About the Author:

I am a 21 year old senior at Marshall University. I am majoring in communication disorders and I am enrolled in the undergraduate program. I hope to complete my degree this year and then go to graduate school next fall to get my master's degree. I want to be a SLP that works with children and I would love to work in the school system.

This summer, I took CD 315, which is an internet class designed to teach students more about computers and to do a research project. The research project that I did was a Multi-Genre-Research project. For this project, I developed 6 pieces of writing and addressed these writings in at least 3 different voices. All of the voices that I used were of a clinician, teacher, client, and a parent. All of the voices that are used are based on fictional characters. I created these characters to help answer my research question.

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I have received a lot of help with my research project. My group members (Andrea, Matt, and Christy) have been very helpful as they have provided great feedback on my essential question and genres. A lot of their suggestions have been real useful. Jennifer has been helpful too, as she always would respond to my e-mails and would help me whether it was getting my webliography to work or helping me come up with a genre that would fit my essential question. Laura has also been helpful as she gave me suggestions to help improve my MRP. Mrs. Mccomas has been extremely helpful as she helped me get my essential question on the right track, as well as help me improve my genres, and answer tons of my questions. Thanks goes out to all of my classmates and my professor for the help that they have given me.

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The class that I am taking this summer (June 10-August 16, 2002) is CD 315. One of the assignments for this class was to develop a Multigenre Research Project on the web. For this project we were to develop an essential question that we wanted to find the answer to. After I developed an essential question I then had to develop six pieces of writings that I thought would best answer my essential question. All of the genres had to be addressed in at least three different voices.

The research question that I developed for this project is how can SLP’s help children with communication disorders overcome the negative impact that public perception can have on a communication disorder? What made me want to focus on this question is the fact that often many people find themselves making fun of people with communication disorders. I do not know how many times that people will tell me a joke and the content of the joke is making fun of people who have a communication disorder. When they get done telling the joke they are laughing hysterically and I am thinking that this is really sad when people actually find happiness at the expense of others. One other particular instance that pops in my head is that I know someone who is 18 years old and says w-r. I know that it is sad that an 18 year old has this problem, but many people just laugh every time he says w for all the r-words and make fun of him to his face. Often many people would just say w for all their r-words to poke fun at the way he said his words. I think because of the way that other people view and treat people with communication disorders that it can cause them to develop a low self-esteem and a negative self-image. So, I wanted to research more on how SLP’s can help children, not only improve their speech problem, but improve the negative impact that often goes hand in hand with a communication disorder.

After the research question was chosen, the next part was to develop the MRP. For this project I had to develop 6 genres and these genres had to be written in at least 3 different points of views. The voices that I thought would answer my essential question would be developing genres in the voice of the clinician, client, teacher, and parent. Three genres were required, which were a webliography, a poem, and a power point presentation. Besides these three genres, I chose to do a letter to the editor, a journal entry, and an interview. I chose the webliography to be the in voice of the clinician. I addressed this piece to the public to let readers know more about me and about my research project. Another genre that I chose was a poem in the voice of the client. This piece was intended for the public (classmates, teachers, and parents), so that people who read this poem can get an idea of the way a child with a communication disorder feels about himself and about the way his classmates view him. The power point presentation was in the voice of the clinician and it was developed for parents and teachers to understand how a communication disorder can affect the life of that child. The letter to the editor is done in the voice of a parent directed to the public expressing her thoughts about what should be done because of the way her child with a communication disorder gets treated. The interview was done in the voice of the clinician and teacher. This was conducted so that the teacher can gain ideas of how she can help increase a student’s low self-esteem due to the negative impact that a communication disorder can have on the child. The journal entry genre is in the voice of the teacher and is the piece that I use to tie all of my genres together.

My research topic centers around the negative impact that public perception can have on a child with a communication disorder. Because children spend the majority of their day at school, I thought it was important to include a teacher as one of my voices. I decided to use this piece to tie everything together because I think part of the answer to my question is to include help from other professionals. I think having SLP's, teachers, and parents working together will really help children with communication disorders feel better about themselves and be viewed in the same perspective as their peers. I used the voice of the teacher to show how teachers can help students with communciation disorders feel better about themselves and to show how teachers can get their students to interact with each other regardless if they have a communciation disorder.

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