Final Week

This internship was something that was equally rewarding and fun for me this semester. I know that this is something that I will not be pursuing for my future, but I’m definitely glad I did it. I think it is important to show employers that I can be flexible and most importantly, patient. I think the greatest quality that I achieved through my internship was patience. My mentor was so patient and calm with her clients even when they weren’t. The client is the most important part of the equation. While the speech pathologist is there to make the parents and clients happy, her ultimate goal is to increase the productivity of the child’s speech.
This was a truly rewarding experience for me. I am moving to Indiana in January so I have been saying goodbye to the clients and the parents, which makes me really sad. I would really need to thank my mentor for exhibiting skills that I would never catch on to without spending so much time with her. I think it was really awesome for the parents to be cool with me spending time with their children and joining in on activities that they usually only spend with the speech pathologist. I’m glad they had faith in me not messing up the session for their child and trusting the speech pathologist that initially suggested allowing me to sit in on these sessions. These kids were so great and funny. It is very sad to be leaving, but I have faith that they were will continue to achieve the milestones that the speech pathologist has set for them.

Week 12

I think my internship is going well and I couldn’t immediately put my finger on something I would change other than getting up so early! But sometimes I feel that the parents or guardians should be more a part of the therapy session that my mentor engages with the client. I think sometimes the child may go home and not be practicing the right information or practicing the right skills that are necessary to supplement the lesson at the speech pathology center. I know many parents are not formally educated about their child’s illness or disability and how to help their child overcome the speech obstacles they encounter daily. I think it may be a good idea to go over activities with parents to practice with their child between visits with the speech pathologist. I think informing parents about various seminars or having a private session once a month or so to sit with the parents and explain what kinds of obstacles the child still faces and also the progress the child has made. I think this will help the parents understand what the speech pathologist is doing for their child and appreciate it more.
My mentor goes to conventions occasionally to learn about new ways to teach children with certain speech problems. I think after these conventions she should either make a newsletter for her client’s parents or have some sort of meeting with them to inform them of the highlights from the convention.
Overall, I think this is just one way that this organization could improve, but I am extremely happy at my internship site and I know that my mentor is happy with the way her business is going and the reward she gets from knowing she is helping a person everyday. She is helping a child have a more promising future and a more rewarding life.

Week 11

I think the biggest challenge that my mentor encounters is coming up with activities for her clients that push her client's abilities to teach them new things while not making them too frustrated. I know that my mentor has a waiting list of client's who would like to have appointments, so I don't think she is worried about anything with the economy right now which is good. I haven't heard of any of her clients being unhappy with the service she provides, and I think she significantly helps her clients improve their speech.
My mentor really enjoys what she does to earn a living and she doesn't dislike much. She has pointed out that this is something that she is passionate for and has been for a long time and only a person who is passionate can be happy in this field. She thinks she has gotten all the little quirks out of her business and thinks the business runs as smooth as it can at this point. Because this isn't a school and it isn't publicly funded, I think my mentor's client's appreciate what she does because if they didn't value the work they do with their children, they wouldn't be there. Obviously there aren't any group projects and everything is very individualized.
My mentor began this speech pathology company a few years ago and this is her ideal work environment. My mentor is so open to new things and shes seems so happy. Its hard to think that any other person could be better for this position.
My mentor has her masters degree in speech pathology which is pretty essential to her job and the success that she has acquired. I know that this is something that she loves to do and it is something that someone needs to be passionate about. Anyone who is passionate about their career like she is will definitely be successful.

Week 10

Just about every time I am at my internship, I am a shadow for my mentor. Everyday I get to work about an hour after my mentor does. I know that before I get there, she is preparing her lessons and activities for each client. When I get there, she usually tells me what she plans on doing for the day and for each client begin to set them up. If there is a break before the next client, we will wait to set up the activity. I have found that if I try to set up the activities for the day, it can become a bit clustered and I get confused. So if I put aside a few minutes and just become organized in my own mind I don't get overwhelmed. My mentor has an organizer so she writes everything down that we will be doing for the day. Now that I have been at my internship for a while, my mentor trusts me to understand what each activity is.
So after deciding on activities for the day, the rest of the work day goes pretty smooth. We have clients just about each hour and perform the activities that we've planned for the day. Once the client's have all gone and appointments are done for the day, we take a minute to organize our thoughts and I help my mentor clean up and organize all the activities that we performed that day.

Week 8

You can view my e-resume at
http://cacollamer.angelfire.com/christieco/resume.htm

Week 7

Although I enjoy working with my mentor at the speech pathology center, I do not think this is what I wish to pursue as a career. I see that my mentor really likes what she does and is enthusiastic about it every single day, even after 30+ years, but after almost two months, I'm getting a bit burnt out. It is exciting because your activities can change every day and with each client's needs, but nonetheless, it does become hard to continue on from week to week. I feel like there is a lot of pressure not necessarily on me, but on my mentor for each client because she is getting paid so that these children improve their quality of speech. I wonder if there is ever a time that she feels she is failing to improve with any child. The pressure to have a child increase their skills from week to week would probably be too much for me. There is nothing that I really dislike about my internship site, but it is definitely nothing I want to do in the future. I don't believe I will pursue a career in education, but you never know, because I may not have many other options. Because I have a good amount of experience in education, I think I could have a good career and make a decent contribution to education, but I think there are better, more patient people out there to take care of this. I think my internship site does teach me to be more patient with people in general and this will help me in my future. I intend on having children of my own in the distant future and I think my internship has and will be a great base of children's education. I have many aspirations for my life after college and I change my mind just about every day, but since one of my concentrations is psychology, I think that is a great base for any career. I intend on being in a job where I work closely with other people, so educating someone on a particular product and knowing how to make the product more appealing from a psychological stand point will increase my productivity.

Week 5

I think my internship site embodies many different disciplines, most notably education and psychology. In my educational psychology class, we discussed internalized and externalized learning. Internal learning is when students desire learning on their own terms, while external education could be classified as learning certain subjects due to things like grades. In my internship site, the clients are students and are most likely influenced by guardians to attend the sessions. Either way, they understand that attending these sessions benefits them in the real world which makes these clients more internal learners.
In a psychology class, we discussed the possible causes of autism. It is interesting to interact with children suffering from autism and their guardians because they seem to not let it interfere with their lives in a negative way. A lot of people believe that autism is a result of a child's vaccinations and some believe it is a result of genetics. Although I haven't discussed these theories with the parents of children suffering from autism, I can see that they are not blaming anyone or anything for what their child is going through, but instead, they are making the best of the situation and simply moving forward.
In another education class, we have discussed the self-fulfilling prophesy which would be described as acknowledging the restraints of people in the same situation and falling in the trap of these stereotypes. The entire speech pathology clinic is getting rid of the self-fulfilling prophesy because these families and clients are not giving up on their situation, and instead, they are taking steps to make their lives better. They are refusing to allow the stereotypes associated with their mental disorders to slow them down to lead the most rewarding lives possible.
And lastly, in one of my psychology classes, we discussed the social learning theory which is a result of learning in a social atmosphere. The speech pathologist does provide an essence of fun while teaching. When we do activities, everyone is involved and the client doesn't feel an intense amount of pressure. The client can also see that everyone is or has learned this information, and the client isn't learning this information for no reason. The activities are things like the game "memory", so it's actually fun for all of us participating.

Week 4

I think my internship site is more interdisciplinary than multidisplinary in many ways. When I work with the speech pathologist and her client, she is not only trying to teach the client knowledge, the purpose is also part of a hidden curriculum. The client and the speech pathologist know that being able to speak articulately is important int he world and especially in the work force. When I work with Ben who has down syndrome, he is not only learning the names of colors and shapes, he is also learning how to speak them clearly and articulately. Its not just about the actual names and colors of the shapes, but the words themselves and the sounds those letter combinations make.
The disciplines are so intertwined that breaking them apart is difficult. In one aspect, the speech pathologist is creating benchmarks for setting goals for her clients. She also reinforces the skills that they have already learned so as not to allow her clients to get "rusty".
Lastly, there aren't quite "departments" and the employees don't collaborate much except for advise on activities and ideas. The employees work independently with their clients which wouldn't make them interdisciplinary at all, but more multidisciplinary.

Week 2

Hey there! My name is Christie Collamer and this is my last semester at ASU!! YAY!!!! My concentration areas are education and psychology. When I first started college, I really liked psychology, and a friend introduced me to education classes soon after, which I fell in love with. I think psychology reflects my personality better than education because I really enjoy thinking about things in depth. Some of the hardest classes in my life have been psychology classes and as much as I have cursed these classes day after day, I ended up learning so many things that have been valuable in some creatively random ways that make me appear to be smart and that I've listened pretty well throughout the years.

My intern site is at a speech pathology center in Tempe where I am assisting a speech pathologist with her clients. I visited this site a couple years ago while I was taking a special education class at SCC and had to visit special education environments. I worked with a teenage boy named Ben who has down syndrome. He has an hour-long session every Wednesday and my goal is to be in his session every Wednesday. The owner also has another family who has two children with down syndrome who have gone to the speech pathology center for many years and just adopted a child from China who also has down syndrome. It's amazing to see that a family has given hope to another child who may not have had the same opportunities from another family.

My time so far has been somewhat introductory; I’ve mostly just participated in activities with clients on my first day. I know I will learn more about how to communicate with children with special needs in this experience. Although I don’t expect to become a special education teacher, and probably a teacher at all, I think the values I will learn will be important. As far as work goes, I’m not sure what I’ll do after graduation, but patience will be important no matter what, which is also what I’m learning at my site. I have a few job opportunities right now, but nothing that relates to my internship.

Obviously my internship is pretty related to the education theme of this class because I am working with children with speech impediments in a structured, educational environment. Other than this, my life is fairly undetermined after graduation, and I really don’t know where I’ll end up.