Around 3-4 days a week, I traveled to Volla, a village in the city of Naples. I would get on the 8:24 am train and travel for about an hour and 15 minutes, until I got off on the third to the final stop, Barra. The driver for the clinic would pick me up at the train station after picking up around 5 adolescents with disabilities. We would drive 15 minutes to the clinic where I would stay until 4:30 pm, around seven hours daily.

My supervisors were Gaya and Paolo, and I would check in with them on the days they were there. During my first few days at the clinic, I shadowed a few different speech therapists and sat in on multiple therapy sessions. Once I got more adjusted, I started to shadow a few different people who spoke good English and it was easier for me to feel comfortable and understand the therapy sessions.

First, I shadowed two speech therapists, including Carmen followed by Martina who focused on explaining the methods of therapy in as best English as she could. After a few days of shadowing speech therapy, I  started shadowing Mayla who is what we could call an occupational therapist in America, although they do not call it that here in Italy. She focuses on motor movement in younger children, and although she is not a speech pathologist, the field of therapy is interdisciplinary, meaning all three types of therapy can be seen in one session the majority of the time.  I spent the bulk of my time with her and felt that I was learning the most and gaining the most experience. I would observe her therapy sessions with a variety of children and started to form a bond with some of the patients.

The structure was very open, and my supervisors and co-workers let me work on whatever it was that I was interested in. When I was not observing a session, I worked on my website and completed many hours of research for the project I was working on. Everyone I worked with and shadowed was extremely open and worked diligently to try and explain their methods of therapy, and their individual goals for treating each patient.