Updates, ideas, and more!

Category Archives: Speech Therapy Motivation

My Keynote Talk at the 2019 Michigan Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Annual Conference

Earlier this year, I had the unbelievable honor to deliver a keynote talk to the school-based SLPs at the 2019 Michigan Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Annual Conference. For anyone who knows me, you know that Michigan holds a very, very special place in my heart. I went to Wayne State University and spent four wonderful years living, learning, and working right in the heart of Detroit. During those unforgettable years, I explored a massive amount of Michigan and truly fell in love with it. And though I haven’t lived there since 2015, I still go back each and every summer because of the work that I get to do with Camp Shout Out. So yeah, to be asked to give the Michigan school-based SLP keynote talk, well, it meant the world to me. Thank you to all involved.

Are you interested in checking out my keynote talk?

If the answer is yes, then you’re in luck because the keynote talk was captured on video. It’s about 18-minutes so if you have a few extra minutes to spare, feel free to give it a go. Or if reading is more your thing, that’s totally cool because I included the typed transcript of the keynote talk, too. So either way you want to consume the keynote talk, it’s all yours, buddy! Enjoy!

—BEGIN TRANSCRIPT—

My friends, it is so terrific to see a smiling sea of wonderful clinicians. We are all together here in an opportunity to share knowledge. Ultimately in the way that SLPs know best, we set the stage with a wonderful talk. I’m going to be starting off this talk with a bit of a question, and that question is this: Who are we and what’s the impact that we make? Now, if someone were to walk into this room right now and ask us the question of, “Who are you?” All of us here could very confidently say, “I’m a speech-language pathologist” and we would say that in a very proud way because how about it, I mean this field is truly one of a kind. And if that same person were to ask us, “What’s the impact that you make?” We will be able to look that person right in the eyes and we will be able to say, “Well, the impact that we make is great because we have the opportunity to work together with children to help them to find their voice, to help them to grow into the communicators that we know they can be. We are ultimately helping to educate, train, and inspire the next generation of effective communicators.” So, with that being said, let’s clap it up for that.

What I love about this field is the fact that we have the opportunity to wear so many different hats. And isn’t that the truth? I mean, that’s the stuff that really keeps this job so exciting. The fact that we could put on this one hat for a second, and then in the matter of a couple moments, boom, we’d take the hat off and we put on another hat. And I think when I think about hats, it helps me to really focus on who I am as a clinician. And I’m going to be highlighting three hats that I think are very important for us, as clinicians, and three hats that really help to guide who we are as service providers.

And the first hat that I find myself putting on from time to time is that of a comedian. So certainly, I’m wearing an SLP hat, but I’m also putting a comedian’s hat on top of that and if someone were to walk into the room and say, “Who are you right now?” I’d say, “I’m a speech-language pathologist who happens to be a comedian.” And in that moment, the impact that I’m trying to make with that child in front of me is I’m trying to get them to laugh because when there’s laughter, there’s learning. And when there’s laughter, that’s them showing their truest selves to us. They’re opening a very real window into who they are, into how they feel, into what they think. So, it’s not too often that we come across a student who doesn’t want to be there.

Certainly, there are a couple of kiddos who would rather be at gym class or maybe they would rather be at home playing on the Xboxes and the Nintendos and such. But in the few times that we do come across a child who doesn’t necessarily want to be with us, I want to challenge each of you to think about that comedian hat that you all have in the back of your pocket. Put on that comedian hat and see how you might be able to connect with that child. Here’s a little example as to how I’ve connected with a child not too long ago.

Brand new kiddo is now in my therapy experience and he comes during the first day like this. And we know body language, right guys, we see this, he’s closed off. He doesn’t want to let me into his world, and I understand because this is a middle schooler and certainly, he’s been going to speech for a number of years. So certainly, he’s been there. He’s done that. And he’s made it very clear with his body language that he doesn’t want to do this with me. So, I said, “I understand.” So, what I did was I pulled out my laptop and I said, “Just sit down with me for a little bit, sit down, buddy.” He sat down, that’s a good thing. I opened up the laptop, take my mouse, going over to a little folder and that folder reads ‘Middle School.’ Click on that ‘Middle School’ folder and what does it show? Ten pictures. Ten pictures of me as a middle school student. Well, let me tell you, as a middle schooler, I had pretty wild hair. It was curly, it was wild. As a middle schooler, I had braces, braces that made me look almost like a dinosaur. Like it was a very unique mouth. I had a little bit of acne going on, but that’s middle school and that’s okay.

So, what I did was look at my brand new student and I said, “You’re in in middle school, right?” He said, “Yeah, I’m in middle school.” I said, “I want to show you a picture of a pretty cool middle schooler I know.” So I start scrolling through these pictures and the coolest thing that I noticed was the kiddo at first was like this, closed off, and I started to see, he loosens up a bit, just a little bit, and I start to see the arms kind of go down. Then I start to see with each new picture his eyes kind of start wondering. He’s looking at me, he’s looking at the screen, he’s looking at me, he’s looking at the screen. He’s like, “Is that you?” “Yes, it is.” And what’s so terrific about me taking that opportunity to kind of connect with him is that I saw him for who he was, he was a middle schooler. And I’m not going to fault him for not wanting to be there because I can still put myself in the shoes of a middle schooler and I can recognize that you know what, when I was his age, I probably didn’t want to be here either.

But through sharing in that very humorous experience by poking some, some fun at myself, he was able to kind of see the trust and he was able to start the process of that client/clinician alliance because we know how important that is. We, as educators, we’re the first to really see the benefit in honestly connecting with our clients. Not surface level stuff, but the deep connections. Many of us in this room, we can tell you the names of the pets of our clients. Many of us in this room, we could say, “Oh, I know your sister and your brother, their name is this, their name is that.” I can point to my students and I can say, “I know your favorite restaurant” and it’s just such a great connection that we have. We hear their voices and we affirm their voices in the great work that we do. So whenever you come across a student who might be a little less than jazzed to be in your presence, think about that comedic hat that we all have and in your own way, put it on your head and try to infuse a little bit of laughter in the way that you best know how. Because we know humor is subjective, but you know yourself better than anyone and I think as human beings, we all can do humor.

But this brings me to my second hat and that hat has to do with that of a counselor. Because we know that speech therapy is not always all fun and laughter and giggles. Sometimes there are some very serious conversations that are hard, right? When we have the pleasure of connecting with parents and collaborating with parents, we certainly still have our speech language pathology hat on, but we also plop on top of it a counselor’s hat. Because as counselors we need to give them the opportunity to be heard. As clinicians, we love talking and certainly we can talk all day long, but in certain situations we need to think about the power in listening. Sometimes we’ll interact with parents who have just heard some news. A new diagnosis was officially given to their child and they had some ideas as to what the diagnosis was, but something real happens when it comes in black and white, like, it’s written out. And certainly, that might throw some of our parents for a real loop. They might be overwhelmed; they might be mourning the loss of something that they thought they wanted to do in the future because they had these ideas as to how their child was going to grow up.

But things are perhaps just a little bit different. So, during those times, I encourage you to very honestly think about the hat that you’re wearing, and that hat is that counseling hat. To be able to be with them, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, and at times, lend them your shoulder. Sometimes parents aren’t heard by a lot of different people that are involved in education. Sometimes they’re not heard by a lot of those medical professionals that they interact with. For a few months in my career, I was a part of the medical world until I learned that wasn’t necessarily for me, the whole swallowing thing, you know, I’m just like, hold on, I passed the Praxis. But I mean, yikes that’s some really in-depth stuff.

But I can say when I worked per diem in the hospital; sometimes the doctors would kind of come in and come out. And nurses are wonderful, but I’ve encountered a couple of nurses that kind of were cold and I understand that it happens for sure. And by no means am I saying that this is generally the gist of all medical. No way. There are amazing doctors, amazing nurses. But some of our parents might encounter some of those cold individuals. So that’s our opportunity to be the opposite of cold, to be warm, to see our parents, to hear them, and to honestly wear our counselors’ hat with pride because we are helping them, and in helping them, we are helping the child. We forget that the parent component, the community component, that certainly is a part of the speech therapy experience. So, when we remind ourselves of that, that’s when we’re doing our best work and every single person in this room, you are the best at what you do, and you know the game of life is a very complex one.

But as speech-language pathologists, I think we have the opportunity to understand the intricacies of this game called life. And when I mentioned the game called life, that brings me to the last hat that I feel we wear on an almost daily basis and that is the hat of a coach. Certainly, when we try to look at a speech-language pathologist and a coach, I really feel like there’s so much overlap. You know, a coach is a person that works together with athletes, and these are athletes that have real honest goals, whether it be running, they want to hit a certain minute mark or whether it be weightlifting and they want to lift a certain amount. They have a real goal in mind and athletes can’t reach that goal on their own. And it’s not to say that they’re not strong or they’re not driven, no certainly they’re strong and their driven. But athletes have a coach. And that coach is that person that kind of sees them. Sees their whole self and sets in motion a very individualized approach as to how they can meet that particular goal.

So, as clinicians, that’s what we do. We see our whole students and we really work together with them and in effort to create an individualized experience so that they’re able to reach whatever goal it is that would help facilitate wonderful communication. So that they’re able to successfully speak to their wants, their thoughts, and their needs because there’s no better music in this world than hearing that come from the clients that we work together with. I work together right now with a terrific middle school student who happens to be a person who stutters, and he right now is thinking about the different summer jobs that he wants because a lot of his friends are 13, 14, 15 and when summer comes along, they start talking about the jobs. Maybe he’s going to work at McDonald’s, maybe he’s going to work at the local diner, maybe he’s going to work down at the shore because in Jersey everyone loves their boardwalks.

So, we start to have very real conversations about this and we start to talk about what is that thing that might be scaring you. And by no means am I saying to him, “Oh, don’t be scared, you’ll be fine” because that’s, that’s kind of, like, throwaway stuff. I’m saying to him, “You know what, you’re scared. And that’s an emotion and that emotion deserves to be there because as human beings, we have many different emotions, many colors in the rainbow, and they all deserve to be there. But let’s dig deeper into this particular emotion and let’s see what it is that might be the driving force behind it.” And as clinicians, we would know that it would be communication driven for this young man.

He’s thinking about himself as a communicator. And he’s said to me that, “Well, because I stutter, I will never do good in an interview and I will never get a job. So, forget about summer jobs, what am I going to start to think about when I turn into an adult?” This is very big picture stuff that this little soul is bringing to us. So that’s our opportunity. Yes, wear our SLP hat with pride, but also put on that coaching hat and to remind him of the successes that he has had throughout his academic year, throughout his whole life. You know, he’s a person who is communicating, he goes to the restaurant, he speaks to the waiter and he says, “I’d like the pepperoni pizza.” He got the meal, he ate the meal, and he got it because he used his words. So, we try to make comparisons, right?

He’s had successes before in different scenarios and how might that success be able to be translated to this thing that he’s looking at now, which is the summer jobs. And that’s where coaching comes in. We root for them, we let them know that they can do great things and it’s not a blind, you can do great, but it’s pointing to greatness that has happened before and there’s no reason why the greatness cannot continue to happen. So, we put on that coach’s hat. Sometimes I got a whistle, sometimes I’ll put on that whistle, I’ll blow it and I’ll do (makes whistle noises) and I’ll say, “You can do it!” And as silly as that sounds, that comes into the comedic aspect. Right? And honestly that starts to touch into the counseling aspect because I’m helping them to, kind of, define and redefine who they are as students.

So, my want for you is to think about that particular hat, that coach’s hat, and how that might help you in the great work that you do with all of the wonderful clients and students that you work together with. So, with all that being said, when I take a step back and when people ask the question of, you know, “Who are we and what do we do? What is the impact that we make?” Really what comes to my mind is this: We are very special friends to very special students. We know them, we take the time to get to know their truest selves and we help them to grow in massive ways. And that is something that I think is very unique to our field.

So, to each and every one of you in this room right now, I thank you on behalf of just like a human, you are doing a very amazing job with your little humans that will one day become bigger humans and these big humans, they’re the ones that are going to mold this world into the world that we know it needs to be. These little friends today will be tomorrow’s leaders, and I want you to rest easy to know that you had a little bit to do in that wonderful transformation. So, thank you so much for this great opportunity, and I wish you all the best.

Who Is the Best Speech-Language Pathologist Ever?

Who Is the Best Speech-Language Pathologist Ever?

Have you ever wondered who the best SLP ever is? Well, wonder no more. I know the answer and I’d be more than happy to tell you. The answer can be found by going over to the following website:

whoisthebestslpever.com

Spread the positivity!

I made that simple, little website in the hopes that it might trigger a few smiles in our field. Feel free to email the link over to an SLP colleague of yours that means a lot to you. Or maybe you might want to text message the link over to the SLP who was your Clinical Fellowship mentor? The sharing possibilities of whoisthebestslpever.com are endless!

In closing . . .

This is a glorious field to be a part of. But guess what? You’re a glorious part of the field, too. So, don’t you forget that. If anyone ever asks who is the best SLP ever is, you now know the answer thanks to that simple, little website that I made. 😉

My 2017 Commencement Speech at Wayne State University

On Thursday, May 4th, 2017, I had the opportunity to deliver the commencement speech at Wayne State University’s Graduation Ceremony for Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology in Detroit, Michigan. As a proud Wayne State University alumnus, when I was given the invitation, I was beyond pumped! To be able to speak directly to the 2017 graduating class of a university that means the world to me, it was a pleasure. And to be able to share the stage with Derek Daniels (my close mentor and very good friend), it was surreal, to say the least.

Interested in what I said?

If the answer is yes, then you’re in luck because my commencement speech was captured on video. So, if you have 15-minutes to spare, feel free to check it out.

I have a transcript, too.

If reading is more your thing, below you will see a transcript of my commencement speech. Give it a peep, buddy.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Dr. Daniels, and a huge thank you to every single Wayne State University community member that is sitting right behind me on this stage. Each one of you has positively impacted me as a speech-language pathologist, and each one of you on this stage has also positively impacted each and every one of our students. Also, a big thank you to the parents, family members, and close friends here today with the students. They, too, have helped to mold these students to who we see right now. And what a fine bunch of students we have in this auditorium today. You women and men are the future leaders of the fields of audiology and speech-language pathology. Seriously, the future. Let’s clap it up for that one.

Let’s take a moment to do something. For our students right now, what I would love for you to try is to turn around and look at each other, and what I’d like for you guys to do is verbalize these simple words. I’d like for you to say, we are the future. I’ll wait. Give it a go. I know it might feel awkward, but we need to say this. All right, all right. And now, I’m going to push you a little bit out of your comfort zone, because that’s what we’re all about as clinicians. Pushing people gently out of their comfort zones. What I’m going to ask you to do is on three, I want you to try to shout loud and proud, we are the future. All right, guys? Just our students. Ready? One, two, three. We are the future. Now, how did that feel? I bet you, it felt really good, and it should feel good because the truth is, that is the truth. You are the future, and I am honored and privileged to have this invitation to speak to you guys today. This is truly a privilege to be able to be a part of this celebration for all of the hard work that you’ve put in here at Wayne State University.

All of you audiology students, you’ve looked inside a lot of ears over these years. You’ve probably seen your fair share of earwax that might have made you scream at times, but it comes with the territory if you want to become an audiologist. You pushed through for the greater good. And let’s not forget about you speech-language pathology students. You’ve done your fair share of oral mech examinations, and in those experiences, you probably have seen some icky things at times or maybe even you’ve gotten bitten a couple times. Kiddos these days, they have very sharp teeth. I know I’ve gotten my fair share of battle wounds, but it comes with the territory if you want to become a speech language pathologist. You push through for the greater good. Well, congratulations, because today is your greater good. You’re finally here. In a few moments, you’re going to be walking across this stage and you’re going to get that great diploma and you’re going to have that opportunity to become that great audiologist or that great speech-language pathologist that you know you were destined to be.

Life is going to be great, but here’s the honest truth. You’re still going to see some ear wax and you’re still going to get bit after graduation. There’s no getting away from that, but the good news is this. You’re finally going to get paid in the process, which means you can now start paying off your college loans. Or, if you’re feeling a little crazy, you can take a trip on down to Greek Town Casino and maybe try your luck at some slots, but we should probably not do that. Just pay off those college loans.

In all seriousness, here’s what really excites me. Here’s what gets me jazzed, what gets me pumped to be standing up here speaking to you. You are entering a field that needs you. Somewhere, someone is experiencing swallowing difficulties. That someone is embarrassed because every single time she sits down to eat a meal with her friends, she starts to cough uncontrollably. She doesn’t know what’s going on, but you as a speech-language pathologist, you do know what’s going on and you can help that person. That person needs your expertise. You are entering a field that needs you.

Or, how about this? Somewhere, someone is experiencing hearing difficulties. That someone is frustrated because he can’t seem to hear the baseball announcer as good as he used to when he goes to see the Detroit Tigers play at Comerica Park. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but you as an audiologist, you do, and you can help. That person needs your expertise. You are entering a field that needs you.

And somewhere, someone has a young son, maybe three years old, and that young son is not talking. That someone is confused because it seems like everyone else’s child is talking, and that someone can’t help but wonder if she did something wrong as a mother to cause her son to not talk. She doesn’t know what’s going on, but you as a speech-language pathologist, you do, and you can help that person. That person needs your expertise. You are entering a field that needs you.

As a speech-language pathologist who has worked in both school settings as well as hospital settings, I figured this could be a great opportunity for me to share some advice with you so that you could hit the ground running day one when you take your first job. You can take some of this advice or you can leave, but I hope that you would take it, because I feel like it’s some pretty good stuff. Without further ado, let the advice giving commence.

I’m going to give you five pieces of advice, and the first one is this. Never ask a client to do something that you’re not willing to do, and the best example that I can share with you from my experience as an SLP is when I was working in a hospital setting. A couple times of week, I would have to do MBSs. Those are modified barium swallow tests. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a fancy-schmancy x-ray machine that allows us to see the swallowing in real time of a person. So the way that we can see the swallow happen in real time is, there’s different bits of food, and on the different bit of food we put either barium gel or barium powder, and that allows us to see on the x-ray where the food is going down. Is it going down the right pipe or is it going down the wrong pipe?

In this particular situation, I had an older gentleman who looked at me and he was communicating to me with his eyes that he did not want to see me. He did not want to go forth and do that MBS experience with me. I tried to let him know that this is very important. This is going to help us help you so that you can be able to eat. You can get your nutrition back. But he was just not having it. What he said to me next was something that really stuck with me. He looked at the graham cracker that I had in front of him, and there’s a little bit of white paste on the graham cracker, and he said to me, “Hey kid. Did you ever eat that crap before?” In that moment, I couldn’t lie to him and I said to him, no sir. I have not. He proceeded to tell me, “You know what? I’ll eat that crap right after you eat that.” Without thinking, guys, I grabbed that graham cracker and I threw it right in mouth and I chomped and I swallowed. You know what? It wasn’t really that bad. The next sound that happened after my swallow is a sound I’ll never forget. This gentleman starting laughing. Laughing so hard. Pure, joyous laughter. Not maniac laughter. He really enjoyed what just happened, and he said to me, “Kid, I didn’t know you’d do that.” I said to him, “Sir, I didn’t think I would either.”

That’s the perfect example that brought me back to the clinician that I wanted to be. I want to make sure that I’m never putting my clients in a state where they feel I’ve not also walked in those shoes. Now, sometimes it’s impossible, but we as clinicians, we’re very creative. We can find ways to at least attempt to put ourselves in the shoes of our clients. If I could leave you with one piece of advice, it’s simply just to never ask your client to do something that you have not attempted to do in some fashion.

Number two – we’ve got five. We’re up to two. I want you guys to be careful where you throw things out. This is a little bit along the lines of the school setting, but check out this quick story. Every Tuesday and Thursday when I first started at this particular school, this is about 10 years ago now, I had a wonderful second-grader who was working on his speech sound disorders. He was obsessed with dinosaurs, and every single Tuesday and Thursday, he would draw me a beautiful picture of a dinosaur.

So, when you start in September, you have a couple dinosaurs. When, you get into December, you’ve got a couple more dinosaurs, and then come June, you’ve got a mountain of dinosaur pictures. We were ending the school year, and I was cleaning up my area, and what I did was, I decided to recycle these wonderful dinosaur pictures. I put them in the garbage. Then, there was a little knock on the door – it’s my buddy. He has a coffee gift card that he wants to give me to because he thought I was a great speech teacher. He walks into my room, and his eyes find the garbage can. He looks down at the garbage can. He sees all of his artwork in the trash. I still think about this day in and day out. That was a massive mistake that I made. I need to be more mindful of where I throw things out. And really, what this brings us back to is the power of communication. This particular student was communicating to me his real love for our learning experience by consistently drawing pictures of dinosaurs and giving them to me.

I need to respect that so much more, and I need to be just so much more mindful as to where I am recycling some of these particular pictures. So guys, don’t ever be in the same situation as me. Make sure you put it in your book bag, and if you’re going to recycle drawings, bring them to your home setting. That’s the second bit of advice that I hope that you’ll never have to experience.

Number three, I just want you to be more mindful of technology. We as a 21st century community, we’re lucky. We’re living in a very exciting time where technology is really at our fingertips, and we as clinicians, we can use technology to do a lot of really great things. I want you just to not become too obsessed with technology. Now, I’m a software developer on the part-time, and I have developed a number of specific applications for children who have speech sound disorders. I don’t say that to brag, but I say it to just emphasize how I love technology. Well, one time, I was working with a student and I said to myself, this is the best app. I’m going to use this app with student, because it’s going to blow his mind. It was a basketball app. Together, we could slide our finger across the screen to shoot the basketball. He looked at me and he said, “Mr. Raj, instead of playing in this basketball app, can we actually just go to the gym and shoot real basketball?”

That was a game changer for me because here I am just so obsessed with technology, it forced me to maybe forget about the real physical aspect to learning. We want to make sure that we don’t lose sight of that physical aspect. Yes, technology is appropriate at times, but there’s also times where technology is not appropriate. Be more mindful as you explore your particular work setting and how your style of being an audiologist or an SLP meshes with the technology that you choose to use.

Number four transitions perfectly into this bit of advice. Whenever possible, leave your speech therapy room. As a speech-language pathologist, I’m always understanding the importance of leaving the four walls of where we do therapy, because we understand the importance of generalization and really pushing our clients outside their comfort zone to practice their fantastic communication outside of the speech therapy room. We can really help our clients to make so many amazing leaps and bounds in their communication if we carefully put them outside of our speech therapy room. Take that into consideration as you start to figure out your goals and objectives, as you’re working with your particular client to grow. It’s appropriate to leave the speech therapy room, and with some creativity, you can find ways to leave the speech therapy room.

Number five, the last piece of advice I’d love to share with you is a very simple one, and it’s to always remember to smile. A smile really communicates so much. We as communication professionals, we understand pragmatics and we understand how a smile is really sharing with others how we are happy that they’re in our lives and we are blessed that we have the opportunity to interact with them. Sometimes, when we work with our clients, they are in situations that have really thrown them for a loop. There’s a lot of frustration, anxiety, a lot of fear.

What I have found in the years that I’ve had the opportunity to be an SLP is a simple smile can really start to chip away at some of those fears and anxieties. Don’t be afraid to share your pearly whites with the client in front of you, because smiles are contagious and you’ll be surprised how fast that client’s going to smile back at you. That’s really building that client-clinician relationship that we’re always trying to make as solid as possible.

To you, Wayne State University graduates, today is the day you’ve been waiting for. You’ve made it, and in a few short moments, you will have your degree. To the future speech language pathologists in the audience, welcome to the family. And to the future audiologists in the audience, I can’t wait to work with you. Thank you everyone, and congratulations.

My 2017 Commencement Speech at Wayne State University

A Rock and Roll Song About Ninja Speech-Language Pathologists

Would you like to know the one thing that I could never ever live without? I’ll give you a hint – it starts with the letter M. No, it’s not not milkshakes (although I do absolutely adore chocolate milkshakes! Yum!) The answer to the initial question is music! Music is the one thing that I could never ever live without and I think that Prince Ea (one of my favorite YouTubers) said it best in this Instagram post that reads: “With the right music, you either forget everything or you remember everything.” Isn’t that a terrific quote? It perfectly describes why I believe that music is the most important thing on this planet.

Do you listen to speech-language pathology music?

I know what you might be saying right now – “Speech-language pathology music?! There’s no such thing as speech-language pathology music!” And if you are, in fact, saying that, I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong. There actually IS a such thing as speech-language pathology music. It might not be the most popular genre out there, but hey, maybe I can help the genre to grow?

Here’s my attempt at helping the genre grow!

My song is called Ninjas of Speech and it’s based off of the blog posted I wrote a while back titled 5 Ninja Characteristics All Speech Pathologists Have. Give the song a listen above or feel free to directly download the mp3 file HERE.

Ninjas of Speech (01:48)

I’ve got something to share about speech pathologists
There’s 5 ninja skills they share as characteristics
That help students reach black belt communication
Now here’s the list so please pay attention

Number 1 is speed of word and thought
To compress information in 30 minute blocks

Number 2 is strength and power
To tame the tongue in blocks of half an hour

Number 3 is stamina, our old friend
We don’t give up on clients until they reach the end
We’re patient, calm, and oh so understandings
Devoted, kind, and never demanding

Number 4 is all of our various techniques
We adapt material from week to week

Finally the last ninja trait of all, number 5 is our intelligence
To assess, diagnose, treat, and prevent

SLPs are ninjas of speech
SLPs are ninjas of speech

In closing . . .

Maybe I’ll make some more songs in the future. Would you be into that? Please let me know. 😉

A Rock and Roll Song About Ninja Speech-Language Pathologists