19th & 20th century theory definitions

The speech-language pathologist is the professional who engages in clinical services, prevention, advocacy, education, administration, and research in the areas of communication and swallowing across the life span from infancy through geriatrics.

— The American Speech And Hearing Association (ASHA) (2007:1)

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Identity


• Etymological root refers to sameness but often seen as what makes me unique – who I am.
• Medical model/social model.
• Narrative Practice – viewed as “public and social achievement”.
• Co-constructed in “the trafficking of stories about our own and each other’s lives” White (2007, 182).

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The process of professional identity

• Individual process but co-constructed.
• Multiple identities.
• Fluid, dynamic.
• Therapeutic exchanges.
• Stories told and interpreted.
• Cultural Influences.

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How are identities constructed?

O’Dwyer and Leahy (2015)

• Postmodernist thinking – multiple identities are available to an individual at any given time.
• Narratives play a large role in how we construct and re-construct these identities for ourselves and for others.
• Narratives are how we make sense of our experiences and this meaning-making in turn leads to a sense of identity. Bruner (1986: 143) explained that ‘narrative structures organise and give meaning to experience’.  Riessman(2008: 8) states that ‘individuals and groups construct identities through storytelling’ and that these identities are fluid.

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SLTs – multiple identities*

• An individual speech and language therapist has multiple identities available to them at any time.
• More aware of some than others and how conscious/aware they are of any identity at a given time varies.
• Intrapersonal and interpersonal factors influence how these identities are negotiated and renegotiated.
• These identities are negotiated in their interaction with the people they see for therapy and their families/carers.
• “Through clinical interaction clients and clinicians negotiate who they are and the roles they play in the therapy story.” Simmons-Mackie and Damico (2011:44)
• If a particular identity gets validated through these interactions, it takes hold and is performed regularly, If not validated, gets renegotiated.

*O’Dwyer, M.  and Leahy, M.M. (2016). There is no cure for this:  An exploration of the professional identities of speech and language therapists’, Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders, 2, 149-167.

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Who are speech and language therapists working with children and adults who stutter and their families?
 Possible identities:

My dilemma as an SLT

How best to support speech and language therapists who are working with children and adults who stutter so that they work as allies in the context of evidence which shows that stuttering therapy has an overall positive effect.  No one treatment approach for stuttering demonstrates significantly greater effects over another treatment approach. Herder, Howard, Nye, & Vanryckeghem (2006).

• Need to validate professional identities that support.
• Learning from people who stutter.
• Therapy which focuses on positive outcomes in terms of children and adults living the lives they want  to live and the development of therapy that focuses on education and resistance to normalising discourses.
• Resists focus on fluency and cure in therapy.
• Focus on confidence, fun and delight in finding and validating identities which fit with our dreams, hopes and ambitions.