10 things you should do before your paediatric speech therapy placement

“Failing to plan is planning to fail” - Benjamin Franklin

Now if you are anything like me you will be feeling ALL the feelings about your first paediatric speech and language therapy placement! Excited to finally do the job, nervous that you don’t really know what you’re doing and apprehensive about what it will be like (will you even like being a therapist?).

First off I want to reassure you that in this situation Benjamin Franklin isn’t totally right about placement! You have been prepping and planning throughout your degree by learning about communication, speech sounds, linguistics, neurology, anatomy, child development…you have been planning. So don’t feel like you need to go into overdrive preparing for your placement. The point of placement is to learn. You will feel out of your depth, you’re supposed to! Try to embrace the feeling and just go with it, remember, your educator was you once.

If you do want to feel a little more prepped I’ve got you! Below is my 10 pre-placement actions that you should take if you want to feel that little more prepared. From things to buy, to things to read, this list has my top tips.

Save/ download the checklist to refer to later, and check out the links below for my placement prep must-haves!

P.S. did you know I now have an Etsy shop with resources for SLTs to be just like you? Want to check it out? Click here!