My name is Katy, and I am currently in my first year of my Masters of Speech Pathology degree, and this is a day in my life as a student Speech Pathologist at De Silva Kids Clinic!
My role as a student speechie includes creating session plans for my assigned clients and debriefing them with my clinical educator. For each session, I develop and create resources for the activities tailored to each client. Resourcing has been very fascinating as I am able to see various types of materials that I have only seen in textbooks. Under the supervision of my clinical educator, I am able to run sessions on a daily basis according to the session plans that I create. This has been an invaluable experience where I am able to reflect and develop my clinical skills. After each session, I self-reflect on my strengths and weaknesses and draft up a progress note for my clinical educator to review. As a speech pathologist, I believe that it is essential to reflect on self-performance consistently as it is significant for our personal and professional growth.
I have also had the opportunity to observe other Speech pathologists in the clinic during their sessions. It is always very intriguing to see how each SLP’s have their own strategies when working with children. Through observing, I managed to pick up on a few different strategies and intervention activities that I will try to utilise in my future clinical interactions.
I am very grateful to be given the opportunity to be placed in De Silva Kids Clinic for my intermediate placement. It has been an amazing four weeks where I have been able to see myself grow and develop over the time. Through observing and running sessions I was able to gain an insight into my future career path in the paediatric setting. Making this placement more memorable than anything else was being able to work with an amazing team and a supportive clinical educator, Anita. It has been a real pleasure to start my journey as a speechie here!
Written by Katy, Speech Pathology Student from Melbourne University.
