Constructing Collaboration Across Campus: Pre-professional speech-language pathologists and teachers working together

Abstract

This thesis project analyzed the efficacy of a single exposure to interprofessional education (IPE) for education and speech-language pathology (SLP) pre-professionals. The effects of IPE were shown through analysis of participant responses related to personal reflections, professional roles, communication and models of specialized service delivery in schools. Participants were graduate students from the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology or undergraduate students from the Faculty of Education. The IPE experience consisted of online reflective surveys, an interactive seminar and the completion of a collaborative case study in small-groups composed of pre-professionals from both disciplines. Results indicated participants felt more confident in their own collaborative competencies, increased awareness and decreased use of discipline-specific terminology and increased knowledge of specialized models of service delivery after the IPE experience. The study also surveyed perceptions of pre-professional speech-language pathologists and teachers regarding professional roles and models of service delivery in the school.