ASHA Learning Pass

These Perspectives (SIG 13) include a variety of topics in dysphagia across the age continuum and across the many settings that speech-language pathologists (SLPs) address dysphagia. Parker Huston, Robert Dempster, and Lauren Garbacz provide readers with an overview of common evidence-based psychological techniques used in the treatment of adolescents with feeding disorders, including motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral techniques. The goal of this paper is to provide a high-level overview of these concepts so that providers outside of psychology may utilize some of these techniques in therapy, when referral to a behavioral specialist or psychologist is not feasible. Next, authors Lauren Madhoun and Robert Dempster discuss the psychosocial aspects of feeding in the neonatal intensive care unit NICU and immediately following NICU discharge. Joanne Patterson extends the discussion to the adult population by describing a biopsychosocial intervention that combines cognitive behavioral with dysphagia therapy, termed Cognitive-Behavioral Enhanced Swallowing Therapy (CB-EST) and its application in managing head and neck cancer patients with dysphagia. Finally, authors Kortney Eng, Maria Jose Flores, Elisabeth Gerrity, Nupur Sinha, Katherine Imbeau, Laddie Erbele, and Cary Yeh share details from their study investigating the effect of high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) on swallow physiology in healthy adults. We hope these articles will be of significant value to practicing clinicians and to students learning about dysphagia.

Learning Outcomes
You will be able to:

• list three components of the cognitive behavioral model
• describe reasons for psychological distress on parents of infants in the NICU
• outline implementation issues when introducing CB-EST in the clinical setting
• discuss considerations while assessing patients with dysphagia while on HFNC