Clinical Partnerships Offer Support to Infants and Families

Roles of Speech-Language Pathologists in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: Technical Report

“…Question six of the survey investigated the respondents' opinion on professionals other than SLPs conducting feeding and swallowing evaluations and interventions in the NICU. While some NICUs still divide service delivery by specialty, others are moving toward a more collaborative, interdisciplinary approach (Boswell, 2002). The National Association of Neonatal Therapists (Sturdivant & Ludwig, 2011) is a recently-formed organization that supports this interdisciplinary model, in which occupational therapists, physical therapists, and speech-language pathologists work together in the NICU as "neonatal therapists" and provide a full range of therapy services (Sturdivant & Ludwig, 2011).…”

“…The NICU is a setting that calls for active collaboration among professionals. Current trends in NICU practice are moving towards a transdisciplinary model, in which all of the professionals in the NICU work together to plan and provide the babies' care, rather than dividing service delivery by specialty (Boswell, 2002). In a setting such as the NICU that emphasizes collaboration, SLPs must be able to not only do their own job successfully, but also work with other professionals to provide the best care possible.…”

“…Within this IFT, the SLPs' primary areas of expertise were oral motor skills and communication signals during feeding. As Boswell (2002) discussed, the SLPs in this IFT were responsible for educating the other members of the team on their areas of expertise (Miller et al, 2001). In this case, the IFT found their interdisciplinary approach to be quite successful in the treatment of infants and children with feeding disorders.…”

“…SLPs can also participate in various other roles in the NICU, including quality control and risk management (Ballweg, 2001;Mahlmeister, 2009), discharge planning (Mills, Sims, & Jacob, 2006;American Academy of Pediatrics, 1998), follow-up care (Als, Duffy, & McAnulty, 1988;Tien, Peterson, & Shelley, 2002), professional supervision (ASHA, 2008), public education and advocacy (Billeaud, 2003), and research (Wambaugh & Bain, 2002). In the NICU environment, a collaborative approach is necessary, and all professionals must work together to provide the best care for the infants (Boswell, 2002). The National Association of Neonatal Therapists (Sturdivant & Ludwig, 2011) is a group formed by professionals who believe that NICU care should be transdisciplinary and should focus on the infant rather than the specific responsibilities of professionals from different disciplines.…”

“…If a NICU does not have a policy on parent communications, each professional should decide for herself how to best communicate with infants' parents.In order to promote an organized and nurturing NICU environment, SLPs must work closely with all members of the NICU staff, including doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, and physical therapists, as well as others. According toBoswell (2002), some NICUs divide service delivery by specialty, while others employ a more transdisciplinary approach. In transdisciplinary practice, all members of the NICU team collaborate on an overall treatment plan for each infant, as opposed to each professional developing a separate intervention plan related to their specific specialty.…”