TDG – Enhancing Professional Skills of Speech Therapy Students in Providing Alternative Service Delivery Models

Abstract

Traditional service delivery model for speech therapy is based on one-to-one clinician-patient model. Although alternative service delivery models, such as consultative model (clinician acts as a consultant to other professionals, such as teachers, to provide indirect therapy), group therapy model or client self-practice model using biofeedback, are common in clinical practice. Training in planning these models is rarely employed in the clinical education of speech therapy students. Clinicians are left to exploring the use of these alternative service delivery models only when they join the workforce.

This project aimed to establish a Self-Practice Voice Therapy Clinic which utilized an alternative service delivery training model. Four final year speech therapy students participated in the Clinic, and their clinical skills progress was monitored by a clinical supervisor employed for this project. At the end of the clinical placement, the students were evaluated on their skills in generalizing the implementation of alternative service delivery model in managing voice cases. Evaluation reports from a blind speech therapist, who was not involved in the clinical supervision, revealed that the students could generalize the management and planning skills of the self-practice training to other alternative service delivery models, and rated the students’ performance as “satisfactory”. The present project contributed to the teaching and learning by providing empirical data to support emphasizing alternative service delivery model in undergraduate courses.

Deliverables