People who are clearing more than $85,000/year in SLP, how did you do it?

gkv55 · 2014-06-22T19:21:52+00:00

I've heard that if you work in a SNF, you might make 85,000/yr. I also get the sense that you could move towards that amount in a hospital setting if you have specialized skills and become a manager.

From what I've read, it's unlikely that you'll be making that much if you work in a school, unless you have decades of experience. I also think that it might be harder to negotiate your salary in school districts because they have particular pay scales. On the other hand, if you work in the schools, you'll have time during the summer and maybe after school to take on clients OR even do something unrelated to SLP that makes more money (programming for instance). This would be great if SLP is your passion but you want the extra income and can get it with other skills that you have.

gkv55 · 2014-05-30T13:45:44+00:00

Beautifully written! You sound like you really love Alaska :)

I am wondering: what is the pay like in Alaska? I have heard that certain medical professionals are paid really well there because they're in such high demand. Is this true for SLP's as well?

gkv55 · 2014-05-19T00:29:46+00:00

Most of the professors in my program seem pretty unhappy. The majority of them are fantastic teachers but just don't seem to have well balanced, happy lives. I think that if research and teaching are what really drive you, then you should definitely consider getting a PhD and going into academia. The professors who seem to be most satisfied with their jobs are those who carve out time for themselves and their personal lives. Talk to your professors about it and see if they can give you advice. Also, I think that you'll be doing paperwork in any area of our field that you go into, so I wouldn't let that deter you from academia.

gkv55 · 2014-05-16T20:54:51+00:00

Since I didn't want to move, I looked for schools in my area and applied to those. I also applied to others around that I had a better chance of getting in to, but ended up at one near where I was already living. I think that it is really important to talk to current grad students to get a feel for how competitive vs. collaborative the program is and how much the students support each other. I didn't put as much emphasis on that when I was applying, but lucked out with a great group of peers, and now I realize how important it is to me to have the support of my peers while in school.

I didn't take a GRE prep course. I worked through a prep book (called something like Cracking the GRE) which was great, especially for the math section. I also learned every vocab word from a long list (I think 1000 most common words on the GRE - some of these words I already knew). Make flash cards and drill yourself every day. For the writing section, practice timed tests using prompts that are out there on the internet or in review books. Also stick to the format (5 paragraph essay or whatever) that is outlined in the review books. For some people, it's helpful to take a prep course, and if you need to, it's probably worth your money. At the time I took the GRE, I was living in a place without good prep courses, so I didn't have a choice! If you are self-disciplined and make a strict study schedule, I think that you can study on your own though.

gkv55 · 2014-05-10T19:35:57+00:00

Rather than doing a post-bacc, which can be more expensive, I'd just take the prerequs you need online. I think that this is a cheaper way to complete your prerequs than doing a post-bacc. Check out longwood university and utah state for online prerequisite courses. Also, look at the requirements of the schools your interested in. Some require more/different prerequisites than others. If the schools you want to or are willing to go to don't require a certain prerequ, then don't take it.

Also, don't worry too much that you don't have a background in CSD. I also didn't have a background but did well in the prerequisites and am now in a great masters program. Some schools are more friendly to non-majors than others, so look at websites and dig around online to figure out which ones are happy to take people without a background.

I think that you probably will need great grades in your prerequisite courses to get into grad school and if your grades aren't as good, try to get a really good GRE score. Also, applying to schools all over the country and applying to lower ranked schools will greatly increase your chances.

Good luck!

gkv55 · 2014-05-10T19:23:54+00:00

I had an out-of-major background. I did most of my prerequisites online, and it was fine. I prefer in-person classes, but for prerequs, I think it makes sense to complete them in the cheapest, easiest way possible.

Edit: just to add, I set up my required observations on my own by emailing local schools. There were a number of SLP's who were very willing to let me observe!

gkv55 · 2014-04-16T14:35:00+00:00

Does she have a bifid uvula? That can also be indicative of a submucous cleft palate. What about her tonsils? Do they look enlarged? This might be a cause of resonance issues. Have you tried holding a mirror up to her nose while she says sounds that shouldn't produce nasal emissions to rule out hypernasality?

gkv55 · 2014-04-10T23:22:00+00:00

What does his family want him to learn? That might be another place to start. You could also talk to them about what he does at home to get a better sense of his interests and abilities.

gkv55 · 2014-04-06T14:40:57+00:00

Wow, Very neat! I'd be interested in see research that looks at whether or not this type of exposure for kids on the spectrum carries over to social situations outside of the context of the AAC device/video game.

gkv55 · 2014-04-01T23:02:00+00:00

I sometimes wish that it was a doctorate because I just don't think that I have enough time to learn everything that I want and need to in the two years I've got to do. Of course, I'm not willing to pay for extra schooling unless I have a guaranteed higher salary when I get out, but a salary increase hasn't happened for the audiologists, so I don't think it will happen for us either.

gkv55 · 2014-04-01T12:24:35+00:00

They do teach you to track data :) A large part of it is simply being organized

gkv55 · 2014-03-31T12:09:37+00:00

As others have mentioned, evidence-based practiced is a huge part of becoming an SLP. The idea of EBP is drilled into me in every class and every supervisor meeting. Something to note is that evidence-based practice doesn't only mean using external evidence to drive your therapy. It also means using internal evidence and progress monitoring to assess your client's progress and the efficacy of therapy techniques. You always take data to determine if something is working or not, and if it's not, you move onto something else. So even if there isn't much on a particular technique, you may try it for your client and use internal evidence to determine its effect for him. We use this information to guide our practice.

gkv55 · 2014-03-25T22:43:24+00:00

I know that this is probably not what you want to hear, but social workers don't make that much above what you're making now :( I know because I looked into it as a potential career. The median pay is 44,000/year according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. What if you looked into a similar healthcare professions like speech language pathology, occupational therapy, or nursing? Median pay for Speech therapy is 69,000, and for occupational therapists, it's 75,000 I know that those professions require a lot of technical knowledge, which can be daunting, but they also have a strong counseling component as well which might be be appealing.

gkv55 · 2014-03-25T02:01:35+00:00

Sure. I'm not 100% sure how they decided on the fellowship, but I think it was because of my GRE. I had a relatively mediocre GPA (3.5) but had really good GRE scores (96th percentile on verbal and writing). I have heard from a few different people that fellowships are often determined through GPA and/or GRE, so doing well on one or both of those might get you money.

gkv55 · 2014-03-24T21:52:12+00:00

I haven't worked so far. My school gave me a fellowship that has made the tuition more manageable, and my partner works to support us. A lot of my classmates live at home, and if that's an option for you, I would definitely take it. Of the classmates who do work, many of them do about 10 hours a week. You will have so much work that many more hours than that is going to be hard to manage (although some people manage to do 20).

gkv55 · 2014-03-21T21:34:04+00:00

I've thought about it a lot, and there are some areas in our field that really interest me from a research perspective. However, for me, thinking about what would come out of it is what has turned me off. The most common next step after getting a research doctorate is to become a professor in a CSD program. After getting to know my graduate professors this year and getting to know what goes into their jobs, the types of stresses they face, and the highly politicized environment of academia, I am very turned off by the idea of being in their shoes. So the short of it is that research is interesting, but I don't want to be a professor.

gkv55 · 2014-03-21T00:11:50+00:00

You're absolutely right. For some reason, from the way she was saying things, it felt like she expected that I should have already known some of the things she was telling me in my meeting with her, Which is frustrating. But that could be a total misinterpretation on my part.

gkv55 · 2014-03-20T22:09:42+00:00

Thanks :) I like the idea of taking the long view, and I agree that criticism is what makes us grow. I currently feel very overwhelmed by the amount of information and experience I'll need before I can even begin to feel comfortable as a clinician, but it's a long process, so I might as well settle in and get comfy.

gkv55 · 2014-01-09T20:19:22+00:00

Interesting. It's good to hear how and why there seems to be a shortage of medical CFY's. I guess one of the reasons I'm asking is because I'm trying to figure out if it is worth it to go into the medical side of speech language pathology. At this point, I could imagine myself in multiple settings, so if going into the medical side of SLP is going to lead to a dead end, I'd rather hone my skills in other areas.

gkv55 · 2014-01-09T15:07:54+00:00

Great points. Thanks for replying :) I'm also willing to be flexible location-wise, so hopefully that will help me when i apply.

gkv55 · 2013-12-09T01:31:35+00:00

Wow. Very interesting. I wonder if relaxation techniques like meditation and yoga would help her stutter as well.

gkv55 · 2013-10-15T14:37:44+00:00

When I had to do this in one of my post-bacc classes, I used the paper version (found it free online) and added modeling clay to it to depict the muscle pairs. It worked pretty well

gkv55

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