World's Okay-est SLP

Did anyone have the 9999 Brick Game as a kid? This thing:

It was basically a cheap fake Gameboy that claimed to contain over 9000 different games, except all of them were Tetris. The only differences were minor variations to speed, shape, direction, etc. Being an SLP is a little bit like being a 9999 Brick Game.

Let me back up for a minute. A lot of people will call me a “Speech Teacher,” and nothing grinds on my nerves more. We are not teachers. We do not have teacher certifications (at least in my state). We do not have a curriculum set out for us. We DO have goals, for each individual child. We DO have to find ways of meeting those goals and tracking the progress. We DO have to make children repeat the same words and concepts over and over in slightly different ways, while keeping them from being bored.

Because of this, and because some of the things we ask kids to do are really uncomfortable and difficult, we play a lot of games.

Well, not a lot. But just enough to make certain teachers and other children who aren’t on our caseloads see us as magical fairies running around the school with toys and dice and playing cards stuffed in our pockets.

No, friends, it’s not magic. It’s speech and language therapy.