Hands-On Experiences for Speech-Language Pathology Students

Elizabeth Eisele ‘25SLP: My favorite part of working with WRTS was making the sessions interactive and being able to participate with the kids as well as help them during the sessions.

Danyelle Adelman ‘25SLP: My favorite part of working with WRTS was getting to see the ability levels of the different children we worked with and to see their language skills develop over the course of the semester. I also enjoyed getting to talk to the parents of the children and to provide parent coaching because that is not an experience we get in the clinic.

Eliana George ‘25SLP: My favorite part of working with WRTS was having the opportunity to work with my friends to create a fun and language enriching environment for the kids and caregivers that came to our group each week!

Eisele: It taught me how to plan activities that could be flexible to a large age group. The group was aimed towards toddlers, but the preschool group joined us for the sessions as well, so there was a large age range. It will prepare me for my future career as a SLP because I learned how to be flexible in planning the sessions for all ages.

Adelman: Working with the WRTS program taught me to be flexible in my planning for therapy sessions. We initially believed we would be working with toddlers but it ended up being a mix of toddlers and preschoolers. The ability levels of the different ages made planning a little more difficult because we had to adapt to the various levels of the children. It helped me learn how to modify an activity like a craft for children who are at different stages in their development. I also learned how to adapt an activity during a session, which is a skill that I felt I improved on as the semester progressed.

George: Through working with WRTS, I learned how to adapt activities to different developmental ages and how to foster some early language skills. It gave me some great exposure to learning about this age group of children of around zero to four-years old.

Eisele: I think this program has a large impact on the local community. It encourages speech and language among young children. Aside from increasing language, this program serves as a great means of socialization for children who have not yet entered school. It also is very nice for the parents because after they are done with the Read and Play, they can use the gym with their children. The parents were very nice and seemed very appreciative of our program.

Adelman: I think the WRTS program has a great impact on the local community. We were able to provide speech and language services to the children in the community and we were able to answer parent/family member questions related to speech and language. Exposing children to speech and language at an early age is important for speech and language development so it was great that we were able to provide that to the children who came as well as teaching families strategies to use at home with their children.

George: I think that the program impacted the community by creating a space for caregivers to come and learn some strategies to encourage language learning for their children and to ask any questions that they have.