Quite a lot actually – even when we overlook the awful title of this blogpost.
Psychology, as you probably know, is the scientific study of the brain that encompasses various disciplines including Freud’s Fabulous Theories. Many of these disciplines link with what we learn on the Speech and Language Therapy (SLT) course, for example social, language and behavioural development, learning, cognitive processes, absences of those cognitive processes – or the possibility of those cognitive processes being there, just not switched on?
At the start of the course, you explore early cognition and development in children. This knowledge proves invaluable when observing children on placement and is a great way to impress the family when watching ‘The Secret Life of 4/5/6 Year Olds’. Once you have grasped the workings of neurotypical children you learn about atypical development, and theories as to why a population may act a certain way. It’s all tantalising stuff; what’s even better in this degree is that you might get to meet, and even work with the populations that you learn about. Countless people who are interested in pursuing other subjects further are deterred by the level of experience needed, without realising SLT placements might get them where they need to be!
The other great thing about SLT placements is that you might be able to try out some of the experiments you learn about in university – just in case you were worried that the evidence behind an experiment was not strong enough. Talking about strength of evidence, we do explore a lot of this in the course which really helps with evaluating journals, writing dissertations (next year for me eek!) and knowing which interventions to use with individuals. The SLT course is so Psychology rich, that at times it is difficult to disambiguate the two.
So, if you are interested in Psychology, then I encourage you to see what doors SLT might open for you.
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