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looking for pathway suggestions


AngieW in Texas
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My 22yo graduated summa cum laude with a double major in speech pathology and early childhood learning and development 1.5 years ago. She also has Asperger's.

 

She applied to grad school at 5 schools during her last year of undergraduate, but didn't get in anywhere (about 20% acceptance rate), including at the school she was already attending and had never made a grade lower than A-.

 

After she graduated, she worked as an AVID tutor at a high school for one semester, but they said that she wasn't connecting with the kids and suggested that she switch to working with middle school kids instead. She did ask for a transfer to work with middle schoolers instead, but there weren't any positions open at that level, so they let her go.

 

Then she worked at an after school daycare at an elementary school until the end of the school year. They actually wanted her back for the next schoolyear, but the position was super stressful. Things went better there after she told her supervisor that she had Asperger's. There had been misunderstandings when B took things that were said literally (like "hold the door" to mean watch my group of kids). After B told her supervisor about her Asperger's, she was more careful to make sure that she explicitly told her what she wanted her to do.

 

After these experiences, B doesn't feel like Speech Pathology is a good path for her anymore. She is very worried about paying a ton of money for grad school and then not being successful at the job because of her difficulties. She knew how to work around her difficulties in school, but they are a lot harder to work around in the job market.

 

Currently, she is working at a grocery store as a custodian. It pays well (way better than the other two jobs she had) and gives her 32-40 hours every week; it isn't stressful; and she loves the people she works with as well as the customers. 

 

She doesn't want to do this forever though. She is trying to figure out what kind of pathway to work towards. She is very social, but completely melts into a puddle if anybody gets mad at her and then has anxiety attacks every time she sees that person afterwards. She is a perfectionist and is meticulous and methodical, but doesn't work particularly quickly. Anything you ask her to do, you can absolutely count on being done thoroughly. But it takes her maybe 15-20% longer than it would take somebody else who is working steadily at it.

 

She is terrified of doing something wrong. She is always terrified of doing something wrong. This is always at the forefront of her mind. This is despite counseling and medication. It is part of her Asperger's. She must do everything right at all times. It's a big part of what makes her slower at accomplishing tasks because she has to know for sure that she is doing it completely right (whatever "it" is). She doesn't want to have any type of job where what she is doing might be life or death (not pharmacy tech, for example, where a mixup in medication could kill somebody).

 

She can work with Word and Excel, but isn't a fast typist and probably won't ever be a fast typist because of fine motor control issues. I still have to replace drawstrings and laces with cord stops because B can't tie a bow (although she can now tie a knot). She went through many rounds of occupational therapy for fine motor skills and that's as far as it ever got. Speed just isn't going to be there. We are happy with legible writing and accurate (although not fast) typing. Her typing speed is about 40wpm.

 

She has taken programming classes. While she can do it well enough to get an A in a class, she isn't good at it and it takes forever. She will never be able to work as a programmer.

 

I just don't know what direction to point her towards. She has asked for help to figure out what kind of path to follow and I just don't know where to point her to. She loves working with young kids and 4-6yo kids usually adore her, but dealing with the parents is where she struggles.

 

Any suggestions?

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If she likes speech therapy and has invested into it with her BS degree, what part of the job is she afraid of? It is not a do or die job like paramedic. I am leaning toward working on social skills with adults rather than revamping her entire career path. That would be so sad.

If she did speech therapy for little ones (you mentioned she does well with younger kids) how exactly would the interaction with parents pose difficulties? Can you work with her on this part?

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I don't think speech pathology would be a good "fit" given her challenges but would she have any interest in pediatric audiology? She should have all the pre-requisites from her bachelor's. Audiology requires being meticulous and a lot of the job would be fairly routine since there are standard ways of running hearing exams. There are also jobs in industry at the hearing aid and cochlear implant manufacturers if she finds out that being a clinician isn't right for her. Audiology pays better than SLP, though it is a 4 year graduate degree rather than 2.

 

There is a definite need for good pediatric audiologists.

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It can take anyone a few different job experiences to find just that right fit. Every different experience is a learning experience about what you are skilled at and what you actually enjoy doing. 

 

It sounds like your dd has already had a few excellent experiences, and can begin to discover things that work really well for her, and things that don't. She doesn't need to toss out all her academic experience out the door and start from scratch. She has a better idea of what age group isn't a great fit, and she can look into working with different age groups in a less stressful setting. 

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Would she be into computer science at all?

 

Alley

 

She took two programming classes and most of her friends at college were programmers (usually on the video game programming track). It isn't her strength at all. She can do what it takes to do well in a class, but not to succeed in programming at a job.

 

She hates the idea of just throwing away the degree that she has earned, but has considered going back to get an MS in something that doesn't require a specific undergraduate degree. 

 

The big issues with speech pathology (aside from the major difficulty of just getting accepted into a program that has a 15-30% admission rate across the country) are:

(1) three year full time program including summers with no possibility of working during that time because of required clinical hours

(2) no funding for students pursuing the program (less than 10% of the students in the program are eligible for funding and most don't provide it for anybody)

(3) major debt

(4) SLPs we have talked to have all said that admission rates are higher if you go out of state, but then the cost is even higher

(5) many of the starting positions after graduating are at schools and she doesn't think she would do well in that environment (I'm a ps teacher, but didn't start teaching until after she was already partway through her degree)

 

I was wondering if maybe switching to a library science degree for grad school would be a good idea. B doesn't want to pursue grad school until she has some idea of what she wants to do. Audiology is something that I thought might be a good idea because it's more technical than speech pathology and she could focus on things like cochlear implants and hearing aids that are more objective rather than subjective. It is a 4-year degree though and it has the same very low admission rate that SLP has.

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