Amy the clinician

Today was my first day as a graduate student clinician. I was very excited about today and it was hard to sleep last night. I was anxious, but surprisingly not nervous.

At 8 AM I met with my first client. We didn't really do any therapy, I basically just let her get to know me. She is VERY shy and will hardly ever talk... to anyone. However, she is a sweet girl and I hope I can get her to open up.

My other two clients today were at 3 & 4. During my 3:00 I met with the client's parents and did the Entire World of R Advanced Screening. This was basically to get information about his production with "r" in the initial/medial/final parts of words (rat, art, car) and other r combinations "girl" "fire" "drum" etc. Tomorrow I will score the test and plan this semester's therapy accordingly.

My 4:00 was wonderful. The client is not verbal, but we know that she CAN speak, so I am basically pushing her for ANY kind of verbalization. For example" today she said "da" for "doll"... and I was excited! The client's therapy will be mainly play-based due to young age and low functioning cognitive skills.

Overall, I felt good about today. Could things have gone better? yes. Could I have been more prepared? Probably. But today was a good day of just allowing my client's to get comfortable with me.

School work on top of clinic is going to be tough. I am already so tired but it seems I have a million things to do for class tomorrow. Yay for graduate school...

I still feel kind of lost when it comes to therapy too. I'm not sure I understand what direction I need to take my clients, so I'm hoping I can meet with my supervisors tomorrow and they can help me before Thursday. I want the best possible treatment for my clients.