Developmental Psycholinguistics in Speech Language Pathology

[Matthew Rispoli]

Dear Colleagues,

The first paragraph is in response to a query of Shelly Velleman's.  I
then throw in an anecdote to help illustrate the source of my musing.

I do not know for certain that there is a 'limit' to the number of
non-C'd faculty members set by ASHA for a given COMD department. 
Non-C'd members typically teach a slew of "normal processes" courses:
Phonetics / Phonology (rather based on articulatory phonetics), Language
Development (in very broad survey terms), Anatomy & Physiology of the
Speech and Hearing Mechs (often with just a few lessons on the neural
bases of language), 'Speech Science' (geared toward acoustic phonetics)
and 'Hearing Science'.

We cannot, of course, supervise therapy in clinic.  But we are often
asked to consult with trainees on clinic cases.  Sometimes this is a
wonderful experience.  Sometimes it is tinged with irony accompanied
with frustration.  For example, I remember an undergraduate to whom I
taught that broad survey course in Language Development.  Three years
later, as a graduate student, she comes back to me for a consultation on
a client.  She describes the verbal behavior of her client as "the boy
gets his words confused". And so I as for clarification, and the student
says "he puts 'her' in the wrong place".  I ask for further
clarification.  "He says "her's going".  I am stone silent for a moment.
 "That's a pronoun case error", I reply.  "Oh" says the trainee, and she
asks, "Is there any literature on this type of error?".  A few weeks
later, I see the student again, we talk about treatment for the client. 
The treatment (and remember, I am not the supervising clinician) is
"work on 'sh', then he'll say "she".  In the words of Alanis
Morrissette, "Isn't it ironic?".

It really comes down to this.  We work in COMD departments, but are we
really making a dent?

Sincerely
Matt Rispoli