Checklist for Assessing Graduate Student Competencies in Voice Disorders

Abstract

Low-incidence clinical disorders such as voice, nasal resonance, and fluency present challenging areas for graduate-level speech-language pathology training programs to help students acquire necessary knowledge and skills. A checklist of competencies for fluency disorders exists in the literature. The authors are presently collecting pretest/posttest data on the fluency disorders checklist over several cohorts of graduate students to determine student level of proficiency and confidence regarding these competencies. Preliminary data analysis suggests significant student perception of growth as a result of completing course requirements. These data have been useful to the second author, who teaches a course in fluency disorders and utilizes the checklist for purposes of course design and case-based project development to help students gain competence. The authors observed that a similar checklist of competencies for voice disorders would be useful for training programs as well as for other reasons described throughout this paper. Consequently, the authors compiled a checklist for assessing graduate student competencies for voice disorders. This checklist provides academic and clinical faculty with a comprehensive tool to guide the education of graduate clinicians and assist in the assurance of educational quality for speech-language pathologists.

Development of an Electronic Documentation System for Voice Therapy: A New Teaching and Clinical Research Tool

“…The field of speech-language pathology is continually changing and evolving, posing challenges for the clinical teacher to ensure their student clinicians gain the appropriate competencies (Anderson, 2001; Brumfitt, Hoben, Enderby, & Goddard, 2001). Additionally, in specialized areas such as voice disorders there are other barriers, such as minimal access to voice patients, lack of advanced clinical instrumentation, lack of access to expert voice clinicians, and lack of funding for instrumentation and expert faculty (Teten, DeVeney, & Friehe, 2013). To ensure students were knowledgeable in the area of voice disorders, Teten and colleagues proposed a competency checklist for voice disorders, with each item on the checklist associated with one or more American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) Knowledge and Skill Acquisition standards (Council for Clinical Certification... ,2013; see Teten et al, 2013 for full voice checklist).…”

“…Additionally, in specialized areas such as voice disorders there are other barriers, such as minimal access to voice patients, lack of advanced clinical instrumentation, lack of access to expert voice clinicians, and lack of funding for instrumentation and expert faculty (Teten, DeVeney, & Friehe, 2013). To ensure students were knowledgeable in the area of voice disorders, Teten and colleagues proposed a competency checklist for voice disorders, with each item on the checklist associated with one or more American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) Knowledge and Skill Acquisition standards (Council for Clinical Certification... ,2013; see Teten et al, 2013 for full voice checklist). We propose that use of the documentation system will assist the novice clinician in achieving and tracking many of these proposed competencies.…”

“…This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of the clinical teaching possibilities, but it is rather meant to provide a window into how this documentation system could be used as a teaching tool. All competencies below are taken from the proposed voice checklist (Teten et al, 2013). …”

The influence of motor production experience on voice perception

“…This study investigated the influence of motor training on perceptual skills in naïve listeners to consider additional methods to effectively train Master's SLP students in the clinical judgment of voice quality. The preparation of Master's SLP students to evaluate and treat voice varies widely (Teten, DeVeney, & Friehe, 2013;Van Mersbergen, Ostrem, & Titze, 2001) and new clinicians did not feel confident in their abilities (Teten, DeVeney, & Friehe, 2016). Research studies on vocal perceptual evaluations looked further into why perceptual ratings were less reliable and what could be done to improve them.…”

“…Additionally, Master's students may have limited clinical exposure to clients with voice disorders during their studies. Because this is a low incidence population, it can be challenging for academic clinics to recruit and retain enough voice clients and to provide appropriate supervision to offer all students experiences treating this population (Teten et al, 2013). Direct clinical experience with voice clients is not required for the Certificate of Clinical Competency through ASHA (Council for Clinical Certification in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2013).…”