degrees in Rehab Sciences

[Joan Luckhurst]

I've been reading with interest the discussions related to PhD degrees.  My own background includes undergraduate and master's degrees in Speech Pathology, with 30 yrs experience working primarily in school-based settings.  My PhD, however, is in Human Development, with a specialty in Educational Leadership.  The program I completed at Marywood University was interdisciplinary and allowed participants to chart their own course of research/interests.  It contained a common core of coursework in philosophy, ethics, research & statistics.  My personal opinion is that different related fields such as Rehab Sciences, Human Dev, Linguistics, Education all bring a much broader and more thorough understanding to the field of Communication Disorders (or Speech-Language Pathology or Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences).  I don't feel that my pursuit of a PhD in a related field in any way diminishes my  knowledge & skills in my chosen profession.  In fact, the focus on development of educational programs for adult learners (ergo: college students) has been a tremendous benefit to course development, policy & procedural development and development/refinement of student learning activities and grading rubrics.  One more comment related to linguistics:  I do agree that there is a need to include more depth and breadth of linguistics study in the field of Communication Disorders.  The diversity of our culture, the limitations of our assessment tools and the complexity of intervention needs demand it.   

Joan A. Luckhurst, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Assistant Professor
La Salle University
Wister 220
1900 W. Olney Ave.
Philadelphia, Pa  19141
(215) 951-1609



-----<info-childes at mail.talkbank.org> wrote: -----


To: <stemberg at interchange.ubc.ca>, <info-childes at mail.talkbank.org>
From: "Matthew Rispoli" <R10MJR1 at wpo.cso.niu.edu>
Sent by: <info-childes at mail.talkbank.org>
Date: 08/30/2005 01:08PM
cc: <kmainess at llu.edu>
Subject: Re: degrees in Rehab Sciences

Dear Colleagues,

Reading Joe Stemberger's post this morning made me think about some
issues that I've been dealing with here at my institution.  Like Joe,
I
am also affiliated with a department of Communicative Disorders.  My
discipline, Developmental Psycholinguistics, has much to offer by way
of application to Speech Language Pathology.  However, when one reviews
the undergraduate and graduate curriculum in Speech, Language Pathology,
one gets the impression that the progress we have made in Dev Psychling
is still not transmitted into the training of speech, language
pathologists.  For example, at the undergraduate level, it is often the
case the anatomical and physiological mechanisms of breathing are given
about as much coverage as the entirety of morphosyntactic development --
about two weeks!  

My queries are the following:

1. How many of us on the info-childes talkbank were trained in
linguistics and/or psychology and are affiliated with, either
partially
or wholly, departments of Speech & Language Pathology / Communicative
Disorders? (At some point I'd like to compile a list -- as we are all
affected by common issues, like the Knowledge and Skills Assessment
mandated by ASHA.  I know of several present and former department
chairs that fall into this category).

2. For those of you who responded positively to the first question:
Do you believe that depth of what we have learned dev psychling is
actually being transmitted to future speech-language pathologists?  If
you think the answer to this query is negative, do you think we have
the moral / professional responsibility of trying to change this
situation?

If, as Joe Stemberger points out, Speech Language Pathology needs
Developmental Psycholinguists, not just for basic research but also to
keep its programs running, shouldn't we be taking a more active role
in
designing and shaping what our students bring to the task of
intervening in the lives of children? 

Sincerely
Matt Rispoli
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