ASHA Convention 2017

From November 9-11, faculty, students and alumni from the University’s Osborne College of Audiology (OCA) and Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) department gathered in Los Angeles for one of the biggest professional conferences, the American-Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Convention.

ASHA’s Interprofessional Education Committee invited Jenny Rajan, AuD, OCA assistant professor, and Dawn Ciccarone, MS, OTR/L, CLVT, instructor in the College of Education and Rehabilitation, to present, “Interprofessional Education: Preparing Student Health Professionals for Interprofessional Collaboration.” During the joint presentation, they defined what constitutes interprofessional education and explained the positive impact it can have on student learning, clinical practice and patient outcomes.

Interprofessional practice was also the focus of assistant professor Carrie Knight’s, PhD, and associate professor Andrea Tyszka’s, MS, OTR/L, SIPT, presentation, “Learning Through Interdisciplinary Case-Studies.” The duo provided an overview of the interdisciplinary module they created for speech-language pathology and occupational therapy at Salus, which can be applied to educational opportunities in the classroom and research studies.

“There is a need for research to determine what topics are suitable for interdisciplinary teaching and learning, what types of teaching methodologies are suitable, and which disciplines would be a good blend,” Dr. Knight said.

In conjunction with faculty from SLP and audiology programs across the country, Robert Serianni, MS, assistant professor and director of the University’s Speech-Language Institute, explored the challenges of externship placements from the externship site’s point of view. The group surveyed more than 200 individuals involved in the externship process for both programs and examined the data to formulate a list of overarching common issues.

“The purpose of the presentation was to gather feedback from field supervisors on reasons why they do or do not supervise SLP students in medical settings,” he said. “Future work will be on removing barriers so that more students have the opportunity to work in medical settings.”

Other presentations explored:

• Alternative tools for screening nonmainstream American English-speaking preschoolers and kindergarteners
• How certain literacy skills can help high school students meet learning standards
• Using a specific type of storybook reading strategy to help to increase a child’s oral language development between the ages of two and six
• Increasing diversity in speech-language and audiology graduate programs