Reddit and What I Found There

Remember when I researched my major on Twitter? Well, the time has come to do the same thing with Reddit! This time I've been looking at different arguments and controversies that are going on in the world of Speech Pathology, or at least those that people seem to talk about.

Have I noticed a trend?

On Reddit, people seem to want to bounce ideas off of each other, and they actually do respond! There was a lot of swapping therapy ideas and methods. On the topic of arguments and debates, however, I didn't find much. People didn't seem to want to debate as much as support one another. The only debates I was able to find had to do with conditions surrounding people's employment.

What tickled my fancy the most?

I had two discussions I found that I found extremely interesting. The first was regarding a speech pathologist who worked at a preschool. They wanted to know if it was appropriate that the school wanted them to be more responsible for the kids than a simple therapy session. They were expected to spend the whole day with the preschool children, change their diapers, and essentially be a babysitter. The argument was fascinating to me because I actually really enjoy being around preschool age children, and even if someone were taking advantage of me professionally, I wouldn't have the heart to say anything. I definitely respected the speech pathologist who said something.

Another discussion that caught my attention was one regarding how to know when it is appropriate to dismiss someone from speech therapy. Here is the link. I don't know how well anyone but me would think this applies, but I have always had a hard time ending relationships with people in any way, shape, or form. I was intrigued to find out when and how people do that in a more professional setting involving speech pathology. It was interesting to listen to different people's opinions on the topic. I will definitely need to learn how to end therapy with someone because no one needs speech therapy for their entire life.

How do I feel about what I saw?

I'm still very impressed with the speech-language pathology (slp) community. I am not one who asks for advice or help often, and to my surprise, there were an extremely large number of discussions that began with someone asking for advice. I don't know if this is the general format for Reddit in any situation because I've honestly never been on Reddit before today, but I was impressed. I love people and I hope I can get to the point where I'm as comfortable asking for advice as people seemed to be regarding slp. I was definitely not expecting people to be as open as they were about where they were at in life and exactly what they were going through.

US Agency for International Development "School children receive a dose of deworming medicine in Dien Bien" 5/3/2014 via Public Domain Files. Public Domain licensing.