My name is Shelby May, and I aspire to be a pediatric SLP. I plan to work in my home city of Los Angeles. This means that I am sure to work with children from bilingual and/or low socio-economic backgrounds and children with adverse childhood experiences. Currently, I work as a tutor for the Compton Unified School District. This was where I was first introduced to the speech-language pathology profession. I often assisted the special education teacher, sometimes even serving as her aide. I got a first hand look at the challenges of children with developmental or intellectual disabilities, particularly for those who also had communication disorders. I was affected by one student in particular. He had ASD and was highly unintelligible. Unfortunately, this resulted in many behavioral issues. Many of his classmates saw him as a nuisance in class, and many adults felt annoyed when dealing with him. During his meltdowns, he would yell at his teacher. I felt terrible for the teacher, but I also felt bad for the child. He would regularly have meltdowns. Many of these issues arose because he was not able to communicate clearly. Unfortunately, this teacher did not have much support, especially since her aide was often absent. She could never really spare the time to try and understand him. Towards the end of the year, I was basically her aide, and many times I would have to focus on redirecting him. I think my presence helped, but he still had meltdowns. His meltdowns were often triggered by his teacher misunderstanding what he was saying, or when he was not able to learn due to his illiteracy. This whole experience was very illuminating. It even set me on my SLP journey. I had the opportunity to speak with the speech-language pathologist at the school about her profession. Her description of the job interested me. I thought that this profession was a great opportunity to help children, particularly ones like the student I worked with. One of the reasons that his speech was so highly unintelligible, even though he was in 4th grade, was because that was his first year being in school. This alludes to the type of home life he came from. Children with backgrounds like this are unfortunately very common in the public school system. I am now extremely motivated to work with these types of children to help improve their lives. I particularly want to work with children who have ASD or another pragmatic disorder, mainly because I know how isolating communication disorders can be. I plan to learn as much to help children with ASD by listening to the individual child's communication needs and planning an appropriate and thoughtful speech therapy, so they will be better able to communicate and advocate for themselves properly. I plan on incorporating activities that can be used by any caregiver regardless of socio-economic status with my individual patients in mind. Additionally, although I am only in my first trimester of graduate school, I am looking forward to improving the lives of these children. I even plan on learning Spanish and ASL sometime next year, when my class load lightens. I want to become a culturally responsive SLP prepared to meet the needs of the population that I know I’m going to be working with.

My name is Shelby May, and I aspire to be a pediatric SLP. I plan to work in my home city of Los Angeles. This means that I am sure to work with children from bilingual and/or low socio-economic backgrounds and children with adverse childhood experiences. Currently, I work as a tutor for the Compton Unified School District. This was where I was first introduced to the speech-language pathology profession. I often assisted the special education teacher, sometimes even serving as her aide. I got a first hand look at the challenges of children with developmental or intellectual disabilities, particularly for those who also had communication disorders. I was affected by one student in particular. He had ASD and was highly unintelligible. Unfortunately, this resulted in many behavioral issues. Many of his classmates saw him as a nuisance in class, and many adults felt annoyed when dealing with him. During his meltdowns, he would yell at his teacher. I felt terrible for the teacher, but I also felt bad for the child. He would regularly have meltdowns. Many of these issues arose because he was not able to communicate clearly. Unfortunately, this teacher did not have much support, especially since her aide was often absent. She could never really spare the time to try and understand him. Towards the end of the year, I was basically her aide, and many times I would have to focus on redirecting him. I think my presence helped, but he still had meltdowns. His meltdowns were often triggered by his teacher misunderstanding what he was saying, or when he was not able to learn due to his illiteracy. This whole experience was very illuminating. It even set me on my SLP journey. I had the opportunity to speak with the speech-language pathologist at the school about her profession. Her description of the job interested me. I thought that this profession was a great opportunity to help children, particularly ones like the student I worked with. One of the reasons that his speech was so highly unintelligible, even though he was in 4th grade, was because that was his first year being in school. This alludes to the type of home life he came from. Children with backgrounds like this are unfortunately very common in the public school system. I am now extremely motivated to work with these types of children to help improve their lives. I particularly want to work with children who have ASD or another pragmatic disorder, mainly because I know how isolating communication disorders can be. I plan to learn as much to help children with ASD by listening to the individual child's communication needs and planning an appropriate and thoughtful speech therapy, so they will be better able to communicate and advocate for themselves properly. I plan on incorporating activities that can be used by any caregiver, regardless, of socio-economic status with my individual patients in mind. Additionally, although I am only in my first trimester of graduate school, I am looking forward to improving the lives of these children. I even plan on learning Spanish and ASL sometime next year, when my class load lightens. I want to become a culturally responsive SLP prepared to meet the needs of the population that I know I’m going to be working with.

My name is Shelby May, and I aspire to be a pediatric SLP. I plan to work in my home city of Los Angeles. This means that I am sure to work with children from bilingual and/or low socio-economic backgrounds and children with adverse childhood experiences. Currently, I work as a tutor for the Compton Unified School District. This was where I was first introduced to the speech-language pathology profession. I often assisted the special education teacher, sometimes even serving as her aide. I got a first hand look at the challenges of children with developmental or intellectual disabilities, particularly for those who also had communication disorders. I was affected by one student in particular. He had ASD and was highly unintelligible. Unfortunately, this resulted in many behavioral issues. Many of his classmates saw him as a nuisance in class, and many adults felt annoyed when dealing with him. During his meltdowns, he would yell at his teacher. I felt terrible for the teacher, but I also felt bad for the child. He would regularly have meltdowns. Many of these issues arose because he was not able to communicate clearly. Unfortunately, this teacher did not have much support, especially since her aide was often absent. She could never really spare the time to try and understand him. Towards the end of the year, I was basically her aide, and many times I would have to focus on redirecting him. I think my presence helped, but he still had meltdowns. His meltdowns were often triggered by his teacher misunderstanding what he was saying, or when he was not able to learn due to his illiteracy. This whole experience was very illuminating. It even set me on my SLP journey. I had the opportunity to speak with the speech-language pathologist at the school about her profession. Her description of the job interested me. I thought that this profession was a great opportunity to help children, particularly ones like the student I worked with. One of the reasons that his speech was so highly unintelligible, even though he was in 4th grade, was because that was his first year being in school. This alludes to the type of home life he came from. Children with backgrounds like this are unfortunately very common in the public school system. I am now extremely motivated to work with these types of children to help improve their lives. I particularly want to work with children who have ASD or another pragmatic disorder mainly because I know how isolating communication disorders can be. I plan to learn as much to help children with ASD by listening to the individual child's communication needs and planning an appropriate and thoughtful therapy. I plan on incorporating activities that can be used by every care giver regardless of socio-economic status with my individual patients in mind. Additionally, although I am only in my first trimester of graduate school, I am looking forward to improving the lives of these children. I even plan on learning Spanish and ASL sometime next year, when my class load lightens into clinicals or sometime during my clinical fellow year. I want to become a culturally responsive SLP that is prepared to meet the needs of the population that I know I’m going to be working with.