WORKING WITH AUTISTIC CHILDREN. SLP Graduate Program Essay!

This essay was if I had not discovered Speech-Language Pathology, what would I be going into?

Working with Children with Autism

The responsibility I feel to advocate for the children I work with does not end when I go home. It doesn't end when I am in public or talking to people outside of my field. Autism Spectrum Disorder and the people it affects are highly misunderstood. It is my job to help disseminate information to help more people understand.

I discovered the applied behavior analysis or ABA field while searching for speech-language pathologists to shadow. Instead, I found myself working alongside them in a pediatric clinic for children with ASD diagnoses. The children I work with range in age from three to nine, and range in types and severity of symptoms. Some simply require the prompting of functional communication. Others are not vocal and use alternative voices from LAMP devices to PECS.

In my job, I have been asked to consider aspects of my future career I have never had to tackle before. I am often the child's voice, and sometimes I am the advocate for the family of the child. When you stick up for the interests and dignity of your patient, you begin to see amazing outcomes. We have a child whose family was able to get a family photo for the first time in 5 years. We have a kid who felt proud of herself when trying new foods and wanted to share that excitement with her peers and therapists for the first time. She wanted others to know she was doing a good job. I almost lost my voice from excitement that day. These little signs of progress, these little behaviors that children begin to participate in when their therapy is going well and working--these are the things we are working for. These moments that remind us why we are doing our jobs, why we are working so hard to improve these children's' and their families' lives.

If I hadn't discovered speech-language pathology, I would be pursuing my BCBA. I currently work as a Registered Behavior Technician practicing ABA therapy. With a BCBA, I would not only be doing direct therapy but helping to develop the plans for the patient and work more directly with the families. It was school that translated my curiosity into a passion for learning, but it was the people I met along the way that inspired me. Science was not just something to learn and read about, it was to be translated into advocacy and passion for helping people.

I work at a pediatric clinic for children with autism, we offer ABA, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy. We serve well over 40 kids of the surrounding towns. And I love it. The people in the field are hardworking, collaborative, and passionate people who love helping others. I fit right in. We make meaningful changes to people's lives.

Maura, the part of your essay that properly responds to the prompt does not start until you reach the 4th paragraph. That is what you should have designed as your opening statement because it immediately delivers the answer that is required by the prompt. I am not sure why you felt a need to describe your advocacy to the reviewer in such a detailed manner when you were not being asked for that information. I understand that it relates to your interest in ABA but the presentation accidentally went into reverse. You should have first, explained what career you would have gotten into if you did not get into SLP and then used the explanation about your advocacy and current job to better develop that line of reasoning. Closing the essay using paragraph paragraph 3 would have done so on a strong and relevant note. I hope you still have time to revise the formatting of your essay to make it better suit the requirements of the essay.

@Holt
Thanks for your input!

I answered it a little uniquely and I understand that, but I did that as a way to make my essay unique. My goal initially was make it stand out that way, build up the evidence before presenting what the ultimate answer is.

I tend to enjoy essays that have interesting openings that capture me, not all of those start with reiterating the prompt.

I don't know. I'd really like to know if that's okay I guess.

I definitely will move paragraph #3 to the end of it! That's definitely a great idea.

The thing is Maura, the reviewer only has a limited amount of time to read your essay. He actually only has a few minutes to scan your essay for the proper response before he decides that reading your essay is a waste of time and he has to move on to the next one. Catch his attention by offering the response to the prompt within a minute of reading / scanning the essay. After one minute, his interest will start to wane. So don't wait for that to happen.

I really enjoyed reading your essay as a creative endeavor. As a reviewer however, I found my interest waning and wandering by the end of the second paragraph. That is a bad sign because that means the reviewer will quit reading by the end of the first paragraph. So always offer up the direct prompt response first. Then you can be as creative as you want in the second and succeeding paragraphs if you wish to. The aim of your essay should always be to inform the reviewer in the faster and most informative way at the very start of the conversation.

I reordered the paragraphs, I definitely get your point! Does this maybe work? I get in my first few "creative" sentences and then it goes directly into answering it.

It does work this way. However, in my professional opinion, it would be best to make the second paragraph the first one because it clearly states the other career you may have had. Then the current first paragraph becomes the second one and in the process, opens the discussion to show how your career path would have still been in the SLP field, just in different sections of the profession. If you reverse the order, the essay makes more sense because you have the following set up:

1. Response
2. Justification
3. Supporting information
4. Relation of the two career paths to your current profession
5. Concluding statement

So you end up offering a logical career progression with a touch of irony in your essay. Do you think it works for you?

@Holt
Thanks! I do like it!

Any tips for a more unique first sentence or is reiterating the prompt okay?

And how is there irony? Is that okay?

Any other thoughts on the content??

And seriously, thanks so much for helping me! I wish I could buy you coffee

Try both, create a new opening sentence with one version and use the paraphrased prompt in another. See which version you like best. Whichever appeals to you the most should be the version that you use. You will know which version is better when it seamlessly joins the rest of the essay without you wanting to revise the content of the opening statement. The irony is that whether or not you got into SLP, you would still find yourself working with kids and other parents of ABA kids. The content is fine like I said. You just needed to pay attention to some other parts of the essay in order to make it better. When you finish revising the order of the paragraphs, review the content in this new set up. If you still like what you read, then this is the final version that you should use for your essay.

@Holt
Thank you! Now the struggle is coming up with a new line! But it's certainly a good position to be in.

Yeah I'm hoping that even without SLP, my passion leads me to something similar will appeal to whoever reads it. It just sort of worked out that way.

Merged:

SLP Graduate School Essay!

Hello! This is the prompt:

•Why are you interested in pursuing graduate education in speech-language pathology? Please be specific and describe how your personal experiences, education, background, and interests have influenced your choice to enter SLP and to become a successful professional. What are your long-range goals as a future SLP?

•In the BLANK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL, we value advocacy, collaboration, community, critical thinking, diversity, equality, integration, and justice. Please select one of these values and discuss what it means to you and how you plan to continue to embody this value throughout your professional career in SLP.

Is it clear I picked advocacy? How could I make it more clear? What needs work? Thank you in advance! :)

The responsibility I feel to be advocate for the children I work with does not end when I go home. It doesn't end when I am in public or talking to other people outside of my field. Autism Spectrum Disorder and the people it affects are highly misunderstood. It is my job to help disseminate information to help more people understand.

I felt the same responsibility when I was doing my undergraduate degree. Along with two others, I helped developed a branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness or NAMI on my university's campus. Our team had all either experienced first-hand what mental illness was like or we had a friend or family member who was a survivor. We fought the stigma using our resources. We set up booths, we invited students to come listen to survivors, and we became involved with local support groups. We were advocates for ourselves and others who are so closely affected by mental illness. It was school that translated my curiosity into a passion for learning, but it was the people I met along the way that inspired me. Science was not just something to learn and read about, it was to be translated into advocacy and passion for helping people.

I found speech-language pathology while I was a neuroscience student. I was intrigued and did my own further research. It clicked; it fit together all the pieces of science I loved. The communication issues associated with neurological disorders were what interested me in neuroscience in the first place. Developing language and then using motor regions to plan it out and actually produce that thought to share with others fascinated me. Helping patients gain back or develop their own voice, their way of communicating was not a career I had previously known about. It tied together all that I felt I wanted in a career: advocacy, community, passion, critical thinking, and collaboration.

The field I currently work in I found after college. I discovered the ABA field while searching for speech-language pathologists to shadow. Instead of shadowing, I found myself working alongside them in a pediatric clinic for children with ASD diagnoses. The children I work with range in age from three to nine, and range in types and severity of symptoms. Some simply require the prompting of functional communication. Others are not vocal and use alternative voices from LAMP devices to PECS boards.

In my job, I've been asked to consider aspects of my future career I have never had to tackle before. I sometimes am the child's voice, sometimes I am the advocate for the family of the child. And when you stick up for the interests and dignity of your patient, amazing outcomes begin to happen. We have a child whose family was able to get a family photo for the first time in 5 years. We have a kid who felt proud of herself when trying three new foods and wanted to share that excitement with her peers and therapists for the first time. She wanted others to know she was doing a good job. I almost lost my voice from excitement that day. These little signs of progress, these little behaviors that children begin to participate in when their therapy is going well and working--these are the things we are working for. These moments that remind us why we are doing our jobs, why we are working so hard to improve these children's' and their families' lives. And this communication aspect of it, the speech pathology part of the holistic therapy is where my interests most lie.

The BLANK UNIVERSITY aligns with my goals and interests. Based on my background, I enjoy that the program is very research-focused and even studies ASD. The clinic I work with now has speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy on top of ABA therapy. I really enjoy the collaboration of the fields to aid in the overall therapy of the patient. I am a hardworking, passionate student who wants to make a direct difference in people's lives. I have a lot to learn to achieve my goals, and I want to get started.

Maura, although it is a bit confusing, the fact that you have stood up for your advocacy is clear in the essay. What is not clear, is what your long term plans after graduate school might be. Try to balance the presentation of both the advocacy and the long range career plans on a 50/50 basis. The best way to approach this essay would be to present your personal background (without the advocacy yet) that led you to the door of SLP first. Then follow it up with your academic pursuit of this line, keeping up the pace by then presenting your current professional role that could segue into your long term plans of say 1-5 years. Finally, close the essay with the advocacy explanation. That way the statement will follow a more logical discussion on paper and limit your unfocused discussion of your advocacy as it is currently presented. There is actually something very familiar with the topics presented here for discussion. Have you submitted parts of this essay to another university before? Please answer me honestly because the validity of your discussion in the eyes of the reviewer rests on the originality of the content of your paper.