The Convention

So, for those of you who know (or care), I was in Boston at the annual American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) National convention.  The convention entailed entirely too much  'stuff' to write about in a blog, so I will give you the highlights.

We (Megan, Meghan, Nicole, Colleen, Sally and I) stayed in a hostel in Boston.  We were all (not Sally for some unknown reason) in a co-ed room with 14 beds in it.  I don't think that at any one point all the beds were filled, but there was a constant influx of people.  Anyway, the majority of the people in our room were all speech pathologists or audiologists going to the convention.  There were two girls (I don't remember their names ... another Megan I think and someone else) and three other guys (Mario, George, and Patrick).  To make a long story short - we did a lot of stuff together.  

About the convention: at any time people had three options to choose from they could attend sessions (lectures by experts), visit the exhibition hall (a giant room [literally the size of a football field] filled with companies that sell therapy products, and companies looking for employees, or the attendees could browse posters (individual oral presentations of an individual's research).  

So, George was from Greece, and was here presenting a poster on augmentative and alternative communication in the case of a Greek man with a traumatic brain injury (by no means a ground breaking presentation, however, speech pathology is very new in Greece, so it is new research in Greece).  Mario presented a poster, however, I don't remember what it was on, quite possibly something to do with voice rehabilitation after a laryngectomy (surgical removal of larynx secondary to laryngeal cancer).  

Anyway, mostly, I perused the posters.  I found that quite enlightening - especially that in the not too distant future I will be doing my own poster presentations.  So, not surprisingly I spent a lot of time around the posters pertaining to stuttering.  This is how a poster session works - you either have a specific poster you want to see, or walk around looking for interesting posters, when you find the one you're looking for you read the poster and ask the author to walk you through the research.  They give their 1 minute prepared schpeel, and then you ask questions.  So, once again making a long story short, I read a lot of research, some of which I thought was really really cool, other that I wondered why the authors wasted their time (poorly designed methods etc).  But even better then that,  I met a great deal of other people who stutter.  Up until this past weekend I knew very few people who stutter (clients not included).  But, I met students doing posters, people browsing posters, and even professors and researchers doing posters who all stutter too.  The range of severity was incredible.  There are two that come to mind (the two extremes) a woman who said she stuttered, but I never heard her stutter, and a young man (about my age) who had a lot of prolongations and repetitions.  He was using a lot of block modification (a therapy technique).  

I think that the most encouraging thing was engaging in conversation about stuttering, stuttering research, stuttering therapy and all the secondary characteristics that go along with it.  (I learned that I have a little be it tremor in my left cheek when I stutter - a woman from England told me that...I didn't know that before).  Anyway, enough on that - just know that I am that much more sure that going on to get my Ph.D. is the right course of action for me.

I also interviewed.  I went into the convention with the mindset that I would not find a job (rest assured, I have not signed any papers).  I also spoke with professors at some of the schools I am considering for Ph.D. work.  

I volunteered by giving directions, and standing in an information booth all day on Friday (to cover the cost of my registration) - I would not do that again.  I missed so much stuff.  If I were able to pick the time and location of my volunteering then I would consider it, but I missed so much that I'm not sure it was worth it.   

So many stories, so little time.  I need sleep.  I will hopefully add stories later.

Ah, but I miss Boston.  If I could afford to live there I would live there in a heartbeat.  The size, culture, mass transit, location, history are all wonderful.  I miss it.  I think I could afford it with a roommate ... 

My Day of Silence

So yesterday was a day to remember.  For a class assignment I was not allowed to speak write or use sign language.  Instead, I was to build a communication board and use that along with gestures, non-speech vocalizations (uh huh), and facial expressions/body language to communicate. 

Needless to say it was an interesting day.  It began at Waterstreet (the variety in my coffee joints absolutely astounds me).  I walked up to the counter and placed my communication board on the counter.  The attendant looked at me with a puzzled glance.   I let her read my introduction paragraph - basically saying for a class I was not allowed to speak etc.  I had it all planned out - on my communication board I had cells labeled 'coffee' and right next to it a cell labeled 'incredible bar' (peanut butter fudge covered in dark chocolate - delicious.  In my plan, when I would tell the cashier what I wanted I would only point to coffee and I would see if I got an incredible bar to - I had built some ambiguity into the system to see if the attendant would follow my communication or if he/she would assume too much and give me both items. 

Well, my plan was partially thwarted - the attendant was too good a communication partner - she did all the work so I didn't need my communication board.  She asked yes and no questions before I could tell her what I wanted with my board. So, she asked me if I wanted coffee, and then I said yes and spelled out d a r k for the dark roast.  She then asked me if I wanted room for cream, I indicated no.  Then, contrary to every other time she didn't ask me if I wanted anything else.  If I had wanted an incredible bar I could have shown her the icon for it.  Because I didn't want anything other than coffee everything in the communicative exchange went well.  The thing I can't tell is if my order is so ritualized that she knew I didn't usually get anything other than the dark roast, or if she wanted to exchange to go smoothly so she kept it simple.

Anyway, I did a lot of no talking and pointing and such.  During my day I took a break from being silent and had a meeting with Dr. Tasko about PhD stuff.  To make a long story short, we talked about what I should do, and where I should go and all that jazz.  So, I have a new top five list:

1. University of Iowa

1. Purdue University

3. University of Colorado-Boulder

4. Vanderbilt University

5. University of Pittsburg

I have contacted people from these universities, and am awaiting replies.  I am still planning to take a year or two off, but one of the things Dr. Tasko said was to establish lines of communication early, because the professors will be able to let me know when funding will become available.  I refuse to go anywhere that does not give me funding.

Now I get to begin the process of reading the researcher's past work, visiting the campuses, talking with faculty, etc.  But - first graduation and finding a job.

And all that jazz

So, I'm at Waterstreet (surprise, surprise) and I just overheard a group of coeds studying for a test of some sort.  It had some medical (neurological) component to it - they were discussing aphasia (a group of language disorders that occur after a stroke or traumatic brain injury).  Anyway, my brain ached because their definitions of aphasia were so simple.  I thought about going over to explain to them that in Broca's aphasia it's not just that your 'tongue is broken', but rather your brain is not able to tell your mouth how to form words with the ease it did before the stroke, and that Wernicke's aphasia was not 'a loss of short term memory', but rather, an inability to accurately process incoming acoustic stimuli, thus your speech production is a series of phonetically correct words but the message of the speech has been lost (that's why it's called empty speech - the message is not there anymore).  Alas, I decided to let sleeping dogs lie, and didn't correct them of their misnomers. 

In other news ... my supervisor was at a conference in Grand Rapids today, so I did therapy all by myself!  Everything went fine - nothing out of the ordinary (we did have two more emotional mini-breakdowns than usual, but nothing I couldn't handle).  Our afternoons are usually spent doing assistive technology stuff, but because Elizabeth wasn't here I went downstairs and "helped" Sarah. (Helped is in quotations because she doesn't need help, and by my being there I increased her work load, but I helped.  On the flip side, one of the kids Sarah worked with today had his best day ever - he was independently signing - something that hasn't happened yet!).  Sarah works with a young population that Elizabeth and I work with.  Our caseload consists of middle-high school aged kids with severe cognitive impairments.  Some of our students have some autistic traits, but no one with full blown autism (we're all on the spectrum a little bit anyway).  Sarah's caseload is a much younger crew: elementary aged kids.  The ones I saw today have more autistic traits than my students, so it was good and interesting to interact with them.

I have to say, that before coming to Croyden autism scared me.  I had never worked with anyone with autism, I had barely even seen what autism is like.  Having been here (and observed the severe cases of autism) I am no longer scared.  In fact - sometimes it's down right hilarious.  That may sound cruel, but when a child sees a toy they really like and they flex and extend their body so much they almost fall out of the chair it's really funny.  We use language and other linguistic acts to express our feelings, some of these children use large movements, and random vocalizations.  By the way, reverse phonation (making voice on the inhalation instead of the exhalation) sounds really crazy when a 7 year old boy does it.

Anyway, my phone is dead and I am expecting a phone call, so I should really go home and charge it.  Curses, I didn't want to leave this early.

I have a plan! Or so I think.

Ok, for those of you who don't know I have been thinking about going on to get my PhD in speech sciences.  So, as I'm nearing the end of my masters degree it is time to begin thinking about the possibility of becoming Dr. Brown (that has a nice ring to it).  So here is my plan, cursory as it may be.

I will take a year (or two) off of school.  I am burnt out and need some time to recoup.  If I take one year off of school I will look for a job in the same town as the PhD program I plan to attend.  If I take two years off I am going to take a job in a really cool city, get my certification and then move to the city were the program is in.  

During the year I am in the university's city I will work and network with the professor I plan to work with.  This will get me involved in research and allow me to maintain my sanity.  Right now I have two choices of programs that stand out in my mind.  The first choice is the University of Iowa, located in Iowa City, Iowa.  (I know, I know, Iowa City is the antithesis of what I wanted out of a city: big and on the water).  Anyway, I like Iowa because they are doing research into identifying subtypes of stuttering and risk factors in childhood stuttering: two key areas in my opinion of how to go about further researching stuttering.  I also like it because University of Iowa is were speech pathology was born.  Stuttering therapy was developed at WMU, but speech path was birthed at Iowa.  Furthermore, Iowa is dripping in stuttering expert alumni (Charles Van Riper, Wendell Johnson, Oliver Bloodstine [all of whom stuttered] the list goes on).  Not that I expect to join that short list of world renown stuttering experts, but just being where they were would be cool.  (For those of you who know of the Monster Study [teaching normally fluent children to stutter] - this is were it happened).

My second choice is the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  While UWM does not have the prestige that Iowa has, it does have very good research facilities.  And Madison is a cool city - so I 'd get to do my PhD in a cool city.  And that would be awesome.

A third choice is University of Connecticut.  Similar to UWM, they have really good research facilities.  However, unlike Madison, Storrs is not a cool city, and from what I heard when I was looking in UCONN for my masters, most of the faculty and masters students live in Hartford and drive the 30 minutes to school everyday. 

I  don't really know where I'm going to be or what I'm going to do.  I'm meeting with Dr. Tasko and Dr. Sharp sometime in the near future to talk about PhD stuff.  I'll get some good counsel from them.  (it's a little bit funny, but Dr. Sharp got her PhD at Iowa and Dr. Tasko got his from UWM).  The only thing I do know is that I am going to take a year off.  I'm a little leery to take a year off because once you leave it's difficult to get back into the swing of academia.  It seems as though most of my professors did take a break between their masters and doctorates, so they did it, I assume I would be able to make the transition too.  Also - if I move to the city were my program will be then there will be a forethought of: I'm going to get my PhD.  I think that might be necessary.

Anyway, I think it's about time I go to bed.  I'll talk about my day later - I had an interesting one including playing acrobatics on a playground for the pleasure of a 14 year old girl with a cognitive impairment. 

A Little Perspective

So, here I am at Waterstreet (again - but the one downtown this time), it's a beautiful October day and in six months and one day I will be graduating. (I actually probably will not be done until June, but I'll be walking in April).  I have almost reached the half-way point with my thesis (I am now officially behind on it and not from a lack of work just from a  "Crap, this is a lot of work" syndrome).

Not having any idea where you will be in 8 months is an odd feeling.  I could be in Seattle, Boston, Kalamazoo, Washington DC, Tyler, TX, anywhere.  With that in mind I find myself enjoying the pleasant weather in Kalamazoo every chance I get.  Kalamazoo is a really cool place to live when the weather is nice.  When the weather is "less than nice" it looses a lot of it's charm.  There are glimmers of hope in the 6-month ice age that is about to ensue, but for the most part it's bitter cold and windy for a long freaking time.  There are also some items of memorabilia I want to pick up before leaving: a cup (and/or t-shirt) from Waterstreet, a t-shirt from bell's, a picture of Kraftbrau's (before it closes).  

My college years are 6-8 months from completion.  I'm a little bit excited about that.  At the same time it's a little intimidating.  When I'm working people will be depending on me for their care.  People will be relying on my expertise in speech, language and cognition - my performance will never again influence me and me alone.  I will have clients, colleagues, supervisors all relying on my work.  This realization (in my opinion) is the fundamental difference between undergraduate and post-graduate collegiate work.  There is the realization that you, as the certified and licensed speech-language pathologist, will be responsible for the neuro-rehab of my clients (in my view that is what all therapy is - changing neurological function.  Be that in the child with an articulation disorder (saying w for r ... this is for you Justin, Natalie, Theresa, and anyone else who will understand ... wiquid gwiding) or in the adult whose brain has been altered after a stroke or traumatic brain injury.  Everything is neurological in nature - our behaviors, our thoughts - what would be really interesting if they could prove the presence of God through neural studies - our soul, our interactions with God affect our minds and bodies; furthermore, those interactions should be observable in the human brain.  Oddly enough, there are people working on just that).

Anyway, that's enough perspective for me.  I need mine in small doses.

My No Tolerance Policy

The first chance I got to enact my no tolerance policy occurred today.  I was at Waterstreet working on my thesis (by the way, I'm still at Waterstreet and should probably still be working on my thesis - but this was so good I had to blog about it now).

Anyway, I was sitting in a comfy chair minding my own buisness, and this young lady comes in and sits across from me on the comfy couch.  She saw that I was reading articles and typing on my computer so she begins small talk and asks if I'm studying for midterms.   I politely respond no I'm working on my thesis.  (Now, bear in mind that I'm a little dehydrated this morning which affects my vocal folds and starting my voice is more difficult - therefore stuttering is much easier - so why I'm drinking coffee and not water I don't know eh, not important).  So, I stuttered on "I" - it was just hard to get my voice going.  

She did a little laugh.  (remember this is the most common negative response I get).  So, I said, "What?".  

"Nothing" she replies looking away sheepishly.  Once her gaze returned to her book she did another little laugh.  

Now, I just want to prove my point to her.  So, I said, "You laughed, I just wonder what's so funny."

"Nothing."  

At this point I almost said, "Well, it looks like your laughing at me because I stuttered in my speech."  I really think I should have...but then again she's still sitting across from me, so I could still say that.  But, I'm taking small steps.  The pre-no-tolerance-policy-Bryan would have let the laugh pass by without a second thought.  At least now I addressed it.  Next time I'll go a little bit further.

So.  It's interesting that the person who mocked my stutter once again perfectly fits the profile.  In contrast, while ordering my coffee I stuttered (once again dehydrated vocal folds - in fact there I was nearly relocated to a whisper).  The cashier was male, and didn't even blink when I stuttered (furthermore, my stutter with him was worse).  Interesting facts about speech disorders and gender roles.

Anyway, I've blogged what I wanted to.  I should get back to my thesis.

The Joy of Stuttering

So, for the first time in a long time someone actually mocked my stutter.  I was at Theresa's Dead Celebrity Party (I was Charles Lindbergh).  So, in response I said, "So what, I stutter, back off."

Which brings me to an interesting point.  Over the past few years I have interacted with many people, some of whom have mocked me because I have a difficult time speaking in a fluid manner.  Generally, the mocking exists as a simple laugh.  In rare cases, like the one last night the individual actually mimics my dysfluency.  In this case it was a t-t-t.  Anyway, the point of this is that the majority of individuals who mock me to my face were young women.  I have no doubt that my age (and possibly gender) influence their likelihood to mock (if I were much older than they I expect they would defer to the culturally expected norm to 'respect your elder', as for my gender, I don't know if I would be mocked more or less if I were female).  

Anyway, I have decided that I am enacting a Zero-Tolerance policy when it comes to people mocking my stutter.  If I am laughed at while ordering coffee (or anything else) I will ask the attendant what is so funny - because apparently what they find funny is synonymous with what I find terribly frustrating.  And asking them what's funny about stuttering may put them in their place, and allows me to be more open about my speech disorder.  And it would give me an opportunity to educate my fellow humans about speech disorders, specifically stuttering. Furthermore, as a future speech-language pathologist it is my responsibility to increase awareness about speech disorders.  The attendants that mock me will hopefully not mock another individual who stutters, thus, making the world a more friendly place for my prospective clients.

Anyway, I'm done ranting now.