Blog 21 - Interview 4 Reflection

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  

• The most important thing I learned from the interview is that, there are benefits and downfalls no matter where you decide to pursue your career as an SLP. Whether that be in a hospital, school, or a private practice; you can't weigh them all equally against each other because all 3 have such different components to them. 

2.  How will what I learned affect my final lesson?

I dont believe there will be too much of a difference between what my lesson would've been before the interview and what it will now be after the interview, aside from me having  more knowledge to present to my audience. 

Blog 20 - Fourth Interview Questions

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?

• I plan to Interview my mentor Sara Romo, CCC-SLP. She is a licensed SLP who has worked in a school and hospital setting and currently owns her own speech clinic. 

2.  Post 20 open-ended questions you want to ask an expert in the field concerning your senior project. Your focus should be finding answers to your EQ.

1. Have you ever experienced working in a setting other than a school district?
2. If so, can you explain to me, what are the most obvious of differences? 
3. What do you feel the roles and obligations are of an SLP in a school setting are versus those of an SLP elsewhere? 
4. What are components that you find most important to help a client reach their development goals? 
5. What do you feel is the importance of a parent's role in a child's speech therapy? 
6. How much of a role SHOULD parents play in the success of their child in speech therapy? 
7. From personal experience, how much involvement have you seen parents have compared to what you believe it should be?
8. Have you ever had to be a speech therapist in an Early Intervention plan? 
9. If so, what exactly were the responsibilities you had to fulfill?
10. Do you believe that Early Intervention is an important aspect o f speech therapy for the success of a client? 
11. What different kinds of approaches have you seen or, do you personally have towards Early Intervention?
12. How young to you think a client should be for Early Intervention to be fully effective? 
13. Do you believe Early Intervention can be effective for ALL speech and language delays or for very specific ones? 
14. How important do you believe consistency is in speech therapy? 
15. In how many aspects of speech do you believe consistency plays a major role in?
16.  What is your definition of consistency? 
17. Do you believe consistency could extend to not only the client, but to the parents of the client and therapist as well? 
18. Do you currently have a mentor or did you have a mentor that you did or have looked up to throughout your career and education into speech therapy? 
19. Being an SLP in a school setting, do you feel you have more benefits or pull backs compared to SLP's in other settings?
20. What things would you recommend I do in order to further my knowledge in the speech therapy world?  

Blog 17 - Interview 3 Reflection

(Alejandra Miranda - SLPA)

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  

• The most important thing that I learned from the interview is that my answer one is not only something I consider important to the success of a client but also something speech therapist themselves consider to be important as well. 

2.  How has your approach to interviewing changed over the course of your senior project?

• I believe my approach to interview has changed over the course of the senior project by the way I phrase and present my questions. At first it was very professional and strict and now its more that I'll ask what I think is the gradual next question and I don't mind asking for further explanation instead o f moving on to the next question. 

Blog 14 - Third Interview Preparation

1.  Who do you plan to interview?  What is this person's area of expertise?

• I plan to interview Alejandra Miranda. She is a speech therapist that works under Sara Romo. This means that Alejandra is an SLPA, Speech-Language Pathologist Assistant, and is working on receiving her Master's Degree in Sciences and Communicative Disorders. 

2.  Verify that you have called your interviewee to schedule an interview.  What is the date and time of the interview? 

• The date of my interview if 3 Feb. 2016. The time is still to be determined. 

3.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you find research resources that would help to answer the EQ.

• While receiving your education to become a speech therapist, what kind of reading material did you, and have you, encounter that really spoke to you and have helped you make decisions you believe to be in the best interest of the patient? 

4.  Phrase an open-ended question that will help you think about other useful activities you might do to help you answer the EQ (IC2, possible experts to talk to, etc).

• While you've been a practicing SLPA, and even before while you were getting your primary education, did you have any mentors or professors or people of that sort that really helped you move along? Do you still keep in contact with these people? 

5.  Phrase two open-ended questions that help you to understand your interviewee's perspective on an aspect of your EQ. 

• How much of a patients progress in therapy do you believe falls fully on the therapist's shoulders? 
• Do you think that there is a difference of importance in goals for the patient or, you believe that each goal deserves the same amount of time and effort?

Blog 10 - Interview 2 Reflection

1. Please explain how you are spending your mentorship time (Is it at a workplace or somewhere else?  Are you shadowing?  Are you able to do tasks that are meaningfully related to the topic?  If so, what?  Are there other people who are experts in the location?  Etc...)

• I have been shadowing and occasionally playing with the kids. I task I do is passed them a toy that a therapist than asks them to name. Recently I have been holding up flash cards so that the kids can read off too. I plan to me more interactive with the kids in the future once my mentor and I start setting milestones for ourselves. 

2. How did you find your mentor?  How did you convince this person to help you?   

• My mentor is my grandma and I live with her. She was definitely very accessible. She was open to mentoring me since in her eyes she'd love if I was a part of the family business too.

3. How would you rate your comfort level with your mentor at this point in your relationship?  How does this relate to the time you've spent so far at mentorship/with this person?

• I feel very comfortable with my mentor. She knows who I am and I know who she is so we're not expecting anything out of the ordinary from each other.

4. What went well in this interview?  Why do you think so?  What do you still need to improve?  How do you know?  How will you go about it?

• My mentor didn't feel weird about the fact she was being interviewed and recorded, she just talked. The answers felt real and something she would always say, instead of them being strained and awkward. I still need to improve on finding more questions to ask. I have to think of more specific questions that are geared in whatever area I want to start concentrating on in Speech-Therapy. 

Blog 7 - Second Interview Preparation

1.  Who is your mentor and where do they work?  If their workplace does not reflect their expertise, what makes them an expert?

• My mentor is Sara Romo Miranda. She is a speech therapist with her own private practice. She is a SLPA, a speech-language pathologist, not an SLPA , speech-language pathologist assistant. Since she's a SLP, it means thats she has her Masters degree in her field. In my grandma's case, its her Masters degree in Sciences and Communicative disorders. 

1. What college did you go to , and for how many years?

1. Do you have your undergraduate degree in anything? 

1. How long was he process to open you own speech clonic?

1. Did you need another degree to open the clinic?

1. How long has your clinic been open and what kind of struggles have you encountered that you weren't expecting? 

2. What five questions will you ask them about their background?

Blog 5 - Interview 1 Reflection

1. I learned that every speech therapist, whether they work in a clinical setting, a school setting, or  a home setting, has a specific standard of work and even in that, no speech therapist performs them the same. There is no correct way to help a child learn especially because every lesson plan is crafted specifically for that child. In reality, everything depends on the client.
2. I don't regret interviewing David or the way that the interview went. If I were to change anything, it would jus the of course to interview someone different. As in, instead of interviewing a SLPA in a clinical setting, like David, I'd interview a SLPA in a hospital setting because they're two completely different work environments and they work with completely different clients. 
3. During this interview, David didn't specifically give me specific contacts but he did recall an introductory book on Speech Pathology that he would get me the name of sometimes after the interview.
4. Since I haven't received the book yet, I can't give an accurate description but I feel that since David used it at the beginning of his journey into Speech Pathology, that it could be very beneficial to me. I'll make sure to get back to you on that.
5. What makes my interviewee qualified to help me is the fact that he as an SLPA works under my mentor, Sara Miranda, who's an SLP. Sara Miranda has a Master's Degree in Sciences and Communicative Disorders which makes her an expert in her field and for David to be under her wing makes him also on his way to becoming an expert in his field. David has been working 2 years at My World Speech Therapy and plans to go back to school for his Masters degree in one year.

Blog 3 - First Interview Preparation

1. Who do you plan to interview? Why? 

• I plan to interview Speech-Language Pathologist Veronica Guitron. I plan to interview Veronica because she is a licensed Speech Therapist which means she has to be an expert in her field . I deem her an expert in her field  because in order to get your Speech-Language Pathology license you much have a master's degree from one of 300+ accredited programs. 

2. Five additional questions.

1. What made you interested in becoming a Speech-Language Pathologist? 

1. Did you know from a young age that this was the career you were going to end up with?

1. Had you not gone to school for Speech-Language Pathology, what would you have gone to school for? 

1. Could you see yourself going to school longer to get a higher degree in your field? 

1. Do you eventually want to be an owner of your own private practice ?