A clinical education program for speech-language pathologists applying reflective practice, evidence-based practice and case-based learning.

This paper presents a comprehensive clinical education program for speech-language pathology students while considering the learning process and gradual acquisition of knowledge and skills for becoming a practicing speech-language pathologist. It describes the clinical speech and language education program for speech-language pathology students at Hadassah Academic College Jerusalem (HAC) based on three facets of learning: reflective practice, evidence-based practice and case-based learning. Also described are the choice of the model of learning and its implementation. The clinical education program presented reflects the professional development of the faculty at HAC as well as recent trends in clinical education methods.

Pragmatic abilities of children with hearing loss using cochlear implants or hearing AIDS compared to hearing children.

This study characterized the profile of pragmatic abilities among 24 children with hearing loss (HL) aged 6.3-9.4 years, 13 using hearing aids (HAs) and 11 using cochlear implants (CIs), in comparison to those of 13 hearing children with similar chronological and language ages. All the children with HL used spoken language, attended regular schools, and received communication therapy twice a week. They had no disabilities other than the HL. We assessed pragmatic abilities using the pragmatic protocol of C. A. Prutting & D. M. Kirchner (1987. A clinical appraisal of the pragmatic aspects of language. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 52, 105-119), which includes verbal, nonverbal, and paralinguistic aspects. Findings showed that children with HL used varied pragmatic functions but revealed more incidents of inappropriate use of the different abilities, compared to hearing children. Intergroup differences were significant only for verbal parameters. No differences emerged between children who used CIs vs. HAs. It seems that the CI group had the same pragmatic abilities as severe HA children. The different or less effective pragmatic abilities of children with HL may be explained by less flexible use of language structures, difficulties in theory of mind, difficulties in auditory perception of spoken language, and less exposure to varied pragmatic situations and strategies. Results indicated the need to incorporate pragmatic communication abilities into rehabilitation programs.

Coping with participant heterogeneity in dichotomous responses.

Participant heterogeneity induces spurious dependence that may obscure dependence patterns displayed by a covariance matrix. A parsimonious method is proposed for the reduction of this confounding effect. The method is applied to dichotomous behavioral response data of participants diagnosed with schizophrenia, as assessed by the Pragmatic Protocol (J. Speech Hear. Disord. 1987; 52:105-119).

Language performance in chronic schizophrenia: a pragmatic approach.

In this study, the authors examined the language of 43 participants with chronic schizophrenia under the basic assumption that a paradigmatic shift is needed in the methodology used to investigate the language of schizophrenia. The pragmatic protocol (C. Prutting and D. Kirchner, 1987) was chosen as the method of analysis to attain a general profile of pragmatic abilities. The results showed that the participants with schizophrenia exhibited a high degree of inappropriate pragmatic abilities compared to participants with mixed anxiety-depression disorder and participants with hemispheric brain damage, as previously assessed by Prutting and Kirchner. Statistical methods for clustering analysis yielded 5 distinct parameter clusters: Topic, Speech Acts, Turn-Taking, Lexical, and Nonverbal. Group clustering analysis of the 43 participants with schizophrenia produced 3 distinct groups with different profiles: minimal impairment, lexical impairment, and interactional impairment. The results are discussed in terms of theoretical implications in the area of pragmatics, the diagnosis of schizophrenia, and other goals.