Join Robert Serianni, MS, CCC-SLP, FNAP, the chair and program director of the department of Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) at Salus University, as he speaks with I-Ting Chiu, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Speech and Language Pathology and Audiology at Chung Shan Medical University (CSMU) in Taiwan.
Serianni: As many of our listeners know we had the opportunity to study with some students from Taiwan recently here on campus at Salus, and I've had the opportunity to work with one of their professors. I've asked her to come back and join me for this session to really get her insights into the benefits of working with international students and why international students would choose to come study in the United States.
Why did you choose speech pathology as a career?
Chiu: Actually, in the very beginning, I'm not choosing the speech pathology. Now in Taiwan, if you want to be a speech pathologist, you can choose from entering a master degree or an undergrad degree. So for me, I entered an undergrad degree and at that time, the beginning, the department of speech pathology were not my first choice when I did the selection in my university at admission. And my first choice of entering the university was department of medicine or pharmacy or psychology, but fortunately I did not have the chance to go there.
I got the chance to go to the department of speech and language pathology. And I really loved the subjects and topic, especially in speech and language development and disorder and the other pathology subjects. I actually have another chance to be in a special educational teacher, but however, I love more about being a speech and language pathologist. And I think SLP have more chance to help people. For example, to let them have a better life or to help some kids, like have a development delay and they can have a better future. So that's why I choose to become a speech pathologist and chose speech pathology as a career.
Serianni: My path was very similar to yours. I didn't initially choose speech pathology when I got to school, I was looking at psychology or potentially medicine and sort of fell into speech pathology. And much like you, I really liked the special education aspects and the working with pediatrics until I did it. Then I decided that was really not the path for me and that's when I switched to adult care. But I think it's one of my passions these days, to educate folks about careers in speech pathology and the diversity that we actually get to work with. I know if it wasn't for speech pathology, I wouldn't have really neat opportunities like this to work with international partners like those that we've made at CSMU.
When did you decide to join academics? When did your career sort of switch from speech pathology to higher education?
Chiu: Actually, before I enter the CSMU as a professor, I have been working as a SLP for like 15 years. I was both in the healthcare and school side. I did a job in the hospital, private center and the school district from kindergarten to senior high. But during this time, I find that sometimes we deal with different kind of passion in the clinical baseline, but we do some treatment and we are trying and we be meeting some error and then we come back and try another strategy. So I was thinking that, whether we can find no more about the mechanism of language processing as well as the disorder situation, so that we can make a better treatment, or we can find our better evident base of treatment that we can use in the clinical side. So that's why I want to turn to the academics, to more focus on the area of speech pathology research, then we can find out more better treatment program for the clinic patient.
Serianni: Again, I followed quite a similar experience. I practiced for many years and really thought that investigating the field of speech pathology from a research point of view was more interesting. And working with students and stepping out of direct patient care and into education was where my career path took me.
Chiu: For me, I also like to teach students, let them become a better SLP in the future. So I think that is very important and very good for us, too.
Serianni: We've worked for several years now on bringing students from Taiwan to the U.S. The pandemic certainly put a little damper on that for the last couple of summers, but we made it happen this summer. What were some of the things that we studied here that were similar to how the students are studying in Taiwan and what are some of the differences?
Chiu: I think the most similar part is that we all teach all kind of disorder that we will meet when we are a speech pathologist. For example, the adult, we also have some courses for the general basic topic of the language, and speech things and communication things. And we also have the advanced courses related to the adult, different age disorder group, for example, the adults or the pediatric. So, I think that the course arrangement is quite similar. Also we have more practicing courses, like hands-on courses for the student to work in the clinical side. I think this kind of a part is quite similar to Salus here in Taiwan, in CSMU.
We do have some differences, what I thought and what I find is different from the country, in the United States and in Taiwan. For example, we are now here more focused on handling the language disorder, or communication disorder, than speech disorder. But last time when we visit the Salus Speech-Language Institute, we have a lot of chances to see the speech disorder cases. For example, how to deal with the voice disorder group or how to deal with a process of speech patient, or 'this sounds like' exercise with the dysphagia patient. I think now we, in Taiwan, we are still dealing with this kind of speech disorder patient, but the percentage is not that high to the language disorder patient.
I think this part is kind of different and also the second different part is that we had tried to do the cooperation with another professional here in Taiwan, but I think it's not that major. What I heard from Professor Bob's course, you did a lot of professional cooperation. I think that is what we can learn from Salus, from the United States. And the third difference is that I was kind of surprised that in the States, most of the speech pathologists are working in the school site. 60 percent high and only 25 percent speech pathology working in the healthcare. Because in Taiwan, most of our speech pathologists are working in healthcare and less of the speech pathology are in the school. And the most speech pathology in the school, they are part-time job. I think that will be a trend later in Taiwan, probably within 10 years, that we can push more as a speech pathologist to get to the education on-site.
Serianni: Thank you for highlighting all those similarities and differences. I think that what I was impressed most about the work that we did with Taiwan is that your students do get a lot of hands-on experiences at the undergraduate level, which our programs typically don't afford our students. And they really wait until they get into the graduate programs to have deep, extensive clinical experiences like we do at Salus. I was quite impressed that your students were ready to jump in, even with just a few semesters of speech pathology under their belts. And things like the field trips, where we got to go out to the schools and the preschools and allow the students to experience the U.S. areas of work, I think has been one of the eye-opening experiences for me as well. Understanding the differences between healthcare practices versus education practices between our two countries.
What was one thing that you learned while you were here that you're going to bring back to your institution?
Chiu: Actually, I follow all the courses with Professor Bob here and with the students. I learned a lot from Professor Bob and all the other colleagues, and I really enjoy the process of the internship here. I think that probably we can bring more hands-on exercise to the students in the CSMU. And also, I really enjoy the arrangement of, for example, giving them a brief review about some disorder in the beginning, and then just bring them to see the patient. I think that would be a very good connection to the students to knowing better what they see. Because now, here in the CSMU, sometimes we are like one course from a semester and only do the internship. So, we probably don't have lots of time to do the debrief. I think that was very important to a student to understand what they see and they can have more thinking way to think about their patient in the future. The Salus courses like Professor Bob has given us is, even in the very basic courses, still giving lots of vivid example to showing the basic concept. I think those will be a very good teaching strategy that we can bring back to the CSMU
Serianni: I think that it's my years of practice that really allow me to bring those vivid examples to life. And I really appreciate you noting that having the students move quickly from the classroom theory lectures, right into the practical hands-on clinical learning, it really is a Salus feature that we like to promote. Because we know our students, they understand when they hear us lecture, but then they really deeply understand and can contribute much quicker if they have those opportunities to practice and to apply it to those real life clinical cases.
