What are the areas of professional practice that capture my interest (this might be a disorder, anything relating to treatment or diagnosis, etc.)? With respect to this general topic, what would an essential question for me be? What do I already know about this topic? What don't I know about this topic?

I am interested in many areas of professional practice, especially those relating to children. When I started thinking about topic I might choose to research in this class, I thought to myself, “Oh my God. I have no idea what I want to research.” But as I started thinking more and more about it, I came up with a couple of things. First, I am extremely fascinated by autism. I actually work at Autism Services Center and I love my job. I work with a wonderful boy and I do a lot of receptive and expressive language training with him. Another topic that interests me is articulation and phonological disorders in children. I have pretty much decided that I want to work with children, so these are the areas that I will probably encounter most in my professional career.

Since I haven’t decided between autism (how it relates to communication disorders) and artic./phonological disorders in children, I have devised essential questions for each topic. In regards to autism, I suppose I might ask: “What is the most effective way for speech-language pathologist to deal with the behaviors of autistic children?” Also in regards to treating communication disorders in autistic children, I may want to ask this: “What are some of the most effective methods for improving upon pragmatics in an autistic child?” When it comes to articulation and phonological disorders in children, I may want to ask: “What are the most effective ways to treat articulation disorders in children?” Also, I may want to pose these questions: “How might I go about treating a child who has a severe phonological disorder?” and “What are the most effective methods for treating phonological disorders?”

Regarding these topics (autism and artic./phonological disorders), I feel that I know some things about autism and artic. disorders, but very little about phonological disorders. I know the nature of autism and the characteristics thereof. I also know that perhaps the main and most common communication problem that autistic individuals face lies within the pragmatics of language. When it comes to artic. disorders, I feel that I know some about how to treat them. I definitely know when to recognize one (thanks to you, Mrs. McComas) and I am quite familiar with Van Riper’s traditional approach to treating artic. disorders (thanks again!). However, I am not so certain when it comes to phonological disorders and this is an area that I want to explore more of. Perhaps I’m choosing my topic as I speak!

As far as not knowing about autism, I feel that I could learn more about how speech pathologists get a handle on the behavioral characteristics of autistic individuals. In other words, what are they allowed to do when an autistic child has a behavior in therapy and what are different techniques used by speech-therapist to redirect autistic individuals and to get autistic individuals back on task. In regards to artic. disorders, I want to know more about therapy techniques (I’m familiar with the Van Riper method, but what else is out there?). Also, just as I had mentioned above, I know very little about phonological disorders and I am very interested in learning more about how to recognize them (what sets them apart from artic. disorders) and how to treat them.

I guess I have my work cut out for me. Hopefully I'll know more about what I want to research (exactly what I want to reasearch). Anyway, I think I'm on the right track for now.

Heather