Speech Therapist Alison Bryan
My name is Alison Bryan. I am a Speech Language Pathologist at Racker and I’d like to share my story through two events that happened to me that have deeply impacted my life, and subsequently my work at Racker. I hope it will provide some insight as to why therapists like me are so passionate about our work at Racker, and why your support is critical to keep these underfunded opportunities available in our community. My story is personal, full of learning and defined by dignity. I am one of four daughters. My oldest sister, Barbara, we now know was born with Autism- a word that wasn’t used much in the 1960’s. During that era, agencies and programs for people with disabilities were very limited and education certainly wasn’t inclusive. Because of the impact of Barbara’s unmet needs and behaviors were having on us siblings, my parents made the excruciating decision to institutionalize her at age 7 – that's the only option they felt they had.
I remember Saturday mornings as a young child, walking into a barrack's sized, barrack’s style building, where Barbara lived with 70 other children. I watched kids who looked different, spoke differently, moved differently and acted differently. I also watched my father. He would interrupt his conversations with the staff person signing us out, and turn and greet each child who approached him, and he would ask them how they were and listen to them, shake their hands and treat them with warmth, respect and dignity. There’s nothing in the definition of the word ‘dignity’ of meeting a standard or fulfilling expectations. Dignity is having value simply because you exist. And that’s what my father modeled for me – to treat everyone with dignity.
The second event occurred as a new employee at Racker. I was fresh out of grad school and was starting my 9-month clinical fellowship. My supervisor and mentor was Speech Language Pathologist, Nancy Emerson. When it was time for me to give her my first progress report on a child I was working with, she said “Double space it”- so I did. I was not ready for what I got back. I don’t know if any of you are traumatized by a teacher’s red ink pen on a paper you worked so hard on, but this report was full of red ink. I looked at what merited the red ink and I saw a pattern. It was sentences like this:
Jeanette is able to follow 2-step verbal directions.
Allysa is able to point to what she wants, but is not able to use spoken words.
Anytime I used the phrases “is able to” or “is not able to”- RED INK – right through it! Her explanation was a game changer for me. She said, “You do not know what a child is able to do or not able to do. All you know, is what that child does or does not do in that moment.”
That was the moment I experienced a huge paradigm shift in my thinking, and I stopped seeing kids as empty buckets that need to be filled, and started seeing them as unique individuals. My job was to come alongside each one, to build a relationship, to support them, teach some skills, and give them some tools, so that they could determine their own dreams and figure out who they were meant to be.
My colleagues and I provide clinical services to children in our community, in an industry that is grossly underfunded. Your donation to Racker supports programs that provide dignity and opportunity to children and families in our community. My story is one of many in our agency. There are thousands more out there, and your gift helps create a world where everyone knows they belong.
