SLPA Program Director
During my 30 year career as a speech-language pathologist (SLP), there has always been a worldwide shortage of SLPs. Within recent years, in an effort to extend services provided by SLPs, there has been an emphasis placed on developing well-trained assistants for speech-language pathologists (SLPAs) as in the disciplines of occupational and physical therapies. The University of Vermont’s SLPA program is fully in sync with the guidelines established by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).
Through fully online distance learning opportunities offered by the University of Vermont, I direct the SLPA training program. This program is presented asynchronously so that students may access coursework at their convenience during the week. Blackboard is the platform of operation.
I am an adjunct lecturer for three of the courses: Development of Spoken Language, Working with Speech Disorders, and Working with Language Disorders. Starting in January, I advise students during their 17 months in the program and guide them to find supervising speech-language pathologists in their local community. Students from Texas, Colorado, Illinois, California, Maine, Louisiana, Florida, New Hampshire, Michigan, Massachusetts, Oregon, Maryland, and Virginia have joined students from Vermont in this distance learning opportunity.
The course sequence follows:
- Introduction to Disordered Communication
- Introduction to Phonetics
- Development of Spoken Language
- Linguistics for Clinicians
- Introduction to Speech and Hearing Sciences
- Working with Speech Disorders
- Working with Language Disorders
During the final two semesters (fall and spring) students complete 100 hours of practicum within a school setting while concurrently completing two final courses. The practicum experience is under the supervision of an ASHA certified or state-licensed speech-language pathologist in the student’s local community.
Please contact me at mailto:Kathleen.ross@med.uvm.edu