clinic {spring 2011}

I don't know if I ever wrote about my clinic assignments last semester. I really appreciate the way CU sets up students' introduction to clinic: first years are paired with second years for the first semester. It eases a lot of anxiety (for me, at least) and is a very good learning opportunity. I had an elementary-aged literacy client, and a young adult stuttering client. Two very good experiences.

For your second semester, students (mostly) remain with their fall clients plus get several new ones. My client who stutters chose to discontinue therapy, so I lost that one, but still have the other. So, my assignments:

• As mentioned, an elementary-aged literacy client. I like this kiddo a lot. I am trying to change some of the session philosophy this semester because I felt that this client's focus was too much on games and prizes, and I want it to be on working hard to reach the goal of being able to discontinue therapy. This is difficult, but I believe it will be the most beneficial, and this client is reaching the age where it is even more important that reading/writing skills are solidified. Wish me luck!
• Project Learn. This is one of the infamous assignments at our clinic. It often causes a lot of grumbling among us graduate student clinicians. The set-up is that we go into three public school-based preschools in Denver one morning per week and work on the literacy/pre-literacy skills of vocabulary, phonemic or phonological awareness, and narrative. We are in teams of four and each have 3-4 kids assigned to us in each classroom. I am so not a fan of early mornings or commutes; there can be a lot of prep time and material making for three classrooms; it is super difficult to take data on individual kids when you have a group of them you are responsible for; and overall, these mornings are somewhat chaotic and very tiring. But the kiddos are pretty cute, and I think this will be a good experience. One interesting aspect of my assignment is that we were assigned one classroom of English Language Learners (who all speak Spanish). Yeah, I don't know any Spanish...unless I want to tell them my grandpa has a pick-up. These kids are super cute and the most behaved class of my three (sadly, they're probably terrified of this sudden change to English instruction for 40 minutes a week), but I feel terrible that they get excited to talk to me, and I have no idea what they are saying! Again, wish me luck! I am also accepting wishes for good travel weather and safe commutes.
• R-tic. I and my co-clinician have an elementary-aged client who has trouble producing the "r" and the "sh" sounds. I wasn't originally assigned this, but one of my good friends was assigned a client in this, and she was generous enough to let me join her as a co-clinician. I am really grateful for this opportunity because I have no prior experience treating articulation disorders, and I'm glad to start getting experience with it now since I would be likely to see this often in an elementary school setting.
  
• Stuttering Support Group. I'm really excited about this assignment. It's a support group for adults who stutter and a safe place to practice techniques. This is a half-semester assignment, and I don't start it until March, so I don't have much to say about it yet.
• LLD Dx. This is the one assignment I really, really wanted. Our team of five does diagnostics for language and learning disabilities for clients aged 8-ish to adult. Most often clients request this diagnostic because of trouble in school, problems reading, and concerns of dyslexia. We have not seen a client yet, so I am still really intimidated, but I think this will be an awesome learning experience. Diagnostics are intense -- 6 hours of testing divided between two days. I am also really excited about my team members.

There you have it. My clinic schedule right now is pretty great because I am done by Tuesday. Tuesday itself is a total bear with clinic straight through from 7am-6pm, and it is really exhausting, so I am glad I don't also have classes on Tuesdays. Haha, I don't even know yet how exhausting Tuesdays will really be since we haven't had a diagnostic client yet. Wow. I'll see if I am still standing at the end of the day next Tuesday (which will be tiring to the extreme since we have to make up a 3-hour class that evening...ug).