Perseverance | Zina Jawadi

I remember arguing with my speech therapist, Sarah, when I was four years old, who was aimlessly urging me to pronounce the letter "r."  Now, at age seventeen, while at times I still feel frustrated and upset thinking back about how difficult and tormenting speech therapy was, I realize that speech therapy taught me valuable life skills beyond learning how to pronounce certain letters: I have learned about persistence, persuasion, and patience.  Hours of repeating the same letter again and again has taught me the life skill of perseverance and hard work.  The most challenging part of speech therapy is saying something that you hear differently.  Imagine you hear "bab," but you need to say "dad."  People with hearing loss sometimes pronounce certain sounds incorrectly, because they (the people with hearing loss) are hearing those sounds incorrectly.  Hearing something and saying it a different way requires persistence.  When I debated with my therapist over the correct pronunciation of certain letters, believing that my way was correct, I was also learning how to convince and persuade others.  Sitting through hours of speech therapy required patience and focus - something I can proudly say has helped me many times in my life.  As a result, despite the fact that I may grumble once in a while about speech therapy, I know I would not be where I am without speech therapy.  Beyond learning how to pronounce, speech therapy has helped shape my personality today, and if I were to start my life again and were given a choice to attend speech therapy or not, I would undoubtedly sit through the hundreds of hours of speech therapy again.  Thank you Sarah, Vicki, Sandra, Maryam, and all the therapists for the hard work and persistence in teaching me those lifelong skills!