Speech Pathology and Audiology Graduate Students Work with Local High School

Graduate students in the Department of Speech Pathology & Audiology at Illinois State University enrolled in PAS 414 (Evaluation and Management of Dysphagia) are participating in a service-learning project in a local high school. The students are providing systematic instruction in social-pragmatic communication skills for high school students with moderate-severe disabilities in a structured setting once per week, and spending two lunchtimes per week at the high school to practice generalization of these skills with the high school students in a social setting (school lunchtime).

Additionally, graduate students are also facilitating use of social/pragmatic communication skills with high school student participants' peers (those with and without disabilities). The project goals are as follows:

a) Improve use of specific social/pragmatic communication skills in a structured setting and then facilitate their use in a largely social setting with graduate students and participants' peers,

b) Improve graduate students' ability to teach social/pragmatic language skills in a naturalistic school environment,

c) Provide a critical instructional package as requested by special educators in the school (part of the life-skills curriculum), and

d) Facilitate improved understanding of feeding/swallowing problems often found in students with disabilities and the impact of these impairments on social communicative interactions with peers.

Contact Information:
Rita L. Bailey
Speech Pathology and Audiology