One Special Moment {Linky}

The school year is officially over, and I have to say, it was a blur.  Between therapy sessions, learning to lead IEP meetings and complete paperwork on my own, grad school coursework, and being a wife and mom, I was incredibly busy. I loved every second of it!  Jen over at Speech Therapy Fun had a great idea that has helped me to reflect back on my busy year.  She is hosting the "One Special Moment" linky and I decided to join in.  :-) ...




My one special moment occurred earlier this year with a 4 year old student I saw as a walk-in for speech.  When he first started speech, our sessions were a whirlwind!  He wanted to play with everything except for what I had planned.  He was all over the place and I was usually sweating by the time our 20 minutes were over.  We worked through it and he gradually began to learn the expectations and routine of our sessions.  My one special moment took place on my last day with him a few weeks ago.  My little student was ready to move from being a walk-in speech student to attending 1/2 day pre-k at another campus, so I would no longer be seeing him.  Our last session went great.  He was using a visual schedule and participating in every activity I planned.  He was also using much more language.  At the end of our session we read a social story I had created for him about going to a new school.  Then we walked out to his mom where he took her hand and said, "Bye, Miss Kristin" and calmly walked out the door.  This was an emotional moment for me because I realized how much of an impact we have on our students.  When he first came to me, just getting through the session was a challenge, and then getting him out of the building when speech was over was another event in itself.  But now, here he was doing so well and able to leave with a simple, appropriate goodbye.  It was in this moment that I reflected back on how much progress he had made in just a few short months, and I was so glad to have been a part of it.

I know that SLPs all over have had moments like this.  I thank God every day that I get to work with amazing kids and experience many special moments.  This was just one, and I look forward to many more moments like this in the future.

What one special moment did you have this year?  You can leave a message in the comments or write a blog post and link up on Speech Therapy Fun.