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Hello. My name is McKay Moore Sohlberg and I am the proud director of the Communication
Disorders and Sciences program here at the University of Oregon.
People often ask me,
"What makes your program unique?"
And I would say that one of the predominant
unique features of the U of O CDS program
is the integration of clinical and academic training.
So faculty often
supervise in the clinic as well as teach academic courses.
clinical supervisors often contribute to the academic courses
as well.
Students say that one of the most special
aspects or characteristics of our program
is the cohort learning model.
I've come to really appreciate the cohort model of the CDS program.
This model facilitates the community of learning whereby sharing similar classes
students and feel better supported to work together. Each member of our cohort
contributes a wide variety of knowledge and experiences that collectively
enhances my educational opportunities both within the classroom and in the clinic.
It's really encouraging and comforting to have a a group of people who are
reliable and consistent to go to to bounce ideas off one another and develop
strategies to better enhance our educational experience here at U of O.
One of the aspects I value most about the CDS program is our approach to training students
to be scientific practitioners.
The emphasis on research-based practices is infused throughout the program.
One example of this is neuro rounds.
Students in our graduate program will all have clients that they see in our clinic
and when they have an adult client with a neurogenic disorder, they participate in neuro rounds.
It's modeled much like what we see in medical training programs for physicians,
where the students come together and present their cases. They prepare the
presentation ahead of time, they come to the group and present it,
and then the students and the faculty ask them questions. Some are for
clarification, sometimes they're really to increase the students learning to
really help them work through
some clinical problems - those clinical conundrums that we all have -
and overall what we're really looking at is not only the increase in the
professional presentation skills,
but also that they increase their ability to make rational clinical decisions.
I've been able to see a wide range of clients, from ASD
to motor speech, aphasia,
autism, and
I really feel prepared
to serve clients
in whatever
setting I choose to work in.
Students register for clinic
all seven terms
of the program,
and they
start out their first term with probably
just one,
maybe two clients.
Then the number of clients gradually increases over those seven terms until
those last two terms, they do their externships.
We provide
very thorough
and regular supervision and
support initially
and as students get more experience
we
make sure that
they take over and make the decisions in terms of planning the session
implementing the session
and also
writing the documentation
Our clinic if in the newly built HEDCO education building on the
university campus
and it provides space for individual and group therapy and allows access to the newest
technology
I'm Cecelia Kirk and I'm a professor in the communication sciences and disorders
program
One of the aspects of the CDS program that i'm involved in mentoring
what we call evidence-based practice projects. This project is the capstone learning
experience of our master's program.
All students conduct research looking at the available empirical evidence
related to an intervention area of interest.
Students then implement the target intervention with an appropriate client.
Students present their projects in a formal conference and we invite community SLP's
and faculty to attend these presentations.
What i appreciate most about this program is the staff and faculty's willingness to work with me
given that i have a family it's presented different challenges for me in
completing this program on a daily basis and I feel like everybody's been very
understanding about that and I feel as though I've been given the maximum level of support.
I know it's hard as a student to decide, "Where should I go to graduate school
and what would I make that decision based on?"
I think clinical training is a big piece. I'm a person who's been a working clinician for
my whole career
so i believe strongly in the clinical training we provide.
We do an enormous amount of individualized work with each student to really
prepare them
to go out; we have a strong relationship with the community so you have lots of
opportunities to go out,
be in different community placements,
and then there are two
full-time externships, one in a medical setting and one in a public school
setting so you'll have completed all of your coursework,
you won't spend any time on campus - you'll spend one hundred percent of your time
in a full-time placement, either in the public schools or the medical.
Very few programs are able to offer that, and I think it's a
real strength in our training.
We hope you've been able to get a bit of a feel for our program.
As you can see we are very proud of the communication disorders and sciences
program at the University of Oregon.
Perhaps the best indicator of the quality of our training is the hundred
percent job placement rate that we've had for as long as i can remember us
keeping those statistics
students
split between working about
fifty percent of them go to medical placements about fifty percent
go to school placements
but students are
getting employment
after training and thus are able to serve and become evidence-based practicioners
and serve people with communication disorders.
Thank you very much for taking the time to learn about our program.