Developing Professional Skills in Speech and Language Therapy

Running head: SPEECH AND LANGUAGE THERAPY
SPEECH AND LANGUAGE THERAPY
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

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SPEECH AND LANGUAGE THERAPY
Speech and Language Therapy course helps individuals to develop a career as speech
and language therapist who can successfully treat, support and thereby care for those people who
face problems with communication, drinking, eating as well as swallowing problems. I always
had the dream of becoming a speech and language therapist or SLT and get admission in one of
the best colleges of the world. This assignment would mainly be a reflective piece that would
discuss the ways I developed many professional skills in my university that would help me to be
an expert in my professional life. Both reflection in action and reflection on action would be
included.
Reflection in action mainly includes reflecting or thinking about the incident when the
activity is being carried out or the incident is taking place. Reflection-on-action can be defined as
the retrospective contemplation of practice for uncovering knowledge used in the particular
situation. This is done by analyzing and interpreting the information that is recalled. Here the
professional need to speculate how the situation might have been handled differently and what
specific knowledge would have been helpful (Schön 2017).
Initially I was quite excited and I was looking forward to meet new people, learn in a new
environment, and meet expert and highly knowledgeable personalities. However, as the days
gradually started to pass and the first day of the college was gradually approaching, an unknown
fear started to creep within me. The first day was mainly introductory and I took a stroll all
around the university campus and was quite astonished with the enormous area of the university
that covered the fields, buildings, classes, sports area and many others.
Group work:

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SPEECH AND LANGUAGE THERAPY
The main classes started after a week and it was during this time, we had to spend more
time with my classmates and the professors who were allotted in each of the subjects. We were
allocated in groups where we had to work with students with whom I had not communicated
before. It was becoming very difficult for me to work with other students who were complete
strangers for me and with whom I shared no comfort level. We had no bonding and hence often
it resulted in chaotic situation where the members were not ready to listen to others and was
constantly blaming each other for failure of any of the aspects in the group work. We could not
complete the work within the deadline, as there was no coordination and collaboration among the
members of the team. While one of the members showed a withdrawing behavior, another one
was constantly criticizing about different aspects of the group projects.
Reflection in action: I was quite tensed and fearful about the outcome of the group
project and decided to consult with the mentor to develop the stressful situations among the
group so that the out groups project received are given higher scores. With the help of the
suggestions of my mentor, I tried to introduce a number of aspects so that effective group work
can take place.
Reflection on action: Development of bonding and teamwork is extremely important for
effective group work. Members should show mutual respect to each other and should trust each
other completely (Mondor et al. 2018). This is important for development of bonds and comfort
levels among the group members. Studies are of the opinion that team bonding and constructive
feedbacks are excessively important for higher productivity and team unity (Hughes 2017).
Active listening skills as well exchange of constructive feedback can not only develop the quality
of the group work and its outcomes but can also prevent different misunderstanding and missing
important aspects of work (Rosen et al. 2018). Active listening skills by the listener might help

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the speaker to feel respected that his words and suggestions are respected and prevent missing
important details of projects. Constructive feedback helps in development of bonds while
criticizing and negative comments can result in blame games and development of negative
feelings among the members. These would affect productivity and delay in-group work (Rosen et
al. 2014). Hence, I sat with them in an informal manner and politely discussed with the different
attributes that would help in overcoming the different barriers we were facing in group work. I
made them understand of importance of bonding, mutual trust, development of compatibility,
coordination, collaboration, feedback skills, active listening skills and many others and how they
can help in completing group work and score goof marks (Goodman et al. 2017). They
understood my perspective and tried to develop such skills. Moreover, we also started hanging
out after classes, went to informal outings, had lunch together and many others. This helped in
developing mutual liking, trust and compatibility among the members that resulted in formation
of good bonds (Mijakoski et al. 2018). These also helped us in scoring well and getting good
marks in group-project. In the future, when I become a speech and language therapist, I might
need to work in multidisciplinary teams of healthcare professionals treating co-morbid cases of
patients. This aspect would be helping me to develop as better team-member in the future.
Cultural competency
Another stressful experience that I had gone through during my initial months was
adapting to an entirely new culture in the new university. Although most of my friends and
classmates had accepted me with open arms in spite of me belonging to another cultural
background, there was another group who was not comfortable in presence of me. I used to
overlook such incidents so that I do not feel affected by them. Moreover, I was not able to adjust
to the new environment in the university. Every student here had different lifestyles that were not