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Credit(s): PDHs: 1.0, ASHA CEUs*: 0.1
Summary: Ototoxic medications and chemical agents in the workplace can put individuals' hearing and vestibular health at risk for permanent injury. Proactive ototoxicity management (OtoM) strategies aim to minimize exposure, avoid onset of symptoms, provide ongoing monitoring, and manage auditory and vestibular changes as the clinical needs of the patient evolve. During a 2021 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Special Interest Groups Open House, members of the International Ototoxicity Management Group discussed how best to integrate OtoM into routine clinical practice, what tools to use, and what special considerations need to be understood to best support patients and their families. Here, we have summarized their viewpoints to encourage widespread adoption of improved OtoM services for at-risk individuals. The field of audiology needs to move to a place where we better understand the full extent of ototoxicity and can agree on expanding minimum guidelines that can be implemented more universally to mitigate, detect, and manage the damage from ototoxic exposures. Only recently has our field seen a therapeutic drug that can protect against ototoxicity; however, the population served is restricted only to children receiving treatment for nonmetastatic carcinoma. This is hopefully just the beginning of future therapeutic interventions to come, but, in the meantime, ototoxicity resulting from other medications in different patient populations and chemical agents persists.
Credit(s): PDHs: 6.0, ASHA CEUs*: 0.6
Summary: This course focuses on neurodiversity-affirming practices. Five articles discuss the need for neurodiversity-affirming care; research design and reporting in autism intervention research; knowledge, experience, and training of school-based professionals and their familiarity with early communication access for autistic children; themes in spoken narratives produced by autistic adults whose genders are marginalized; and gestalt language processing.
Credit(s): PDHs: 4.0, ASHA CEUs*: 0.4
Summary: This course focuses on best practices, perspectives, and challenges in the assessment and intervention of developmental language disorders in culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) populations. The articles discuss resources to interpret and use common standardized language assessments in English for CLD school-age youth; increasing Spanish-speaking caregivers’ use of language-promoting strategies in everyday activities with infants and toddlers; and treatment of bilingual children to promote progression in both languages.
Credit(s): PDHs: 1.5, ASHA CEUs*: 0.15
Summary: In the rising digital era, and especially since the pandemic, implementation of telehealth and provision of auditory rehabilitation (AR) using digital platforms have notably increased. This has changed the outlook of service provision by audiologists and speech-language pathologists alike. Digital platforms have the potential to positively impact AR practices by improving accessibility of rehabilitation services as well as by facilitating a more effective way to share resources with both professionals and end users. This SIG 7 activity includes two articles about the accessibility and effectiveness of digital platforms to provide AR services for both adults and children with hearing difficulties. The first article discusses the differences in the distribution strategy, users’ experience, and satisfaction for two digital platforms (a static website and an active blog) offering AR materials for professionals. Their study concludes that social media–focused active distribution is effective because it results in more total traffic, a greater number of users, more frequent access, and an overall high level of satisfaction with the quality of information and resources. The second article discusses the details of a Zoom-based telepractice initial evaluation protocol used by speech-language pathologists serving children who are hard of hearing and their families. This clinical protocol was designed to synchronously share resources and questionnaires with family members of children who are hard of hearing. Authors suggest that providing AR services through telepractice facilitates high-quality diagnostics and counseling to the same extent as that of in-person diagnostic sessions.
Credit(s): PDHs: 6.0, ASHA CEUs*: 0.6
Summary: This SIG 10 activity focuses on student perceptions and experiences. In the first article, the experiences of SLP graduate students who previously worked as Speech-Language Pathology Assistants are compared with students who did not come into their programs with such experience. Implications for prospective students and program development are discussed. Next, authors investigate experiences of students and graduates of clinical doctorate programs, including the application process, their career goals and outcomes, and their general reflections on their decision to pursue the doctor of speech-language pathology degree. Third, authors present an examination of SLPs’ perceptions of graduate students in CSD who speak with vocal fry (a low-pitched, grating voice quality). Finally, in a mixed-method study, graduate and undergraduate students participate in a learning-by-teaching experience in two CSD courses. Three years of data is presented.
Credit(s): PDHs: 4.0, ASHA CEUs*: 0.4
Summary: The first article in this SIG 18 activity investigates the applications speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and audiologists used most frequently during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also discusses the main obstacles to providing speech, language, and hearing services through telepractice. Through the international distribution of an electronic survey, a total of 1,466 surveys from SLPs and audiologists from 40 countries were used for the analysis. The second article discusses the Auditory Verbal UK's training program for prospective listening and spoken language specialist certified auditory verbal therapists delivered globally via telepractice. The article explores, from a global perspective, audiology and early intervention services and perspectives regarding telepractice. The third article explores parents' and therapists' views of the benefits and challenges of telepractice for early intervention for children who are deaf or hard of hearing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through survey and analysis, the article probes the views of parents, Listening and Spoken Language Specialist Certified Auditory Verbal Therapists in using telepractice to deliver auditory verbal sessions.
Credit(s): PDHs: 2.5, ASHA CEUs*: 0.25
Summary: In “Coupling Hearing Health With Community-Based Group Therapy for Cognitive Health in Low-Income African American Elders,” Postman et al. describe a community-based group intervention to address disparities experienced by African American elders in the early stages of cognitive–communicative decline. The intervention included partnerships with community health centers, culturally informed activities, and ongoing input from staff and participants. The authors describe the advantages of this community-engaged approach, as well as the benefits of joining hearing and cognition for minimizing access barriers. In “Public Health Frameworks in Audiology Education: Rationale and Model for Implementation,” Warren and Levy review how public health education can advance the field of audiology, particularly through coursework and dual degree programs. The authors also describe two frameworks for public health training in an audiology academic setting and identify the competencies that overlap in audiology and public health, helping to illustrate the relevance of public health education in addressing objectives in hearing health care.
Credit(s): PDHs: 2.5, ASHA CEUs*: 0.25
Summary: These SIG 8 Perspectives articles focus on topics that are important in promoting public health audiology. In “Fundamentals of Epidemiology for the Audiologist,” Torre and Reavis provide an overview of basic epidemiologic concepts including study design, prevalence, incidence, risk ratios, and odds ratios. The authors emphasize that an understanding of epidemiology is crucial for audiologists for a variety of reasons, including to help them assess the quality of publications, evaluate and discuss the efficacy of screening methods, and evaluate and communicate risk factors for ear and hearing problems. In “Hearing Health Care Delivery Outside the Booth,” Gates, Hecht, Grantham, Fallon, and Martukovich review the literature on boothless audiometry and introduce current tools used to deliver hearing health care outside of the traditional clinic setting. From their review, the authors conclude that boothless audiometry technology provides an opportunity for audiologists to expand services to nontraditional settings such as waiting grooms and nursing homes, increasing access to care, early identification, and intervention, and therefore improving health outcomes.
Credit(s): PDHs: 1.0, ASHA CEUs*: 0.1
Summary: How can audiologists enhance patient-centered communication, even during the COVID-19 pandemic? This self-study is from the journal, Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, SIG 7: Auditory Rehabilitation and Its Instrumentation. It features two articles focused on patient-centered strategies for effective communication, from initial consultations to prioritizing follow-up care, during COVID-19. It also includes the article that won the 2021 ASHA Journals Editor’s Award for Perspectives (for SIGs 6, 7, 8, and 9) by Davidson and Marrone. The first article is, “How to Provide Accessible Hearing Health Information to Promote Patient-Centered Care.” Kelly-Campbell and Manchaiah review the literature within audiology on patient-provider communication. They focus on research studies of communication during initial audiology consultation sessions. Through a summary of themes in the literature, they categorize important research findings that provide insight into communication between patients and their audiologists. Finally, they identify five key strategies for effective patient-centered communication. Each strategy is then reviewed in detail, with clinical examples and specific recommendations that can be immediately implemented in practice. The second article is, “A Clinically Valuable Interaction in the Midst of COVID-19 and Beyond: A Viewpoint on the Importance of Patient-Centered Outcomes in Rehabilitative Audiology.” Davidson and Marrone discuss patient-centered communication following hearing aid device fittings. They identify challenges facing patients and audiologists related to follow-up hearing aid services as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a literature review and their own recent research, they developed a decision-tree algorithm to help audiologists prioritize clinical activities following hearing aid fittings, including remote formats for care. The algorithm was based on use of a patient-centered outcome measure, the Measure of Audiologic Rehabilitation Self-Efficacy. Patient-centered outcomes measurement is suggested as an engagement strategy for continued communication with patients during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
Credit(s): PDHs: 4.5, ASHA CEUs*: 0.45
Summary: In this activity, four recent SIG 10 articles are presented. First, Domsch, Stiritz, and Huff utilized a mixed-methods design to examine the cultural awareness of students in communication sciences and disorders (CSD) during and after a study-abroad experience. Next, Franca, Boyer, and Pegoraro-Krook explored activities designed to promote cultural and clinical competence in a collaboration between CSD programs in the United States and Brazil. Then, Veyvoda and Van Cleave reviewed the literature on service-learning and community-engaged learning, described how these approaches could be used in distance-learning modalities, and explored how doing so could be accomplished during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, Towson et al. studied the effectiveness of coaching paired with the use of a mixed-reality simulator as CSD students practiced interprofessional communication skills in role-play scenarios.
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