Blog Post #10!!!

I read the research paper titled “Young Children’s Speech Language Pathology: A Need For Earlier Intervention” by Marissa Napolitano. Her thesis is that the main part of fixing speech impairments is early intervention with speech therapy. The author believes that waiting until Elementary school to give kids speech therapy is too late and is almost too late to fix the damage. Napolitano states, ” When looking at research from multiple sources, the answer to whether it is really more effective to intervene with speech and language skills and therapy sessions at a younger age than waiting until Elementary school is, overwhelmingly, yes” (68). The author is trying to prove that kids with speech impediments with suffer socially. To prove this, she finds a study that concludes children with speech impediments are less likely to interact socially. The author argues that children act out because they cannot properly show their emotion so children with impediments suffer greatly. She then goes on to say that this will then cause psychological issues within a child with impediments. To support this she uses another study that shows kids with early childhood speech impairments have a higher chance of having anxiety and social phobias as an adult (Napolitano 70). She provides her own twist on a counterargument by giving reasons as to why parents will not provide speech therapy for their children. Napolitano states, “Often parents who are against early intervention of speech therapy feel as though many other outside factors contribute to why their child has a delay in speech or speech impairment, too” (71). She then supports this with a personal interview that she had conducted. She also argues that time and commitment is the absolute main reason as to why children do not get efficient speech therapy. Overall I think that this well a very well written paper. I do not necessarily think that she should have changed anything or done any more. She provided just enough evidence to back up all the claims she was making without providing too much information. The author had a strong platform for her thesis and was able to stay on topic throughout the entire paper to prove herself to be true.

Blog Post #9 – “College Pressures”

In the essay, “College Pressures”, William Zinsser states that college students mainly have “economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure” (449). The fact that college is so expensive and the amount of student debt that there is becomes extremely stressful because students tend to push themselves even harder because they’re now paying for their education. Parental pressure is also a lot because they tend to want the best for you, but sometimes do not realize that is is not what you really want for yourself. Expectations become crucial in college whether it is from yourself, your parents, or your peers. Expectations are one of the most cruel things to deal with because of the amount of stress and pressure you put on yourself to make sure you fulfill it and make whoever proud. Personally I find that my pressures are similar, but very different in certain ways. Economic pressure takes it’s toll on me once in awhile, but it is not the heaviest weight on my shoulders. I tend to worry about student loans already and I am only a freshman. I find myself saying “I have to do good this is expensive” or “I can’t waste all this money on nothing.” The biggest pressure I personally have is my own self-induced pressure. I tend to never give myself credit for how well I am actually doing by replacing it with convincing myself that I am doing poorly and need to do better. I absolutely suck at time management and it seriously puts pressure on me, but once again, self-induced.

Zinsser’s essay and Christenbury’s article can be linked together some what. Specifically, Zinsser states, “They will get sick. The will get “blocked.” They will sleep. They will oversleep.” (452). This goes along with Christenbury’s point on how easy it is to cheat. Many people do it on accident and being overtired and sick could possibly lead to this. On a more broader scale, it could be as simple as the pressure that Zinsser described throughout his essay. Peer pressure, along with any other type of pressure, could lead to you cheating so that you can “do better” or so that you can simply get the article done on time.

Research Paper Thoughts

I’m still not completely sure what I am going to research, but I have some ideas.I major in Social Work and minor in Public Health, but one topic that has been in the back of my mind is to look and see how children are negatively effected from their ADHD medications. This is a particular interesting thing to me because when my brother was around the age of six (of coarse) he was diagnosed with ADHD and put on medication. My mom began to see that being able to fall asleep at night began to be a huge problem for him. He was no longer himself, he acted completed different almost like a zombie. He was there physically, but it seemed like he was just empty. Thankfully my mom took him off the medicine because now that he has grown up he is an entirely different person. I believe that was one of the best things that she could have done for him because the medications now are absurd. The amount of prescriptions that are handed to patients every day is really sad if you think about it. [-0

Another thing that I would like to know more about is; Why are doctors so quick to diagnose young children with ADHD? Is it really truly ADHD or is it simply just kids being kids? The reason I said of coarse in the previous paragraph is because he was six, seven is the average age for being diagnosed with ADHD. The problem with that is so many of these kids that we are putting on medication, most of the time, are just kids being kids. They are young and acting like little kids, but we are so quick to throw medication in their faces.

This topic is interesting to me because of the personal tie with my brother and it relates to my major in ways. I would look at mainly websites for this research, but I would also get a book or two probably. I think I will be able to find enough research, but it possibly might be too much information. Narrowing the piece down may be where I start to run into some issues with this topic, but that’s the only issue I can think of. I would love feedback and any other ideas anyone has! Please let me know. I would really appreciate it. 🙂

“Myth of the Latin Woman” Blog #7

In The Myth of the Latin Women: I Just Met Maria, Cofer explains what it was like being a Hispanic girl growing up in the United States. Even though she grew up in America, her Hispanic culture was still practiced very heavily within her home. Cofer states, “Our life was designed by my parents as a microcosm of their casas on the island” (231). The fact that she was Hispanic here in America caused her to suffer from “cultural schizophrenia” (231). Cultural differences can easily conflict with each other, causing certain groups falling victims to unfair stereotypes. Unfortunately this is something that many people suffer from in America due to its large diversity. Cofer states how the Hispanic woman is often explained as “sizzling” or “smoldering” along with their foods (232). A common stereotype of the Spanish woman is that of a “hot tamale” or a sexual firebird (232). The clothes that they wear often cause misconceptions which begins to be an issue. Like when Cofer says, when her date to the formal gave her a nasty kiss and when she didn’t respond to it he states “I thought you Latin girls were supposed to mature early.” He expected her to be passionate and “ready to go” just because she is Spanish. Also here in America, another stereotype that is often seen is that a Spanish girl is domestic and will work to serve you. Cofer tells us about the time at her first public poetry reading, an older woman signaled for her and “she ordered a cup of coffee from me, assuming that I was the waitress” (234). The real life experiences that the author shares throughout her writing helps to make it a lot more real. Latina women often have less resources to simple things as education because “for them life is a constant struggle against the misconceptions perpetuated by the myth of the Latina” (234). I personally think that this article really backed up Cofer’s feelings on how serious stereotypes can be and hard they can really make someone’s life. This article was really powerful because of all the personal experiences she shared. I liked this piece the way it is, I don’t think that any difference evidence is needed. The way that she used personal experiences really served it’s purpose in making this article not only real, but powerful as well.