This year I’ve had the amazing privilege of sharing my room with a fellow SLP (yes, I actually enjoy sharing a space… more on that in another post). We often have a laugh over funny SLP-inspired happenings that creep up in our private lives. It got me thinking about all of those little things that we encounter that only Speech-Language Pathologists can appreciate.
So, here is a little list of “You Might Be an SLP if” happenings:
You Might Be an SLP if…
- you’ve diagnosed actors/hosts/reporters while watching your evening television.
- your office was once a closet.
- you had to say no to a potential date due to their slight lisp.
- ðɪs ɪz wət ju jus fɔr ə sikrət kod.
- you can imitate any speech distortion on command.
- there are more letters after your name than are in your name. (M.S., CCC-SLP!)
- when water “goes down the wrong way” you dismiss it by saying, “Don’t worry, I just aspirated some thin liquid”.
- all of your tweets contain the hashtags of #SLPeeps, #SLP2b, etc.
- you have entire conversations in abbreviations, standard scores, and percentiles.
- you named your cat “Syntax” and your dog “Dysphonia”.
- your superhero name would be “Buccinator”.
- you make a beeline for the kids books section of any bookstore.
- your tongue depressors are flavored.
- adults using incorrect grammar gives you the heebie-jeebies.
- you think of the ASHA conference as your “family reunion”.
- you wear earplugs at concerts and put headphones on your children in loud places.
- you think TpT should really be called “SLPs pay SLPs” (SpS)!
- most of your paycheck is spent at the dollar store/spot on toys, reinforcers, and organizational materials.
- you watch a person’s mouth during conversation.
- you know that speech, voice, and language are very different things.
- your friends/family ask what you think about their child’s speech even though you have been secretly assessing them since birth and already have a full diagnostic report ready.
- you understand medical shorthand and teacher abbreviations.
- you no longer have to look up standard scores to your most common assessments.
- your Facebook wall has more posts from SLP blogs than your friends.
- you can take any board game and tweak it to be a therapy material.
- you use terms like “tympanic membrane” and “vocal folds” in place of the layman’s terms of “eardrum” and “vocal chords”.
- you find random packets of “SimplyThick” in your pockets when doing laundry.
- your own children are fluent in ASL by the age of 1.
- your SpEd team or rehab team are some of your closest friends.
- you’ve worked in SNFs, schools, clinics, EI, private therapy, and more… in one year!
- you truly enjoy helping others and love your career.
I hope you find this humorous and have enjoyed this fun little blog post! Have a great week!
Those were hilarious! My daughter had 50 signs by the time she was 18 months. My degree is MCD, CCC-SLP…. can you imagine if I went for a PhD! I was irritated sitting in church listening to a priest that substituted /w/ for /r/. And yes, I diagnose or secretly assess all of my friends children’s speech or behaviors!
Love it! TY
Love it!!! You made my day! And yes…those are all true for me too!
Sharing, pinning, and loving every one of these! So fun! Thanks:)
THIS IS AN AWESOME LIST!!! Love it! 🙂 🙂
Too funny! I had to switch trainers mostly because of time but also because he had really poor jaw stability and always talked out of one corner of his mouth.
Kelly
Speech2u
So true, and so funny! Love this list. Thanks <3
Thanks for an early morning chuckle, I can put a check mark next to every item!
Too cute and so true!
Yay! What a fun list! And SO true! lol 🙂
Lauren
Busy Bee Speech
SO funny! I’ve just started my 28th year as an SLP and even my husband will say, “There’s something interesting about that newscasters speech” and wait for my “diagnosis”. Thanks for the laughs!
I love this!!! Thank you.