From Soldier to Speech Therapist
My path to speech-language pathology was not a straight one. It crossed military service in Vietnam, philosophy classrooms, computer programming, rehabilitation hospitals, assistive technology, and Early Intervention.
Each chapter shaped how I came to understand resilience, communication, and the fundamental human need to be understood.
John Burke, MA, CCC-SLP
Speech-Language Pathologist · ASHA Life Member
Some Journeys Aren’t Straight
Not every path to a vocation is planned. Mine certainly wasn’t.
When I look back, the road to becoming a speech-language pathologist seems almost improbable. It began with military service in Vietnam, continued through college and computer programming, and eventually led me to people who struggled to communicate.
At the time, these seemed like separate chapters of my life. Years later, I could see how each one prepared me for the next.
The common thread was something I came to understand gradually:
Every person deserves to be understood.
What follows is the story of how that belief became the work of my lifetime.
Answering the Call
In 1967, as the Vietnam War intensified, three friends from Immaculate High School made the same decision by different routes.
I enlisted in the Army. My friend Bob joined the Marines. Our friend Greg entered ROTC.
Like many young men of that era, we believed service mattered. The country called, and we answered—each in our own way.
After training, I arrived at Tan Son Nhut Air Base during the Tet Offensive. I eventually served with the 101st Airborne Division near Hue, where combat became part of everyday life.
The most difficult moment came not on the battlefield, but in a letter from home.
My father wrote to tell me that Bob had been killed in Vietnam—just miles from where I was serving.
In February 1969, I returned home. The war was behind me, but what it had taught me about discipline, endurance, loss, and the fragility of life stayed with me.
Years later, those lessons would influence my work with people facing a very different kind of battle—the struggle to communicate.
From War to Words
After returning home from Vietnam, I enrolled at Fordham University, where I studied English and Philosophy and graduated cum laude.
I approached college differently after Vietnam. I had seen how quickly life could change, and I wanted to better understand what gave a life meaning and purpose.
After Fordham, I began working as a computer programmer at Prudential. At the time, computers and speech-language pathology seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with one another.
Years later, that technical background would become unexpectedly important.
But another experience changed the direction of my life first.
I became involved with people with significant disabilities and began to understand how profoundly the ability to communicate affects independence, relationships, and quality of life.
I knew I wanted my work to involve people more directly.
That realization eventually led me to graduate study in Communication Science at Montclair State College.
In 1981, I completed my master’s degree and began my career as a speech-language pathologist.
I had found the work I was meant to do.
Clinical Practice Across the Lifespan
My clinical career began in 1981 and eventually took me into hospitals, rehabilitation programs, homes, and community settings.
At Christ Hospital Home Health in Jersey City, I worked with a remarkably diverse group of patients. They included children with developmental delays, adults recovering from stroke and head trauma, and people living with neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis.
Later, at Welkind Rehabilitation Hospital in Chester, New Jersey, I worked as part of an interdisciplinary rehabilitation team alongside physicians, physical and occupational therapists, psychologists, social workers, and other professionals.
The range of people I worked with was extraordinary.
One patient might be an infant with feeding or swallowing difficulties. Another might be an older adult trying to communicate again after a stroke.
The diagnoses were different. So were the goals.
But I learned something that would stay with me throughout my career:
A person is never simply a diagnosis.
To understand how to help someone communicate, you first have to understand something about the person—their family, their experiences, what matters to them, and what they are trying to say.
That lesson became one of the foundations of my approach to speech-language pathology.
When Technology Became a Voice
My earlier career as a computer programmer eventually became unexpectedly valuable.
At Welkind Rehabilitation Hospital, I became involved in computer-assisted rehabilitation at a time when personal computers were still relatively new. We were exploring ways technology could help people with significant physical and communication disabilities become more independent.
I eventually directed the hospital’s Computer Assisted Rehabilitation Department, where we adapted computers and developed communication systems for people who could not use conventional speech or standard computer controls.
This work included alternative ways to access computers, communication programs, and early augmentative and alternative communication systems.
We also collaborated with engineers and organizations outside the hospital, including Bell Labs, to explore new ways people with severe disabilities could interact with technology.
Some of the technology that seems ordinary today was extraordinary then.
For a person who could not speak, being able to independently select a word, construct a message, or communicate a choice could open an entirely new path to participation.
That experience shaped my lifelong interest in Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC).
The computers have changed dramatically since those early years.
The need to be heard has not.
The Power of First Words
Later in my career, my focus shifted almost entirely to Early Intervention, working with infants and toddlers from birth to age three and their families.
Much of this work took place where young children communicate most naturally—in their own homes.
I worked with children with language delays, speech sound difficulties, autism, Down syndrome, feeding and swallowing concerns, and other developmental needs.
But Early Intervention taught me something that went beyond any particular diagnosis.
Working with the family was just as important as working with the child.
A therapist might spend an hour with a toddler. Parents and caregivers are there for breakfast, bath time, getting dressed, playing on the floor, reading books, and all the small interactions that fill a child’s day.
Helping parents recognize and use those everyday opportunities became an important part of my work.
There was something remarkable about watching a child discover that a sound, gesture, sign, picture, or word could make something happen.
A first word might seem small to someone else. To that child and family, it could mean everything.
After years of working with adults who had lost communication following stroke or neurological disease, I found myself at the other end of the journey—watching very young children discover communication for the first time.
The experiences were very different. But the importance was the same.
Communication creates connection.
Those years with young children and their families would eventually have a major influence on what SpeechTherapy.org has become today.
That understanding was shaped not only by my clinical work, but by my own family.
My wife Mary and I have shared nearly five decades of marriage and raised three children together. Today, we have four grandsons, and becoming a grandfather has given me another perspective on the extraordinary process of watching children grow, learn, and find their voices.
Throughout every stage of my career, Mary has been the constant presence beside me—from the early years when I was finding my professional direction through the decades of clinical practice that followed.
My work taught me a great deal about the importance of communication within families. My own family taught me just as much about the relationships that make communication matter.
How SpeechTherapy.org Began
A Life Shaped by Communication
Looking back, the different chapters of my life no longer seem quite so separate.
Vietnam taught me about resilience, loss, and the importance of the people beside us.
Studying philosophy taught me to ask questions about meaning and what matters.
Computer programming taught me to see technology as a tool for solving problems.
Speech-language pathology brought all of those lessons together.
Throughout my career, I had the privilege of working with people at nearly every stage of life—from infants beginning to communicate to older adults trying to regain abilities they had lost.
I watched children discover their first words.
I watched adults struggle to find words after stroke.
I watched people who could not speak use technology to express a thought, make a choice, or participate in a conversation.
And I watched families discover how much their patience, encouragement, and everyday interactions mattered.
The circumstances were different, but the fundamental need was always the same.
Every person deserves to be understood.
That conviction guided my clinical career, and it continues to guide SpeechTherapy.org today.
If something on this site helps a parent better understand their child, helps a family know when to seek professional guidance, or simply makes a confusing situation a little clearer, then SpeechTherapy.org is doing what I hoped it would do.
Communication is worth fighting for.
It has been the work of my lifetime.
— John Burke, MA, CCC-SLP
Speech-Language Pathologist · ASHA Life Member
