At a recent staff meeting, one of my co-workers exclaimed that her school aged client told her that she wanted to be an S-LP just like her speech-language pathologist. Another co-worker told me of a client who did a project on her for school as “someone who made a difference in my life”. These stories make me realize the impact we have on our clients’ lives. Every day, we take for granted the ability to order our morning coffee or ask for the salt at the dinner table, but for some people these skills do not come easily. They have a hard time putting words together to communicate their wants and needs or don’t understand the rules of conversations and how to ask for things. That’s where an S-LP comes in. Through speech therapy we are able to help people build our clients’ communication skills. We help them become more independent communicators in school, with friends, at work, and with their families. Whether working with a preschool or adult client, we not only build vocabulary or articulation skills, but we build the confidence to communicate with others in everyday situations. This can and does have great impacts on all of the day to day scenarios these people encounter. I am not surprised that my co-workers’ clients want to be an S-LP after achieving success in therapy; or that they feel their S-LP has made a difference in their life, because that is what we do on a daily basis. I am proud to be an S-LP!
Written by: Carolyn Davidson, speech-language pathologist, The Speech Therapy Centres of Canada Ltd.