48.
• I help kids with a wide variety of disabilities (Articulation, Language, Autism, ADHD, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation, etc.)
• I serve these 48 kids in 3 1/2 days. One other day a week to devoted towards testing kids for initial/re-evaluating eligibility. The 1/2 day is devoted to meetings with staff members of the program I work for.

The saying, "Kids say the darnest things," is SO TRUE! Here is just a few of the "sayings" I've heard this year:

• "Boy, I sure could use a good ole hamburger right about now." This was at 9am, and this child had eaten breakfast maybe a hour before his session.
• A 5 yr old girl reaches and squeezes one of my breasts and says, "You have boobies." I told her, "Yes, I do have boobies. All girls have boobies, but we don't touch."
• "For speech, can we just sing our words? I would rather sing our words today."
• When playing with farm animals, a 3 yr old boy picks up a horse and says, "whore, i a whore." He deletes all his final sounds in words. He meant to say, "Horse, it's a horse," but that's what sounds like.
• "Mrs. Reed, picking nose gross?"
• "Mrs. Reed, you're so funny!" The way this kids said it made it what it is!
• Ohhh.... and for kids who have difficulty saying their r's, they say my name like "Mrs. Weed".