When I first started in the field, I actually had not set out to be an SLP. It seems crazy to me now since I can’t imagine doing anything else, and it seems especially crazy since I not only think about speech everyday, but I think about apraxia even more. If I’m not thinking about apraxia or something apraxia related, it doesn’t last long.
No, I was working at a Dodge Dealership straight out of highschool, and stayed there to support me and my bachelor degree through college. It was perfect because many times as a receptionist I had time to do my homework in between phone calls. I initially thought I wanted to be a broadcast journalist. I was good at writing and speaking, or so my teachers said. However, the advisor said the market was saturated and that to be doing this career in Denver, I would have to get my start first in a small town.
Dealbreaker. Taking me out of Denver away from my family has always been a dealbreaker.
Well, what else can I do in speech communications? They had me fill out a questionairre, and I indicated I also liked physical therapy. I had blown out my knee my senior year of highschool basketball and it was honestly devastating to me at the time. I was a starter and the team captain, and I thought I could go to college and play ball. Well, God had other plans. I remember working a lot with my trainer and I thought that would be a cool job. The advisor suggested marrying the two and sent me to talk to the head of communication disorders to look into speech therapy. I had never really heard of speech therapy. I just wrote that and it seems unbelievable, but it’s true. Nope. At that time in my short life, I had never heard of speech therapy.
Catherine Curran was the head of the communication disorders at the time and suggested I take a language acquisition class to see if I liked it. I loved the class, the only problem was to be a speech therapist I’d have to have a masters, and no one in my family to this point had a college degree. I was going to college, but didn’t have any grand expectations, and I sure didn’t think I would ever have an advanced degree. That was just a crazy dream. I’m still very Type A though, and maintained a good GPA.
I pursued working at Dodge and found myself working my way up in customer relations. I got to know big wigs at Chrysler Corp and was certain I could work my way up from there. My umbrella degree was speech communications which seemed applicable. I wouldn’t have to mention the emphasis was in disorders.
Then, in 2003, right when I was graduating, the Great Recession hit. The car business TANKED. My boss who I was set to replace was making 40k and all the GM offered me was 13.50 an hour to do her job. I was livid. I had 5 years into the company. Was this is a joke?
Around that same time, Lisa Gessini, the head of the speech department in Denver Public Schools called me. DPS has approved SLPA’s and she saw I was on the list of students who had completed the pilot program. This program was a grant sponsored by three area colleges where I literally was paid to train to be an SLPA. Yeah, I did it, but again, not because I thought I would be doing speech therapy. They gave me 3k to go through the program. Sure I thought! I can get paid to do a little more college and practicums.
Lisa said the pay would be about what I was making currently at Dodge, but I would have summers and holiday breaks off. In the car business, this is when you MUST be working, because those are the times people want to buy cars.
Okay, what the hell. I’ll interview.
I got the job.
Hmm, alright. I’ll take it. Sucks that I have no opportunity to move up, since moving up would require a master’s degree, but I was disenchanted with Dodge and thought I would keep my contacts with Chrysler and go back once the economy recovered.
Guess you all know by now I didn’t go back.
No, instead I met another key player who is still in my life. Insert Deborah Hensley Comfort. That is literally what her name tag said. I was immediately intimidated. She used her maiden name as her middle name? Who does that? Her dad was a doctor. She had gone to Vanderbilt. She could quote researchers like I could quote pop singers. That’s not all that made her amazing. As I worked those two years as an SLPA, every SLP I worked under made progress with their students, but no one made it as quickly as Deborah. Her secret wasn’t really any surprise. Always planning out her lessons, never flying by the seat of her pants, constantly researching….her students’ progress wasn’t really a coincidence.
I worked under other SLP’s during that time. No one planned like Deborah. Many went into a session just winging it. Some did the same methods they had been doing for the past 30 years. Deborah’s sessions were always dynamic. To be honest, even though she could come across like a total ‘b’ word to colleagues (and she knows this because I have told her out of love), when she was in therapy someone turned on a switch. Her kids wanted to please her. They worked for her. She just had that “it” factor. I can’t explain it.
Anyway, there was absolutely NO way I could ever be like her.
I had another mentor at that time who I loved dearly. She was another master’s degree leveled woman with the name Roberta Hill Fehling. Yep, another woman who used her maiden name as her middle name. It may sound dumb, but this was just not the culture I came from. Anyway, Roberta could handle caseloads of 90 and have spotless and meticulous paperwork. She taught me a lot about CYA. Unfortunately, you don’t have as much time to see kids when your paperwork can stand “Judge Judy’s Test” as she would put it; so though her kids made progress, they didn’t make it as quickly as Deb’s. That doesn’t mean I fault Roberta. Not at all. In my field one lawsuit can bring down your entire career. Everyday when we write an IEP, we literally write a legal document and we are not lawyers. I’m sounding dramatic, but we can get fired on technicalities Seriously.
Anyway, these two women kept asking me when I would go to graduate school. I would laugh and give them a half smile. I had no plans to be an SLP.
One day, I walked into work and Deb had an impressive display of paperwork laid out on the table. As I looked at it, I realized it was paperwork to get me into graduate school. I saw the application, dates of the GRE, and a letter of recommendation.
“Deb….I….”
“Don’t say anything but that you’ll apply,” she pressed.
“Deb….you know I can’t afford to not work and go to school,” I stammered.
“I know that. I called my contact at UNC. They have a distance learning program. You can still work as an SLPA under me and go to school,” she said proudly.
My head was spinning. I didn’t want to let her down, but this was crazy. I started to stammer again and
“Laura, fine. You can say no. You can choose not to do this, but at least I will know in my heart I did everything I could to get you to go.”
What does one do with that? 90% of me wanted to say no, but 10% told me maybe I could actually get a master’s degree someday.
“Okay,” I said. “But I’m only applying to this one program. If I don’t get it, it wasn’t meant to be.”
“Fine,” she said beaming.
You may not be aware, especially if you haven’t had a great experience with an SLP, but graduate programs in speech language pathology are incredibly competitive and limited. It is not an exaggeration to say students will apply to 5-10 schools and maybe get accepted into one, if that. There are only two colleges in Colorado that have a program. At the time, the average GPA for students accepted was 3.9 at one and 3.87 at the other. I had the GPA….but….
Needless to say, I got in.
During that time, Deb had a kiddo with apraxia pop up on her caseload. She wanted me to attend a training with her. It was expensive…of course. I argued, she got the principal to pay, and next thing I knew I was sitting in a training given by an apraxia expert out of the Mayo Clinic.
Insert Ruth Stoeckel.
If I thought Deb was intense, Ruth was intense meets steroids. She was crazy smart. I spent the entire time scribbling notes and looking over at Deb who seemed to be understanding what Ruth was saying. That’s good. If I said I understood 50% of her talk at that time, it would probably be stretching it.
My first year as an SLP a little boy who was entering Kindergarten appeared on my caseload. Shy and frustrated, he was smart but nonverbal. About two months in, I had an alphabet BINGO game sitting on the table. Daniel took it out and proceeded to name all the letters.
“Daniel!!” I cried. “Listen to you!!” I exclaimed excitedly.
He beamed.
When we tried to combine the sound though with just one more sound….no go.
Hmm.
I googled apraxia that afternoon and found…
Insert CASANA.
I printed out articles from David Hammer and Edythe Strand. Certain it was apraxia I changed my treatment approach and pulled out that Mayo Clinic talk.
The day his dad came in and he said “Hi Papa” his father cried tears of joy. He picked up Daniel and hugged him with tears streaming down his face.
That was my first personal experience with apraxia. That summer I was terrified Daniel would regress. His family had no money for therapy, no medicaid, and his dad supported them by working at Chipotle. I offered to see Daniel for free. I really thought nothing of it. I loved Daniel, truly. I just wanted to continue the momentum, and at that time I didn’t have a family so I had free time. I’m happy to say I left Daniel speaking with a residual articulation disorder. He went to another district afterward. I think about him a lot.
One day I got a call from the SLP who filled in for my maternity leave during that time. She was working intake acute care at Denver General and Daniel had come through the door. She was sick. Daniel had been in a sledding accident and his speech was back to baseline.
Apraxia didn’t really come around again for me until Ashlynn’s dx. Around that time, I had another Kindergarten student walk through my door nonverbal with a working dx of suspected apraxia. I did exactly what I did with Daniel, and then started doing the Kaufman method, which Ashlynn was getting. His name was Bryan, and yes I love him too. During that time I discovered the CASANA conference was coming to Denver. This was the year after Ashlynn’s dx. I was on maternity leave and broke. It was expensive, but not one to disregard a coincidence I just KNEW it came for me. I went. I met the head of CASANA.
Insert Sharon Gretz.
She will laugh when (if) she reads this, but I told my husband I was going to meet my Julia Roberts. When I met her, I will never forget as I was telling her about Ashlynn tears welled in her eyes. I’ll never forget that. She didn’t say a word and yet she understood me so completely. I went on to tell her about Daniel and how I treated him using articles from google and a man named David Hammer. “Dave,” she said.
Insert David Hammer
I looked on incredulously. I must have been in a dream.
I was seated at a table with other SLP’s who were “bootcampers.”
“What’s bootcamp?” I asked innocently.
Sharon told me it was highly competitive and there was already someone who had done it from my area.
“Oh,” I said, face falling.
“But you should still apply,” she offered. I half-heartedly smiled. I’m young. I don’t have the experience others have, and I never went to colleges like Vanderbilt. Oh well, it was a cool thought.
I applied anyway that Fall. I needed a letter of recommendation from a family. At the time, I was only treating Bryan, and his family only spoke Spanish. The teacher said I could ask them to write one and she would translate it. I have never been so touched by a letter in my life. It was hand-written and so heart-felt. I had no idea that the things I had done with Bryan they had noticed. When the dad dropped it off, his brow was furrowed. He apologized for not having an education to write me a good letter, and he hoped it would be good enough. He really wanted it for me. I assured him it was good enough! Education has nothing to do with it! It was better than any perfectly punctuated letter in English. He looked skeptical. I smiled an enormous smile.
I sent it to CASANA. I was accepted!
Ruth, Dave, & Sharon awaited in Pittsburgh.
Walking on the campus of Duquesne University I had to pinch myself. How had a girl who thought she would be in the car business end up in Pittsburgh with an elite group of SLP’s and apraxia experts that I had read about in journals ready to mentor me?
To wrap up this story (if you’re even still reading) Deborah Hensley Comfort is now my daughter’s SLP (there is no one better). As I was relaying my Ronda Rousey story (another coincidence?), she smiled and said so sure,
“Oh Laura. I will retire soon. But I can’t wait to watch you as a PhD level professional.”
I laughed, but this time it was a different laugh. This time, my eyes had a glimmer. Laura Baskall Smith PhD CCC-SLP has a nice ring to it! Ha!
Now one could say they were all a series of coincidences, or others could say it was all part of a master plan. I don’t believe in either though. I believe God gives you messages and puts people in your life depending on circumstances or choices you have made, and you can choose to listen, or you can shrug your shoulders and brush them off.
I’m so glad I chose to listen.
