Health care reform is affecting our discipline. Four prominent themes provide a window into what’s to come—Outcomes Measurement, Learning Systems, Patient-Centered Care, and Transparency. Though the full impact of health care reform is not yet clear, it is important to consider the factors that are driving change, as mapping this...
Increasing student involvement in faculty research is a win-win proposition from many perspectives. Student assistance can greatly speed a faculty member’s ability to conduct research. It can encourage students to explore research careers for themselves. It builds student-faculty interaction, thereby improving the undergraduate educational experience and allowing students to develop...
Tele-supervision, or e-supervision, refers to the use of two-way digital video conferencing technologies for the purpose of clinical supervision. With tele-supervision, clinical instructors can provide supervision at a distant site. It has proven beneficial in reinforcing relationships between the graduate student clinician and university programs and off-campus supervisors. People engaged...
The evidence-based practice movement has sought to tighten the link between research and practice. This movement has placed increased scrutiny on the quality and rigor of clinical practice research to ensure that the ‘tools of the trade’ are being objectively validated as having causal and beneficial effects on recipients. The Standard...
Fees and Reimbursement in 2012 There are countless challenges in the education of speech-language pathologists and audiologists. Because clinical training is such an integral part of the graduate programs for our professions, the operation of the university speech and hearing clinic is of paramount importance. Clinical opportunities must match the...
The term culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) encompasses a diverse set of groups and individuals. Given the rapid increase in numbers of individuals from CLD populations, it is critical that the research base in communication sciences and disorders keep pace with the growth in that population. Clearly, it has not. I often...
Magnificent Era of Synchronicity The surge in global synergies over the past few years has increased the visibility of our field with globally focused research, education, professional opportunities, and service presentations at professional conferences for numerous Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD)-related organizations. Student demand for global health experiences is growing,...
Just as the number of students with disabilities enrolled in higher education is on the rise nationally, so too is the number of students with disabilities who are drawn to speech-language pathology or audiology as a major. The legal definition for “person with a disability” is very broad, including students...
The cumulative 10-year completion rate for PhD students averages less than 50% in the United States (Council of Graduate Schools, 2008). Given the high level of personal and institutional investment required to support students for even 1 year in a PhD program, it is incumbent on graduate programs to lower...
To paraphrase Charles Dickens (1859), for today’s academic environment, it seems both the best of times and the worst of times. Many academic programs in communication sciences and disorders (CSD) are now finding that demands for increasing productivity and excellent graduates are often coupled with diminishing resources with which to...