Practicing What We Preach Prevention in Clinical Practice Amy Litwack, Sandra Cohn Thau, Lynn Conner

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Practicing What We PreachPrevention in Clinical
PracticeAmy Litwack, Sandra Cohn Thau, Lynn
Conners, Laura Glufling-Tham, Seton Lindsay,
Shelley Lipschultz, Betsy Micucci, Marie
RimshawClinical Instructors, Emerson
College Boston, MA
Clinical Opportunities First Year
Second Year Hearing
Screenings
Hearing Screenings - Community Elementary,
- Emerson College faculty
staff Middle and High Schools
for May is Better Speech
- In-house clients
Hearing Month -
Skilled Nursing Facilities
- In-house clinic clients Speech Language
Screenings Speech Language
Screenings - Greater Boston private
- Incoming CSD graduate students
preschools community
- Skilled Nursing Facility day care
centers
(cognition, language, swallowing) Screening
sites are representative of our diverse
linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic
community.

• Capstone Prevention Project
• A requirement of the final Clinical Methods
  course, students work in small groups to complete
  a two-part project
• Writing a paper about prevention approaches on a
  pre-approved clinical population, addressing
• Causes
• Incidence rate
• Impact on society
• Approaches to primary and/or secondary prevention
• Target audience
• Approach to educating the public about this
  prevention issue
• Creating a pamphlet targeting the audience
  specified in the paper and addressing the issue
  of prevention for that problem area. Students
  are encouraged to be creative.
• During the last class, all pamphlets are
  distributed and presented. The pamphlets reflect
  a vast range of topics across all age spans and
  clinical populations.
• The applicability of this project is demonstrated
  by the fact that our students have distributed
  the pamphlets at clinical placements and at
  places of employment.

GOAL Students will understand and engage in
all three levels of prevention through carefully
designed sequences of experiences during their
graduate study

• Outreach Initiative
• Why? Provide prevention information
  including risk factors, education resources.
• How? Grant money to fund Community Outreach
  Project with support at the
• administrative level.
• Where? Greater Boston.
• What?
• Direct education/discussion with healthy and
  at-risk participants
• Specialized training for staff/healthcare
  workers
• Hearing and language screenings
• Participation in health fairs
• Student opportunities
• Research
• Presentation creation and performance
• Public speaking
• Interacting in a professional capacity with
  healthy community members
• Training multidisciplinary staff and healthcare
  workers

• Academic Curriculum
• Prevention is infused throughout all academic
  courses.
• Some examples
• Preschool Language Disorders
• Discuss speech-language pathologists roles in
  educating families and the community
• regarding factors that affect the communication
  development of children, including
• prenatal care, exposure to literacy, genetic
  counseling, and helmet use
• Review methods for early identification,
  including newborn hearing screenings,
• preschool language screenings, etc.
• Discuss cultural contexts and how these factors
  may influence counseling regarding
• prevention
• Aphasia
• Review stroke symptoms and early identification
  of a stroke
• Brainstorm ways to educate patients, families,
  and the community regarding treatable
• and non-treatable risk factors for stroke
• Identify risk factors across the age span
  related to traumatic brain injury
• Discuss scope of practice in SLP regarding
  primary and secondary prevention

Emerson College Department of Communication
Sciences and Disorders
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Practicing What We Preach Prevention in Clinical
PracticeClinical Instructors, Emerson College,
Boston, MAANNUAL ASHA CONVENTION 2007

• Abstract
• Since the 1960s, the growing trend in
  healthcare has been to take a more proactive role
  toward health and wellness. Immunizations,
  reduction of infectious diseases, and looking at
  the preventable causes of death and disability
  have become routine at the national, state, and
  local levels. While smoking cessation projects
  and cancer screenings are increasingly popular,
  little attention has been paid to the prevention
  of communication disorders. In the late 1980s,
  ASHA took steps in a similar direction,
  encouraging the expanse of the Speech-Language
  Pathologists role to include prevention.
  Specifically, ASHAs revised standards of 2005
  required that all graduate students engage in
  prevention activities. Emerson Colleges
  prevention education is unique both in
  methodology and the extent to which the three
  levels of prevention are infused in creative ways
  throughout the curriculum. (Refer to flow chart
  on the reverse side.)
• Primary Prevention Eliminating or inhibiting
  the development of a disorder by changing
  susceptibility or reducing exposure and promoting
  general wellness.
• Secondary Prevention Early detection and
  treatment, with the aim of preventing further
  complications.
• Tertiary Prevention Reduction of disability by
  the restoration of effective function.
• ASHAs Action plan includes
• Increasing member involvement in
  prevention-related services
• Increasing professional awareness of the
  importance of prevention
• Increasing awareness among the general public
• References
• American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
  (1988). Prevention of Communication Disorders
  Position Statement. Available from
  www.asha.org/policy.
• American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
  (2005). Standards for the certificate of clinical
  competence in speech-language pathology.
  Available from www.asha.org/about/membershipcertif
  ication/handbooks/slp/slp_standards.htm.
• American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
  (2007). Scope of Practice in Speech-Language
  Pathology Scope of Practice. Available from
  www.asha.org/policy.
• American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
  (2004). Preferred practice patterns for the
  profession of speech-language pathology.
  Available from www.asha.org/policy.
• Screening Tools
• Fluharty, N.B. (1978). Fluharty Preschool Speech
  and Language Screening Test. Allen, Texas DLM
  Teaching Resources. St. Louis, K.O. Ruscello,
  D.M. (2000).
• Oral Speech Mechanism Screening Examination-3.
  Austin, TX Pro-Ed.