There is nothing easy about being a speech-language pathologist. The schooling is rigorous. The students are complex. People never seem to understand exactly what it is we do. The fact is, I did not choose this field for its simplistic ease or notoriety. No. I choose it to improve the lives of others through compassion, knowledge, and hard work. I chose it, because, at the very core of who I am as a person, I’m a healer. 

 

Through the good days and bad, I hold my identity close to my heart. It fuels my motivation to read research articles and to attend late-night lectures for CEUs that I don’t need. It inspires me to not only engage my school-aged students, but to ask their caregivers, “How are you and how can I help?” 

 

Deep in my bones, I know my identity as a healer was truly carved by my very first student -- and I think about him often. An eight-year-old boy who was called lazy and unmotivated. His parents were told their son would never graduate high school. His desperate parents, feeling something was awry in their gut, pulled the boy out of school to meet with a private speech-language pathologist where their suspicions were confirmed -- the boy had severe dyslexia, inattentive ADHD, dysgraphia, and executive dysfunction. He was not lazy or unmotivated. He just had an untreated disability. 

 

I rolled up my sleeves and got to work in the only way a new healer knew how. I read his class book to him, Charlotte's Web, and stopped periodically to ask comprehension questions. I reviewed phoneme-to-grapheme correspondences, specifically for the vowel sounds. I wrote stories with him, prompting ideas with a graphic organizer and correcting his frequent p/q and g/q letter reversals. 

 

Through a multimodal and systematic approach, the boy’s reading level improved six grade levels in six months. However, I wonder exactly how much, if any, impact I had on my first student. You see, while this boy was my first student…  I was not yet a speech-language pathologist. I was his ten-year-old sister, insistent on helping my “lazy” and “unmotivated” brother.

 

In addition to his actual speech-language pathologist, I also worked with him after school, everyday, for years. I worked to build his confidence, to reveal his capabilities, and to prove his genius-level visuospatial skills. In May 2021, this boy, my little brother, my first student who carved my identity, defied all odds and graduated from college with honors.

 

When I sit down at my desk and ready my mouth puppet for the day ahead, I’m not thinking about how large my caseload is or how many IEP meetings I have this week. I’m not thinking about the inconvenience of COVID-19 mask regulations or the list of paperwork I have to write. Instead, I think about my brother and his speech-language pathologist. I think of how far I’ve come and why. I think about my unwavering identity as a healer. Then, I roll up my sleeves and get to work.