I had the opportunity to participate in a summer internship at Adler Therapy group which lasted July 29th, 2019 through August 26th, 2019. Adler Therapy Group specializes in delivering Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Speech Language Pathology for pediatrics, adolescents and adults. Their headquarters located in Virginia Beach, VA features a private health and wellness center that includes state-of-the-art equipment and private treatment rooms. They also have a dedicated Wheelchair Seating and Mobility Clinic and an Augmentative/Assistive Technology Clinic serving all ages. Their specialty clinics offer personalized evaluations to determine the individualized needs of each and every client. My internship was a rotation with multiple pediatric speech-language pathologists, where I was given various opportunities to participate in therapy session, learn more about the profession, and receive advice on applying to graduate programs in the field. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) work to prevent, assess, diagnose, and treat speech, language, social communication, cognitive-communication, and swallowing disorders in children and adults.
During my internship at Adler Therapy Group, I learned to:
- Apply classroom learning related to my major
- Identify professional development opportunities to expand knowledge, understanding, and abilities
- Establish connections with industry-related professionals
Reflection Activities
As touched on in my video below, my internship experience was both a fulfilling and a unique one due to the fact that my experience was directly related to my career aspirations for graduate education and not so much my undergraduate generalist degree itself. I am a psychology major who was lucky able to intern at an outpatient therapy clinic shadowing speech-language pathologists, my intended future career. I believe that this internship allowed me to develop professionally due to the fact that it gave my insight into the roles and responsibilities of my intended future career. I was able to participate in therapy sessions by interacting with clients, making therapy material, and even aided in writing reports. I also was given the opportunity to speak with other therapists about the application process for graduate schools and how to make myself a competitive applicant. I believe that as an out of field applicant this experience gave me an immense amount of knowledge that I did not previously had and also provided me a stellar professional development activity that will greatly help me achieve my career goal and also solidified it, instilling in me a passion for the field and population. I believe that this experience made me appreciate my major and minor because I have diverse knowledge that other applicants may not have been exposed through in their plan of study.
In the following video clip, I reflect on my internship experience including key takeaways from this process, skills I did develop amd enhanced, and usefulness of this experience in future professional settings;