Abstract:

As part of their studies, Finnish logopedics students carry out a clinic practice, where students are guiding a group of clients under the supervision of a teacher, who is a licensed speech therapist. In this master studies course, the students learn to choose suitable methods for rehabilitation and guidance and to analyze and evaluate their own activities in an expert role. The performance includes information gathering, planning and practical implementation of the clinic, and either a written final report or a presentation at a seminar.

Our publication reports student-centered development of a new clinic practice: guidance for parents with children having rhotacism (a difficulty of producing /r/). The clinic practice was carried out in a hybrid form, and it included two online meetings and two face-to-face meetings. The first and the last meeting were carried out online, and those were designed to be a chance for the parents to consider their possibilities to carry out training at home and a chance for them to later reflect the training and ask for guidance for the life after the guided training period, respectively. The two face-to-face meetings in the middle were meant for practical support, where the parents were offered guidance for home training. These two meetings were also attended by the children.

The clinic practice included two unique parts. Firstly, the guidance was offered for the parents for home training, instead of offering articulation training for the children. Secondly, the implementation was carried out in a hybrid way, which has its pros and cons. In our publication, we report the learning experiences of the logopedics students, who designed and implemented the clinic practice, as well as the pedagogical evaluation of the supervising teacher.

Keywords:

Clinic practice, course design, logopedics, student-centered learning.