Undergraduate Students' Perceptions of Cultural Awareness and Content Incorporation into Communication Sciences and Disorders Programs in Pennsylvania.
Open Access
- Author:
- Carson, Alison Lee
- Area of Honors:
- Communication Sciences and Disorders
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Dr. Ingrid Maria Blood, Thesis Supervisor
Dr. Ingrid Maria Blood, Thesis Honors Advisor
Dr. Carol Anne Miller, Faculty Reader - Keywords:
- Cultural and Linguistic Diversity
Undergraduate Curriculum
Communication Sciences and Disorders
Speech Language Pathology - Abstract:
- The purpose of this study is to understand how cultural content is being incorporated into undergraduate Communication Sciences and Disorders/Speech-Language Pathology programs across Pennsylvania, from the students’ perspective. In addition, this study is evaluating if the methods used by the undergraduate curriculums are effective, based on students’ responses to questions related to cultural awareness. ASHA, the American Speech-Language Association (2014) states that, “Programs must be specifically designed to prepare students for entry into professional practice and provide curriculum (academic and clinical education) that reflects current knowledge, skills, technology, scopes of practice, and the diversity of society.” ASHA also provides suggestions on implementation, but does not explicitly state how programs must include this content into the curriculum. The endpoints of this study are to determine if CSD/SLP undergraduate students can identify that this content that is being incorporated into the curriculum. While also evaluating the most common practices in Pennsylvania for including cultural content into the curriculum. For this study, undergraduate students at the fourteen Pennsylvania programs that are approved by the Council of Academic Accreditation were recruited to participate in an online survey. In total, 310 surveys were completed at nine of the universities. The results indicate that most students had a CSD/SLP course that infused cultural content into a pre-existing course. There appears to be some variation of one’s definition of cultural diversity based on which university is attended. In addition, most students do not consider ‘disability’ when defining cultural diversity.