SPTH2904 Clinical Skills and Practice 2A: Communication Development and Disorders: School Age to Adolescence

This topic teaches students the skills and processes connected with clinical practice. Its focus is on facilitating the integration of theoretical knowledge into the clinical context. There is a practical component to the topic where students develop skills in interacting with and providing support to children in a structured setting.

This topic aims to continue the development of the skills relevant to speech pathology practice. Students will develop an understanding of the issues involved in diagnosis and decision making in clinical practice, clinical management including goal setting and evaluation of intervention strategies.

There will be a strong focus on developing clinical reasoning skills. There will also be opportunities to further develop practical skills in test administration and goal setting. Students will begin to develop an understanding of the range of competencies necessary in developing clinical competence.

1. Make decisions: interpretation of information from other professionals, and analysis and interpretation of assembled data to arrive at a diagnosis
2. Implement management: feedback and decision making about management with the client, planning long-term and short-term management goals, developing a management plan on a session by session basis
3. Implement teaching skills: task-analysis, scaffolding of activities, teaching strategies, verbal and non-verbal stimuli, giving feedback and reinforcement, planning an effective individual session, flexibility in use of materials, maintenance of desired goals
4. Prepare reports: both written and oral
5. Reflect on the Speech Pathology Australia Competency Based Occupational Standards (CBOS) for graduate entry to the profession that specifically relate to information gathering, client interaction and assessment administration and interpretation
6. In the context of a supervised structured program, report on their work with normally developing children with/without English as a second language to facilitate development of learning