When her daughter was one and a half years old, Alyssa Cohen ‘26PBSLP and her husband were told the youngster was experiencing a speech delay. So, a speech-language pathologist came to the house and worked with her.
Watching the therapist work with her daughter was a lightbulb moment for Cohen. And, it provided the impetus for a career change.
“I always knew about speech-language pathology, but once I saw it happen in my own household and with my family, it seemed like a very rewarding job,” said Cohen. “My daughter is now able to speak crazy sentences. She doesn’t stop talking.”
Her family situation — marriage, kids, a full-time job in the hospitality industry — led her to explore the Post-baccalaureate program in Speech-Language Pathology (SLP), Salus at Drexel University. And, it was a perfect fit.
“The program’s structure made it beneficial for me to still be able to do my daily routine with my family and still work,” said Cohen, who earned a degree in hospitality management from Penn State in 2012. She worked for six years before marrying and starting a family. “The staff and faculty (in the program) is very willing to work with me on everything. Everybody has been super-helpful.”
Of particular help to Cohen — who plans to take two years to complete the one-year Post-bacc SLP program — in her first semester in the program has been a class called “Introduction to Communication Disorders.” In that class, taught by Michele Jervis-Schultz, MS, CCC-SLP, adjunct professor in the program, students were asked to choose a neurological topic to research from a list of seven — traumatic brain injury (TBI), Multiple Sclerosis, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, Huntington’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease (dementia), Myasthenia gravis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, progressive supranuclear palsy and Parkinson’s disease.
Class members were asked to detail the symptoms of the disease, manifestations and how the diagnosis impacts speech and language development. In addition, students were asked to examine interventions commonly used with affected patients and then present their findings to the class.
Cohen chose to research ALS because she had an aunt diagnosed with it in 2007.
“I did learn more about ALS. The concepts we discussed in class were made a little more clear to me while I was doing this project,” said Cohen. “The course is very informational and as I was doing the project, it tied everything together.”
Cohen wasn’t the only student in the class who had a lightbulb moment when it came to choosing a career path. For Emily Killian ‘25PBSLP, her’s came during her gap years after graduating in 2022 from the University of Delaware with a degree psychology.
During that time, she worked with the University of Pennsylvania’s Epilepsy Research Team in clinical trials studying the condition. “I wanted to give myself some time to branch out and explore some options,” said Killian. “I used some speech assessing tools and was exploring speech and language abilities in the patients. That gave me the idea to look into speech-language pathology as a career.”
The Salus/Drexel Post-bacc SLP program had all of the features she wanted. Its recent establishment caught her interest, and she was eager to submit her application through the Admissions process.
“We recently finished up with our semester, so I’ve been reflecting on my time in the program. And, it’s been really great,” said Killian. “I’ve enjoyed the clinical observation opportunities I’ve had and I’ve been able to observe the patient populations I really want to work with. That’s been exciting.”
Killian chose Myasthenia gravis (MG), an auto-immune condition that causes some intermittent muscle weakness, for her “Introduction to Communication Disorders” project.
“I was able to connect the research back to my work experience and make personal connections to it in that way,” she said. “I could possibly encounter a patient with MG in my future and I believe that if that happens, the first thing I’m going to do is refer back to this project and everything that I’ve learned.”
Once completing the Post-bacc SLP program, Killian hopes to return to a hospital setting and work with patients who have TBI. “Since I had been a psychology major in undergrad, I’m really interested in the brain. So, I want to connect that and speech-language pathology,” she said.
