Thailand: Speech, Occupational & AAC Adventure

It’s not often that you get to travel abroad, and it’s a very rare case that you get to travel abroad for an experience in your field. Not only was it amazing to experience another culture and country, but to teach using AAC to underrepresented populations and provide communication for those who are unable to use verbal cues. The people I’ve met were amazing and this is an experience I’ll never forget. I do think that the curriculum could’ve been more specific and provided us with more detail ahead of time. I felt uncertain at times what the intent/purpose of the program was. However, our Thai guide (Amara) was amazing and did whatever she could to make our stay comfortable and make this experience memorable. Even when our supervisor wasn’t as helpful.

My experience with therapy abroad was relatively good. I loved Amara and Beer who were our Thai coordinators! I wish we had more time hands on with the kids instead of tours of facilities. I also wish we had more guidance or structure to what we had to do for camp. I also think that a lot of your program depends on your supervisor and the group of people you are with!

I really enjoyed my study abroad experience in Thailand as I was immersed in so many different cultures within the span of 12 days. These cultures vary from traditional Thai, special needs, Deafness and tribal traditions. I had an amazing time interacting with the people of this country and had nothing but friendly & positive encounters! Interacting with the children at each school and foundation was amazing! Although the different languages spoken was a contributing factor to my interactions. It was not a barrier. The beautiful thing about this experience was finding different ways to connect with people from a different culture! As a future American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter, I was ecstatic to visit the Anusarnsuntorn School of the Deaf & Autism School. Seeing a different dialect of signed language was eye opening and heart warming. The signs for “my name is” is the same in ASL and Thai Sign Language (TSL). It was amazing to see the children were so excited to communicate with me in their language. We were even able to introduce ourselves to each other and it was so fulfilling. I left feeling inspired and wanting to learn TSL being able to communicate with the deaf population of Thai people. But, none of this could have been possible without our AMAZING tour guide Amara. Amara was eager and enthusiastic from the moment we met her to the moment we left. She is very knowledgeable about her country and was able to answer our questions and tailor our trip in order to make this an experience of a life time for all Therapy Abroad students. She did great translating for us everytime we needed to. Overall, I had an amazing experience and my perspective, heart, and mind had been broadened through a cultural lens!