SPED class: Week 12

Well hello there! Welcome to the LAST week of SPED 310 blogging! What a wild ride we've had fellow bloggers and readers, am I right?! Well here it is, for the FINAL time:

Spiritual reminder:
"There are times when we have to step into the darkness in faith, confident that God will place solid ground beneath our feet once we do. And so I accepted gladly, knowing that God would provide." - President Dieter F. Uchtdorf ("The Why of Priesthood Service," general conference, April 2012)

Course objectives for this week:

1. A sensitivity to the needs of and compassion for those with special needs.
2. A multidisciplinary view of exceptionality, cultural differences, individual and family dynamics, poverty, and abuse.

I also completed my last simulation report too! This last one was on speech impediments.

Fluency Disorder Simulation (Stuttering):
The two tasks that I decided to do for this activity were: 

• While stuttering order a book or request help or something else you need with a live person at a help desk or at a service counter.
• While stuttering ask for help at a store.... and then ask the clerk/sales person 1-2 questions about the item you are shopping for

As you can maybe imagine I received a couple of looks when I stuttered a whole lot. However, I received a lot fewer then I expected. People seemed to be very understanding and even patient of me taking longer to say something. Stuttering is a more common occurrence then other handicaps I feel. I stutter quite a bit already whenever I am anxious or when I am trying to express something with a great level of emotion and my mind gets ahead of my lips and tongue. This simulation was a little easier for me to do because I already do it a little without encouragement. I did the tasks above without much difficulty. I asked for help finding a book, saying my /b/ for about 3 seconds before I said the actual word. I felt more frustration within myself when I felt like I could not adequately express what I was trying to say to someone. When I stutter in real life the same thing occurs. Sometimes I feel the words on the tip of my tongue but I just can't voice them. I have to pause just to let my brain and vocal chords keep in track. It's a bummer really, stuttering. Quite a few people in my family have it too. They have it worse then myself. My father has it especially bad, always has since he was a kid. My grandfather has a very noticeable lisp, which I used to have when I was younger as well. My younger brother couldn't say his r's properly when he was little. My brother went to speech therapy to correct that issue. As for me, I just mostly grew out of it. 
This experience has taught me to learn better patience when speaking with someone. It also helped me to see how patient others are to speech impediments. Way to go society!

Because this is my last post (for this class/forever) I want to wish everyone Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and a Happy New Year! Hope this next year brings you all of the love and happiness that you all rightfully deserve:)

xoxo Hayley