ASHA Learning Pass

SLPs make critical decisions for medically complex and fragile children with oropharyngeal dysphagia based on videofluoroscopic swallow studies (VFSS) despite facing challenges due to lack of standardized procedures and valid and reliable measures. SLPs face questions like: How do we conduct studies with high clinical yield that minimize radiation exposure? How should we describe, interpret, and report VFSS findings? How do we translate findings to management? This session explores the practical impact of standardization and how it can be applied to address these common questions, as well as the how the BabyVFSSImP© measurement tool holds potential for elevating the standard of care for babies with oropharyngeal dysphagia.

This course is a recorded session from the 2023 ASHA online conference Rethinking Pediatric Feeding and Swallowing.

Related Courses

See more sessions from Rethinking Pediatric Feeding and Swallowing.

Learning Outcomes
You will be able to:

• Discuss the clinical and safety benefits of standardized and validated videofluoroscopic assessments for bottle-fed children
• Describe how standardized and validated videofluoroscopic swallow studies impact clinical decision-making and research

Presenter Information

Maureen A. Lefton-Greif, PhD, CCC-SLP, BCS-S, is Professor in Pediatrics, Otolaryngology Head-Neck Surgery, and Physical Medicine-Rehabilitation at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Lefton-Greif’s clinical practice and research focus on feeding/swallowing development as well as evaluation and management of disorders in patients diagnosed with complex aerodigestive or rare conditions having pediatric origins. She participates in the multidisciplinary clinical and research group studying the natural history of ataxia-telangiectasia, and her work on clinical trial readiness is NIH/FDA supported. In collaboration with Cure SMA, she’s developing an SMA-specific bulbar scale to quantify disease progression and outcome measures. Her R01-funded research led to the development of the first standardized, reliable, and valid scale for the videofluoroscopic assessment of swallowing function in bottle-fed children. As an extension of this work, she is co-investigator on an R01 to study Radiation Exposure in Infants and Children from Videofluoroscopic Swallow Studies. She developed the Feeding/Swallowing Impact Survey, the first outcome measure to assess the impact of children’s feeding/swallowing problems on their caregivers, which has been translated into multiple languages. She is a Fellow of ASHA, and founding member/past Vice-Chair of Board of Certified Specialists in Swallowing and Swallowing Disorders. She's Associate Editor for the Dysphagia Journal.

Financial Disclosures:

• Salary from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Ataxia-Telangiectasia Children’s Project
• Author/editor royalties from Plural Publishers 
• Presenter/author royalties from MedBridge
• Grant funding from NIH/NIDCD, NIH/NIDDK, NCATS, and FDA Orphan Products Development
• Financial compensation from ASHA for this and prior presentations

Nonfinancial Disclosures:

• None

Bonnie Martin-Harris, PhD, CCC-SLP, BCS-S, is the Alice Gabrielle Twight Professor in the Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the School of Communication at Northwestern University. Her research interests include swallowing impairment and respiratory-swallowing interactions, assessment, and treatment approaches for patients with head and neck cancer, and neurologic and pulmonary diseases. Dr. Martin-Harris’s research is funded by the NIH, VA, Bracco Diagnostics, and Mark and Evelyn Trammell Foundation.

Financial Disclosures:

• Grants from NIH/NCI, NIH/NIDCD, VA RR&D, NIH/NIDDK, and Bracco Diagnostics, Inc.
• Royalties from Northern Speech Services through agreement with Medical University of South Carolina 
• U.S. provisional patent
• Salary from Northwestern University and Edward Hines, Jr. VA Hospital 
• Financial compensation from ASHA for this presentation

Nonfinancial Disclosures:

• None

Assessment Type

Self-assessment—Think about what you learned and report on the Completion Form how you will use your new knowledge.

To earn continuing education credit, you must complete and submit the learning assessment by the end date below.

Program History and CE Information

Online conference dates: March 22–April 3, 2023; November 29–December 11, 2023
End date: October 31, 2029

This course is offered for 0.1 ASHA CEUs (Intermediate level, Professional area).