How I Got Here

Wondering how I stumbled upon this career of mine? It’s a funny story actually…

I started working with children in high school and upon graduation decided to go to college to be a teacher. However, being a teacher just never felt “right” though I wanted a career revolving around children. One evening in college, I was out with friends at a bar (I spent quite a bit of my time there! HA!) when a man came up to me and handed me a notebook. On it he had written “would you like to dance?” At first I thought this man was being cute and creative, as it was very loud (and…I may or may not have had too many drinks…). I went to respond to him and all of a sudden it hit me: This man is Deaf.

We ended up “talking” all night by writing back and forth in his notebook. However it wasn’t always easy understanding his message. He communicated using American Sign Language, which is NOT just a visual representation of the English language you and I speak. ASL has its own grammar/syntax and even its own slang! And when he communicated with writing, he did so with the grammar/syntax and slang of ASL. It was difficult at times to understand his message. To me, a lay person that knew NOTHING about Deaf culture or sign language, I looked at this “broken” English and wondered how was it that he was in his mid 20′s and had such poor writing skills. I mean, there are deaf actors, doctors, and lawyers, right?

That night I went home and googled all things DEAF and came across an occupation called a Speech-Language Pathologist. When I went and checked my university’s majors I was SO excited to see it listed. SO I went down the following day and changed my major.

That first week of speech pathology classes was amazing…until I found out that I needed to have a masters degree to be a speech path. (Guess I should have read the whole description before changing majors?) I was already on the six year plan for my Bachelors. But thank God I fell in love with the profession and after 8 years straight of college, I finally was able to practice as an SLP!

If you are STILL interested in more about me, you can check out my page that explains all about my Credentials, Training and Philosophy

Cheers!