I love to learn new things. Whether its learning how to plaster a wall or visiting the Chicago Art Museum, I love to learn. My favorite is to listen to music. I listen to all kinds of music Latin, Pearl Jam, or Dave Matthews, I really like the diversity and sound. Recently I started taking voice lessons to sing Mariachi music. That was a trip and definitely a high to sing in front of my colleagues for the first time during the holidays.
I especially love to learn about my field and the changes in our profession. There is so much to learn and in a way overwhelming when you think about the scope of practice when entering this field. I remember when I first began practicing as a speech/language pathologist. I didn't have any coursework in the area of multicultural populations. In my oral presentation for my master's degree, I presented to the faculty a paper on the assessment of Hispanic children. I remember my heroes (faculty), Drs. Ralph Shelton, William Hodson, and Robert Hubbell, asking me questions about the paper and when I finished, they asked for a copy of my work. That was the ultimate compliment to me when I graduated in Speech and Hearing Sciences from the University of Arizona. At that time all I had were a couple of articles written in the ASHA journals and a few theses and dissertations. Now ASHA requires that accredited programs have coursework in this area and the information available to clinicians is amazing. Even more amazing is that now there are specialized programs to train bilingual speech language pathologists.
I remember trying to find other clinicians that had similar interests in bilingual populations and not finding too many. I just wanted to network and discuss what I was doing and getting feedback on the pros and cons of techniques, etc. Trying to find workshops and coursework was another problem. I usually went to workshops presented by bilingual or special educators. The National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) was always a great resource. But it wasn't the same, they weren't SLP's. How do you find courses to help you develop your skills in working with bilingual populations? I still do a lot of reading in different journals. But I prefer to go to conferences where there are a variety of speakers with different expertise and where there are other bilingual clinicians so that I can hear about their stories in their practices.
I hope that you'll take advantage of an upcoming conference that Bilingual Therapies is sponsoring in Cancun, Mexico on August 10th and 11th, 2001. The Bilingual Symposium will be 2 days of nationally recognized authorities presenting on topics that will make you think about your practice in bilingual speech language pathology. What will be especially beneficial are the roundtables to allow the participants to discuss issues, concerns, as well as hopes and strategies for the future. The best part of such an experience is the networking that bilingual clinicians can develop when they get together to support and encourage each other. I know it's sometimes difficult to be an advocate for bilingual children when it appears your voice is coming back to you as an echo. Meeting with other bilingual clinicians with similar interests and stories of success is usually the added topping, the cherry on top, the chocolate syrup, and sometimes the whip cream for any conference. Taking advantage of a great symposium and networking at the same time will be fun in Cancun.
Be a life long learner and have fun at the same time. Consider it and join us in August!
