Welcome to my journey to becoming a Speech-Language Pathologist, or at least my journey to applying to UBC’s SLP program, OR simply my journey through Tracy Penny Light’s classes. :)
Throughout my e-portfolio, and even the assignments inserted into my pages, I can see myself it is evident I want to help Indigenous children(FYI just in case, I want to help ALL children, and will, but because of personal family history, and my lens, I look to Indigenous children), just like everyone else in my family. My why for my entire education is to help little kids, specifically little kids who cannot communicate entirely, I remember my first few weeks in kindergarten, I was sitting on the carpet, saying the primary colours out loud. And when it came to ‘yellow’ I could not pronounce the ‘Ls’ in yellow, and I was SO embarrassed. I did not want to talk out loud, because now I second guessed every single thing I said. I overcame that quite quickly I believe, and I did not go to the school SLP, because I think no one caught the difficulty because I would avoid saying the word yellow.
Now thinking about my own insecurities as a kindergarten student, I had one minor problem, for a short period of time. Can you imagine a child that is almost non-verbal. Simply because they have not had access to early intervention? It is my ultimate goal in life to be the early intervention. Through my work as an Educational Assistant for the Ashcroft school district, the children I am seeing come into kindergarten that have major communication difficulties are First Nation children, and while having conversations with parents, it sounds like they have never heard of Speech Language pathologists, or they did not know they would receive help before school. THIS IS WHERE I COME IN-> MY RESEARCH-> showing First Nation Bands the importance of Early Childhood Services offered on Reserve! BAM