James Madison University

Jessica Buell Excels in JMU's Competitive Speech-Language Pathology Program

Like many freshman, Jessica Buell entered college undecided. After taking an individualized study class her freshman year, Jessica decided that she wanted to pursue a major in Communication and Sciences and Disorders (CSD).

She says, “We had to research different jobs that we thought might be interesting and the one that I researched was speech pathology and I actually liked it.” However, the savvy communication skills Jessica developed at a young age could have perhaps foreshadowed this choice of career: “I first learned sign language in middle school. My sister and our friend were all assigned to different lunch tables, so we taught ourselves how to fingerspell so we could still talk at lunch.”

As a CSD major and senior at JMU, Jessica has come a long way from her fingerspelling days in middle school. After taking classes in sign language, Jessica became involved with the Sign Language club her junior year of college. “The Sign Language Club and the classes open you up to new experiences and allow you to meet people who really want to share their culture with you and who are willing to help you learn and practice your skills,” she says. Through the Advanced Sign Language class with Dr. Brenda Seal, Jessica was also able to work in a local cochlear implant clinic. For this assignment, she was assigned a two-year girl who had been implanted six months prior to Jessica’s first meeting with her. At the clinic, she worked with her patient to achieve “total communication” through signing, as well as speech. “Just to see how she’s progressed, it’s just amazing and her mother is going through the exact same thing now, so just to see how they interact with each other,” Jessica says.

PHOTO: Jessica talks about the CSD Program with Prospective Students

Jessica talks about the CSD Program with Prospective Students.

Jessica is also involved with JMU’s chapter of the National Student Speech Language and Hearing Association (NSSLHA). Joining her sophomore year, she has worked her way up from PR/Media chair in her junior year to her current position as President. Jessica’s focus for NSSLHA this year is using regular luncheons to maintain an interaction between the club’s members and CSD graduate students and faculty. Advising other CSD students to join, Jessica says that “A lot of people find that once they come and join, it’s actually fun and just hanging out with the professors and talking with them, it can be really helpful.”

Consistent with her interests, Jessica works on-campus at the Speech-Language-Hearing Applied Laboratory. As a secretary at the lab, she is able to interact with CSD graduate students working on their clinical hours. Finding time during the summer, Jessica applied her knowledge in CSD as a volunteer, and later as an employee, at her local hearing and speech center. She says that is important “Just to get in the area so you are not actually doing the therapy, but you can observe and you can just get involved.”

After graduating from JMU this May, Jessica is headed to graduate school at Radford University. From there she hopes to work in the pediatric ward of a hospital or at an elementary school. “I want to do something with kids, I know that for sure,” she states.
Although Jessica’s interest was originally fixed to a career as a teacher, she says that CSD allows her to “work with the kids more one-on-one and in smaller groups.”

Jessica urges other students pursuing the same major to “Work with the children, work with the elderly people, just try to get as many different experiences as possible because you’ll learn from everything.” However, look no further than JMU for this experience: “JMU has one of the best programs in the state, and basically in the country, and anywhere you go and you say that you’re from JMU, people are going to be impressed and they are going to know that you came from a really good program and that all the professors here, they are really involved in the field and so they know that you are getting a very good education here,” Jessica says.