Partnering with Students to Increase Engagement and Inclusion in an Undergraduate Phonetics & Acoustics Course

An introductory phonetics course provides foundational content for future clinical practice and may serve as a student’s first experience within the field of Communication Sciences and Disorders. The Students as Partners framework (Cook-Sather et al., 2014) offers a model for valuing student assets and experiences in co-creating learning materials to enhance active learning and deepen understanding. Incorporating positive affective feelings around learning complex material, integrating technology, and building a mutually respectful learning community can foster inclusive practices. In this manuscript, the authors share how redesigning an introductory Phonetics and Acoustics course at a large, urban, commuter, public university led to increased student engagement, increased practice, increased collaboration, and increased generalization. This was achieved through personalized content and activities, warm-up activities that fostered success and integration, and co-created active learning activities, such as phonetic memes, spectrogram cards, phonetic pun activities, and sociolinguistic discussions of personal experiences. Thematic analysis of course evaluation data for the redesigned course revealed themes related to: student-instructor partnerships; practice opportunities and clinical application; and sense of belonging within the learning community

Clinical Simulations in Academic Courses: Four Case Studies Across the Medical SLP Graduate Curriculum

Simulation practices are growing in both popularity and necessity within speech pathology programs. Simulation use can serve to not only minimize client risk but to increase student confidence and competence prior to patient contact, particularly with low incidence or medically fragile patients. This paper describes and reflects on four individual simulation experiences within one graduate speech language pathology program and their outcomes. The use of both simulated patients and mannequin training resulted in an increase in students\u27 perception of knowledge and confidence in their clinical skills with medical patients

Designing location based learning experiences for people with intellectual disabilities and additional sensory impairments

The research reported here is part of a larger project which seeks to combine serious games (or games based learning) with location based services to help people with intellectual disability and additional sensory impairments to develop work based skills. Specifically this paper reports on where these approaches are combined to scaffold the learning of new routes and ultimately independent travel to new work and educational opportunities. A phased development methodology is applied in a user sensitive manner, to ensure that user feedback drives the ongoing development process. Methods to structure this include group feedback on conceptual storyboards, expert review of prototypes using usability heuristics relating to the main system goals, and finally co-discovery methods with student pairs exploring all three modes of the system in real world contexts. Aspects of developmental and cognitive psychological theories are also reviewed and it is suggested that combining games based learning approaches with location based services is an appropriate combination of technologies for an application specifically designed to scaffold route learning for this target audience

Learning & Practice Sessions: Contributing to a Strong Academic Foundation for Undergraduate CSD Students

While the scope of practice for speech-language pathologists has expanded dramatically, graduate clinical training remains a two year master’s degree. A solid foundation in undergraduate communication sciences and disorders (CSD) coursework is ever-more essential to prepare students for the breadth of knowledge and skills obtained in graduate school. How are undergraduate/post-baccalaureate CSD programs evolving to meet this challenge? This study proposes one such enhancement. Learning & Practice Sessions are a program by which peer undergraduate and post-baccalaureate students lead weekly, post-class review sessions during which participating students have an opportunity to review the week’s material, discuss challenging concepts, examine anatomical models, and brainstorm learning and study strategies, all in a collaborative environment. Peer facilitators are instructor-recommended, have successfully completed the course, and have teaching, tutoring, or mentoring experience. Survey data is collected from participating students at the end of each term. Initial post-participation survey results (N = 32, 50% response rate) indicate that weekly Learning & Practice Sessions had a positive or very positive perceived impact on every dimension measured, including students’ academic performance (94%), success in the course (94%), confidence about the coursework (88%), sense of support from their academic program (88%), and sense of community with other students (81%). Ninety-four percent of participating students would recommend or strongly recommend the Learning & Practice Sessions to a friend. Future implications include expanding this program to additional CSD courses, increasing participation by students who are most struggling, and sharing this concept as a model for other undergraduate CSD programs

A within-subjects experimental evaluation of the Television Assisted Prompting (TAP) system to maximize completion of home-delivered swallow strengthening exercises among individuals with co-occurring acquired swallowing and cognitive impairments

xv, 162 p. ; ill. (some col.) A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.Each year, over 65,000 brain injury survivors are discharged home from hospitals with ongoing rehabilitation needs due to acquired impairments, such as dysphagia. Emerging empirical evidence supports the benefits of intensive swallowing exercise programs when dysphagia results from muscle weakness. However, many of these survivors cannot complete intensive home exercise programs due to co-occurring cognitive impairments in memory or initiation. This project investigated the potential benefits of a new experimental assistive technology device, the Television Assisted Prompting (TAP) system to increase completion of home swallowing exercises. The TAP system was designed as a treatment package to provide both automated prompts and multimedia motivational instructional exercise videos via a person's home television. Three participants were recruited, all of whom had survived a hemispheric stroke and presented with neurogenic dysphagia and co-occurring cognitive impairments. Two home program delivery conditions were alternately presented on randomized days in a single-case experimental alternating treatment design: TAP delivery (e.g., TV prompting with motivational videos) or typical practice (TYP) delivery (e.g., care provider prompting as needed to follow assigned written home programs). The same exercises were presented in each condition. Measures included feasibility (e.g., reliability of the TAP system), efficacy (e.g., number of exercises completed per session), and satisfaction. Results revealed that two of three participants showed dramatic benefits from the TAP system. Participant 1 was 17 times more likely to complete exercises when prompted by the TAP system; participant 2 was six times more likely. Participant 3 completed exercises with equal likelihood on TAP or TYP days. All three participants reported preference for TAP system delivery and requested to increase the frequency of TAP delivery to every day. Care providers unanimously reported preference for the TAP system to prompt patients and reduce their burden of care. The TAP system malfunctioned during 21.70% (23/106) of scheduled sessions; two participants needed clarifications, instruction to use the system, or customized modifications in order to interact independently with the device. Recommendations for system improvements and applications to the field of assistive technology are provided.Adviser: McKay Moore Sohlber

Voices on Food: Food in Time, Place, and Community

Indulge your inner foodie with an evening of conversations about food. Tag, We’re It brings together a historian, literary scholar, and speech-language pathologist to share their unique perspectives on a topic fundamental to life itself — but also so much more. Keri Behre, English: Eating in Shakespeare\u27s Kitchen Joseph Bohling, History: Inventing Place in French Wine and Food Rik Lemoncello, Speech & Hearing Sciences: Changing Lives One Cupcake at a Timehttps://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/tag/1004/thumbnail.jp