Descriptive PowerPoint about an internship at a private therapy company.

1. E R I N M O O R E
H L T H 4 2 0 0
The Care Center

2. The Care Center
 I interned with the speech department. Although
Shannon Barnett was officially my supervisor, I
learned from and spent time with all three of the
speech therapists—Shannon, Emily, and Lauren.

3. The Care Center
Shannon in her office.

4. The Care Center
 The Care Center is a pediatric therapy practice that
offers aquatic therapy, speech therapy, occupational
therapy, and physical therapy.
 It employs three speech-language pathologists, one
occupational therapist, two occupational therapist
assistants, 2 physical therapists, and 1 physical
therapist assistant.
 The Care Center facilities include a large, open
therapy gym, private treatment rooms, an indoor
pool for aquatic therapy, and a sensory room.

5. The Care Center
 The Care Center’s gym

6. The Care Center
 The Care Center’s gym

7. The Care Center
 The Care Center’s gym

8. The Care Center
 The Care Center’s gym

9. The Care Center
 Pool used for aquatic therapy sessions.

10. The Care Center’s Mission Statement
 The Care Center will
provide superior quality
rehabilitative patient care
and customer service in a
productive and cost-
effective manner within a
work environment that
rewards employees who
can support these goals.

11. The Care Center’s Mission Statement
-To achieve this mission:
 Our customers (who include patients, family members, employers,
schools, vendors, and physicians) must be made to feel special and
important.
 Our patients must receive quality care from their first contact to the last
that exceeds the level of service provided by other providers.
 We strive to make every patient and family member believe that they
were the most important person we saw that day, so much so, that they
want to tell others in the community about our practice.
 We strive to operate at a high level of productivity, making maximum
use of our therapists and administrative employee’s time.
 We strive to be convenient to the patient both in location and in ease of
access.
 We strive to foster strong relationships with referring physicians in the
community by being responsive to their needs and courteous in our
dealings with them.
 We strive to attract imaginative, problem solving, self-starting,
productive and caring people as employees.

12. Roles and Duties- Observation
 I observed all patients who came on Mondays and
Wednesdays and became very familiar with them. At
the end of my internship, I was able to recognize
certain areas that were being targeted during therapy
sessions, and others that should be in the future.

13. Roles and Duties- Oral Communication
 I found and prepared different worksheets, games,
and activities to add to the speech department’s
collection. I presented them to the SLPs and
explained what goals they could target.
 These will be ongoing resources that the speech
department can use in future years.

14. Roles and Duties- Filing and Written Communication
 I filed daily notes and progress reports for each of the
different types of therapies.
 For my written communication project, I completed a
case study about one patient’s specific case and progress.
 Each week during the patient’s session, I took detailed
notes of each activity, and figured out which goal it was
targeting.
 I looked through the patient’s file and made note of how
her progress had developed every three months since she
started receiving therapy at The Care Center.

15. Different Work Settings of an SLP
 The majority of speech-language pathologists work in
educational settings, such as schools or colleges.
 Educational setting pros: mostly work with children; get
summers and holidays off; work with a team of teachers;
workday from about 8am-3pm
 Educational setting cons: high case load; often have to
work in a group therapy session rather than one-on-one;
therapy interruptions due to the school calendar;
relationship with the child’s family is not as personalized;
average salary is the lowest of the different work
environments; lots of IEPs and paperwork

16. Different Work Settings of an SLP
 Around 39% of SLPs work in health care related fields,
such as hospitals and residential or nonresidential health
care facilities.
 Health care field pros: from 2005-2013, SLPs in nursing
homes earned a higher median salary than SLPs in other
environments (average of $85,610 in 2012); more fast
paced in hospitals and not as repetitive as other
environments
 Health care field cons: could be disturbing at times
(working in a hospital with patients who have had
traumatic injuries, etc.); may not get to work with
children (especially in nursing homes)

17. Different Work Settings of an SLP
 About 19% of SLPs work for a private practice.
 Private practice pros: individualized one-on-one
sessions; immediate access to speech materials in
personal office; may have a coordinated team of
therapists (occupational, speech, physical therapists);
limited distractions; less paperwork and more direct
therapy; average salary is $70,000 for clinical service
providers; easier to form personal relationships with the
family
 Private practice cons: can get repetitive; more variable
income depending where you work; may have to
purchase your own materials; Medicaid billing

18. Challenges of Being an SLP
 Creating individualized plans for each patient.
 Frustration when progress is minimal or slow.
 Knowing what to do as far as continuing or stopping
therapy can be difficult as well.
 Carry over to the home is also a challenge and tends
to be related to progress.

19. Rewards of Being an SLP
 Being able to see children progress and finish
therapy, or get to a level where they are their most
functional self.
 When it comes to feeding, it is rewarding to have
children no longer require feeding tubes and just be
able to eat by mouth.
 With non-verbal children, it is extremely
encouraging when the SLP is able to develop some
kind of system, such as a communication device,
where the child can express their wants and needs in
a way that they weren’t able to before.

20. What I Have Learned
 Many different diagnoses—what they are, how they’re
diagnosed, what the prognosis generally looks like
 It is a speech therapist’s job to find a way for a child to
communicate to the best of their ability, even if that does
not actually involve speaking
 Nonverbal patients are helped to find ways to express
themselves. Some methods I observed:
 Sign language
 A binder containing pictures that the child can point to if he/she
wants that item
 Devices with buttons that speak, saying: yes, no, more, all done, I
want, etc.

21. What I Have Learned
 The majority of what being a speech therapist entails
does not focus on pronunciation
 It includes, but is not limited to:
 Diagnosing speech disorders
 Coming up with an individualized plan of care for each patient
 Feeding and swallowing
 Spatial concepts
 Prepositions
 Parts of speech
 Following multi-step directions
 Recognizing images, numbers, and letters
 Reading comprehension
 Answering hypothetical questions

22. What I Have Learned
 SLPs conduct an initial speech evaluation to see if potential patients qualify for
and would benefit from therapy. The language test described below is a common
one.
 Given at initial and yearly assessments to kids aged birth to 7 years 11 months, it
tests if certain developmental skills are present based on the child’s age.
 The are two sections to the test—auditory comprehension and expressive
communication. The SLP begins the test based on the child’s chronological age.
The receptive language section is done until the child gets 6 questions wrong in a
row, and then the expressive communication section is started.
 For a baby, the test measures things such as if the baby glances momentarily at
the person talking to them, if they react to sounds other than people’s voices, etc.
Usually a caregiver or parent will answer these questions based on experiences at
home, because the baby is in a new place and their reactions may not be
accurate.
 The test manual gives a standardized score for the child, which compares them to
other children their age and how they performed.
 The child’s speech therapy goals are made based off the test results.

23. What I Have Learned
 Many of the patients I eventually see will most likely
receive other types of therapy. Of those that come to
The Care Center, the majority receive more than one
type of therapy. Most get all three (speech therapy,
occupational therapy, and physical therapy) or are
on the waiting list to get everything.
 Although the therapists are the professionals,
carryover at home is extremely important for
obtaining better and quicker results and progressing
through therapy.

24. What I Have Learned
 If there is any chance at all that a child’s
communication abilities could improve, even if it
takes years, then it is worth treating them.