letter of intent

[slpisthedream]

Hello everyone! I'm in the process of writing my letter of intent for grad school and am really struggling with how to connect my work with young children (3-4 years old with no developmental disabilities) and connecting it with speech pathology when my work with them had nothing to do with speech. All I did with them was fun activities (counting, abcs, read with them sometimes) I more so watched over them but this experience made me feel more comfortable and confident being around young children. 

Can anyone who had similar experience help me find a way of connecting it with speech pathology.  

[sauntare]

I have worked in preschool for many years and preschool is speech.  They are learning correct grammar, pronouns, vocab, etc.  There is also the pre-reading aspect of learning to break words into sounds, letter sounds, etc.  Look at what you learned about language in your classes you should be able to plug things in there that relate to speech.  Oh learning social skills as well.

[Jordyn_M463]

You could connect it saying that working with those children was the deciding factor for wanting to work with children. (assuming that is the population you are hoping to work with). I don't think you need to say "I learned x,y/z about the SLP field while working this job". You could always say you learned characteristics/skills such as patience, empathy, organization, multi-tasking, etc. Then you could explain why maybe those characteristics make a good grad student and SLP. 

Just a suggestion: I wouldn't discuss every single thing you have done in your letter of intent. Maybe just highlight the important ones, or begin your letter with the most salient one being your "calling" to the field. Your resume will show all the experience you have gained. I would focus more on these questions: 

• What setting/population would you like to work in? Why?
• What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses?
• Why this school? 
  • I suggest focusing 1/3 of your essay on this portion. You can use real names of professors/alum that have attended the program. Talk about their research and the schools motto/focus. Say you strive to learn from the best in the field and their program can provide that. Be specific and prove that you have researched and took the time to learn about their school/program. 

This was just what I was told by an advisor when applying last year. He was on the application/acceptance board of the schools SLP masters program. He told me those are things they really looked for. 

Best of luck!