Scholarship Essay Entry – Erika W.

Children are our future; therefore they should take priority in today’s society. These days, it appears almost too common for children to be ‘diagnosed’ with a disorder and with a wave of a ‘magic wand’ they are prescribed medication that should help them. However, this is only a quick fix. It is not as effective as the more time consuming and energy consuming alternative - one-on-one therapy teaching children, more specifically, their brains, to learn the skills that perhaps don’t come as easily to them as they do for others.
 
That being said, I have been working on my Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Alberta; my major is Psychology and my minor is in Linguistics. I intend on completing my degree and continuing on to obtain my Masters in Speech and Language Pathology. I feel that becoming a Speech and Language Pathologist would be the greatest, most influential career I could choose; I would be able to give children the gift of effective communication.
 
This has been a strong passion of mine for the past five years. I realized this passion when I stumbled upon a job as an Educational Assistant at a Daycare. This newfound passion then led me to continue to work for various agencies across Edmonton providing additional therapy to children with a wide range of special needs. These jobs have given me a much greater understanding of the perspectives of children living with these various challenges and how great of an impact language, specifically, lack of language, can have of one’s life. Imagine not being able to communicate that you are having the time of your life, you’re upset, or hungry, or even that you need to use the washroom.
 
As an SLP, my main goal will be to allow children to reach their fullest potential by enabling them to express their individual needs and wants; skills that most people take for granted. Ultimately, I would like to be able to go in to the child’s home and provide them with therapy with the help of their parents and siblings. This will allow all of the important people in the child’s life to be working towards the same goals.
 
Not only do I wish to be able to provide in-home therapy, I would love to work with children in schools and daycares. This way I could give the children’s teachers ideas for lessons that would target some of their individual goals. This would give my client(s) extra practice working on our goals, while at the same time giving the other children in the class some extra work on important communicative skills that they too will eventually use in their everyday experiences. This would also help inform children about acceptance and understanding of those with special needs.
 
As language and communication skills are so important in our society, I will make things easier to those who have difficulties acquiring this skill. My plan is to do so in a professional yet friendly manner.