May was Better Hearing & Speech Month.  In addition to inviting parents to tell about their experiences with speech-language therapy, I talked (reviewed) with most of the kids I work with about why they are coming to see me.  We talked about the different ways we are growing their brains in therapy.  For a couple of the older children, this presented a fantastic opportunity!  We could work on a number of their therapy goals and at the same time have a blog post as an end product to share (with parent consent).  Over the course of the month of May, we worked on writing blog posts about their experiences coming to speech-langauge therapy.  A bonus outcome of these blog posts is to raise public awareness and educate about what all "speech therapy" can mean (it is such a diverse field)! Today, I am delighted to share with you a guest post written by Mia, who choose to have her post published.  Here is her story:

Hi, my name is Mia.  I am 13 years old.  One of the things I love to do is play roller derby.  It's one of my favorite sports.  Another thing about me is that I go to speech therapy.  And today I would like to tell you what I do at speech therapy.

At speech therapy my therapist and I work on: organizing my thoughts so I can explain things better, my speech so I can talk like kids my age, writing because I want to be able to write on grade level, and reading because I want to read novels.  I work one on one with my speech therapist and she helps me get to my goals.  I go to her office and we sit at a table.  We do different activities that help me with my speech and language.  First, I'll tell her about my week.  Then, she'll ask me if I did my homework, if I did she'll give me more.  Next, we work on organizing my thoughts and my speech and language.

Speech therapy can be frustrating because I don't want to do the work or I can't figure it out.  Or other times it can be confusing because I don't understand.  Therapy can also be really fun because it is interesting to me.

I get homework every week.  Sometimes the homework is boring.  It can make me mad and frustrated because either I can't figure it out or I don't want to do it.  But I know that my homework is helpful to me.

Therapy is very helpful, I've improved a lot.  Now I can read and write.  My speech and language have improved a lot, too.

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