Rachel Kakach, alumna (class of ’10), Seattle, WA
It is hard for me to believe that this time a year ago, I was scrambling to finish my thesis, find a job, and soak up my final days as a student at Puget Sound. I can remember back to freshman year, registering for classes for the first time without a clue as to what I wanted to major in, and it took me until the spring semester of my sophomore year to declare myself as a double major in psychology and French literature. That semester, I took a developmental psychopathology class, which is where my interest in autism really began. And, thanks to that professor, I found a summer job working with children on the spectrum. I had a lot of previous experience working with kids through summer camps and babysitting, but I had never worked with children with autism until that summer. Each day was very different and challenging, but being able to teach these kiddos and witness their progress was extremely rewarding. I worked with this organization for two summers as a paraprofessional and had the option of continuing my summer job with them following graduation.
During finals week of my senior year, however, I found out about an opportunity at the University of Washington Autism Center to do early intervention with toddlers with autism for a research study. Around this time I also discovered that a fellow UPS alum and Psychology major had worked in the UW Autism Center for several years, and so we met up to discuss this opportunity and how she got to where she is now. This connection helped me get my foot in the door, or rather, my name to be noticed out of the many applications that were received, and I had an interview the last week of May. Long story short, I got the job and started training full time at the end of June. I have been working on the Early Steps Study intervention team for almost a year now and am still loving it.
The intervention follows the Early Start Denver Model, which embeds curriculum within a framework of play. Each child receives 20 hours of in-home intervention a week for two years, and the parents receive ongoing parent coaching. Basically, I spend my day playing with two and three-year-olds with autism and teaching them skills in various domains, such as expressive, social interaction, fine/gross motor, personal independence, etc., while we play. I am constantly trying to come up with new activity ideas, update my lesson plans, and communicate with the other interventionists and my supervisor about the six kids that our team works with. Each day has its high and low points, but the progress that I see these kiddos making is a constant reminder of why I chose this field.
As for my future, well, the research study will be ending in the next couple years, so I have started thinking about graduate school. Currently, I am leaning toward a program in early childhood special education, but I know that that’s bound to change. Luckily, I have a few months until application season starts up again to decide what kind of program I want to do, and thanks to my background in psychology, there are so many paths that I could take.
I would be more than happy to meet and discuss with any student my experiences so far. My connections to faculty and alumni at Puget Sound have been invaluable. Once a Logger…Always a Logger!