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Interprofessional education and practice
120
JCPSLP
Volume 15, Number 3 2013
Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology
Keywords
adult
communication
disability
clinical
education
communication
partner
training
university and
health service
collaboration
This article
has been
peer-
reviewed
Louise Wilkinson
(top) and
Tracy Sheldrick
Edwards, 2005). LTU wanted to provide their SLP students
with an experiential learning opportunity in order to acquire
the communication skills they would need to be able to
communicate effectively with adults with communication
disabilities.
Simmons-Mackie, Raymer, Armstrong, Holland and
Cherney (2010) describe communication partner training
(CPT) as an intervention directed at the conversation
partners of the person with aphasia, with the intent of
improving the language, communication, participation and/
or well-being of the person with aphasia. Communication
partners are the people who interact with the person
with aphasia. They are often family members, friends,
health care providers or volunteers (Simmons-Mackie et
al., 2010). According to the World Health Organization’s
(WHO) International Classification of Functioning, Disability
and Health framework (ICF; WHO, 2001), CPT is a form
of environmental intervention because it focuses on
enhancing the skills and abilities of people in the person’s
communicative environment.
Simmons-Mackie et al. (2010) conducted a systematic
review of 31 CPT intervention studies. The majority of
studies involved directly training communication partners
and integrated role plays or actual interactions with people
with aphasia into the training. Sessions were typically
1 to 2 hours in length, up to four times per week. Early
intervention studies tended to focus on providing training
to family and friends, whereas interventions from the late
1990s onwards reflected an increased focus on training
service providers such as health care professionals and
volunteers to enhance the participation of the person with
aphasia in the wider community. Despite the fact that
the intervention studies were of variable methodological
quality, Cherney, Simmons-Mackie, Raymer, Armstrong and
Holland (2013) were able to conclude that conversation
partner training was an effective way of improving the
conversation partner’s communication skills in supporting
communication of people with aphasia and that these skills
are maintained over time. CPT was considered appropriate
and highly relevant for SLP students who are regular
communication partners for people with aphasia and other
communication disabilities.
This paper describes a collaborative partnership between
Royal Talbot Rehabilitation Centre (RTRC) Austin Health and
the Department of Human Communication Sciences at LTU
to provide undergraduate and master’s SLP students with a
one-day experiential CPT workshop. The objectives of the
workshop were for students to:
This paper describes a collaborative
partnership between the Royal Talbot
Rehabilitation Centre and La Trobe University
to provide speech-language pathology
students with a one-day experiential
communication skills workshop. The
workshop focused on the development of
student knowledge, confidence and the
communication skills required to effectively
interact with adults with communication
disabilities. The program, outcomes,
challenges and future directions of the
program are described.
E
ffective communication skills are a fundamental
professional competency for all entry level
healthcare profession students (McAllister, 2005)
because communication is the medium through which
quality health care is provided (Burns, Baylor, Morris,
McNalley, & Yorkston, 2012). Entry level speech-language
pathology (SLP) students need to develop exceptional
communication skills as many of their clients also
require specific conversational support to communicate
effectively. La Trobe University (LTU) SLP students have
often reported challenges conversing with adults with
communication disabilities. They have found it difficult to
use age-appropriate communication strategies to support
both social and therapeutic interactions effectively. These
observations have been supported by a recent study
that examined the confidence and knowledge of SLP
students prior to clinical placement about communicating
with people with aphasia. This study found SLP students
were not confident about communicating with people
with aphasia and demonstrated limited knowledge about
the range of communication strategies they could use
despite having completed academic coursework on
aphasia (Finch, Fleming, Brown, Lethlean, Cameron &
McPhail, 2013). This should not be surprising as research
suggests conversing effectively with someone who has a
communication disability such as aphasia is not an intuitive
behaviour, but requires skill and experience to acquire
(Kagan & Gailey, 1993; Parr & Byng, 1998). Research in
experiential learning also supports the need for students to
engage in learning situations that enable them to integrate
their knowledge, perceptions, experiences and behaviour
in order to achieve transformational learning (Best, Rose, &
Addressing the challenges
of clinical education
Conversation partner training for speech-language
pathology students
Louise Wilkinson, Tracy Sheldrick, Robyn O’Halloran and Rachel Davenport