Getting Speech Path Master's, But Scared of Ideology Clash

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So, in two and a half weeks I'm going to be starting school to get my Master's in Speech Pathology. I'm really excited about it...but I'm also really nervous. Because I can tell that my professors/classmates and I have really different views about autism. I believe in acceptance/understanding and I support the goals of ASAN. My professor who's in not only a professor for the program as a whole, but also in charge of the specialized autism program I'm doing, is posting things from Autism Speaks on our group Facebook, and my classmates were saying 'Light it up blue!' (back in April) and posting Autism Awareness puzzle piece things. I don't know, I just can already tell that we're on different wavelengths...

I emailed the professor, letting her know that I was worried because I really do hold such a different view from most people...and she actually had a pretty awesome reply. She said that she'd teach me the professional side and I could contribute the community side and we'd all grow to a better understanding. (I know, she sounds pretty awesome.)

However...I can actually see some aspects of the professional side that I'm not comfortable with. The biggest one being eye contact. I KNOW that teaching eye contact is considered one of the things speech pathologists are supposed to work on with clients (and we start working with clients week two of this program), and I'm scared that they're going to make us do so. I am ridiculously uncomfortable with this prospect. I don't know how they'll be teaching us to teach eye contact (my line in the sand is physically grabbing someone's face - it's just not going to happen). I'm actually uncomfortable with even pushing it - I know the child I care for's therapist said that we weren't to give him anything he wanted until he made eye contact. In my mind, that's still forcing. I told the parents I was not comfortable doing so, and thankfully they accepted it. To me, forcing eye contact is wrong. I don't know how they're gong to teach me to do this but I want to be prepared...

What should I do? I'm just really stressing about this, you guys. The program starts in two weeks and we start working with clients in week two (I might not have autistic clients at first, mind you, but it's a possibility), but I'm just really uncomfortable about potential future conflict. Thoughts?

I majored in speech pathology in Undergrad. I didn't go to grad school for it, because speech pathology involves certain treatments which I cannot administer. I'm also too much "into myself" at times, which renders me somewhat of an inadequate clinician.

Forget about the "ideological" battles. the speech pathology masters is very "practical." Philosophies of treatment and/or autism, etc. are alluded to, but are not really "argued" in class, unless somebody's a real advocate of a particular philosophy (most professors, in my experience, do not impose their philosophy on students). In papers, I wouldn't allude to not being an "autism speaks" advocate--but I would convey my experiences as a person with Asperger's in a way which does not make direct references to your beliefs.

What I would do is: just concentrate on the material, follow the syllabi. Within the practicum, just go according to the formula which the program devises. Do the reports the way they want you to do the reports. Within your treatment during the practicum, you will have supervision--but you will have some freedom of treatment methodology as well. They expect you to be able to adapt when things go wrong, and the "established methodology" is not working. The clinical supervisor will like flexibility, like results, yet like conformity in filling out the reports. Not much "theory" should be put into reports. The emphasis is on "objective" things--things which are observed by you, the clinician--not your speculations.

All in all, the emphasis is on making you a good clinician "in the field," rather than a great, philosophical theorist.

If you have any questions, just PM me.

THANK YOU!! ! I'm so happy there are other people out there who have the same concerns! This is one of my main worries right now and I want to make sure I am getting honest feedback at least at the beginning of this journey as to what I might be too persistent or off-putting on so that I can learn to tone down what I say in terms of my support of the neurodiversity perspective.

I completely stopped voicing any of my opinions at this point, but I'm mostly in research now and all of the client work I do is one-on-one. It can be emotionally difficult to "dissociate" from my perspectives like that, though, especially when I'm sitting there, having not disclosed my relationship to the spectrum or my connection to the autistic community, and hearing people talking about ASD and/or Autism Speaks as though I'm not in the room. I have been lapsing into some emotional episodes because of that recently, but I think I'm finally learning how to cope with them and how to accept this current state of my reality.

I don't want to voice any of my opinions right now because I'm just mostly an undergraduate slave, I don't have much prestige and influence, as none of us undergrads really do nowadays. I don't want people to think as though I am trying to infiltrate the system. I try to only share my perspectives in presumably safe spaces as a way of clearing my mind and re-stabilizing myself. However, as I am advancing in the field, I am finding that the amount of these safe sharing spaces is decreasing. This is the case since there is still potential for this disclosure to work against me at times when the therapeutic relationship becomes broken (once this happened because of a conflict of interest) or when something I said in general gets associated with my name by accident or oversight.

This is such a difficult situation to be in and if anyone else has any advice, it would be greatly appreciated. The reason why I'm going into the field is because I strongly enjoy being around people on the spectrum and want to make it my career, I can see things from an autistic perspective while being able to communicate that perspective to others, and I enjoy teaching people and seeing them progress toward their goals. I believe that ABA (which is what I'm going into) can be done in a manner that is respectful of the individual's needs and ways of processing his/her environment.