JCPSLP Vol 14 No 1 2012

over the short duration of the program. Finally, 76 children who had more complex problems participated in the 4-week program. Each child attended a session each day for 5 days each week. The results of the screening, assessment, and therapy outcomes are currently being analysed and will be reported elsewhere. The important aspect of this report is that all the university students indicated positive learning experiences. They enjoyed working with the children, the school environment, and gained a unique experience in a rural Aboriginal community. This program demonstrated that there are alternative ways to provide services to rural and remote communities and that university students can help to fulfill this need. However, that is not to say that this should be the primary mode of service delivery to rural communities. The long- term goal must be to have speech pathologists living and working in these communities. The local schools that participated in the program have collaborated further and have advertised locum positions for 6 to 8 weeks. Students who have participated in this clinical experienced have expressed interest in these positions. This work demonstrates that as McAllister and others have indicated there are numerous opportunities for innovation to provide new, worthwhile experiences to university students that can also help to provide a valuable Jones, D., Grant-Thomas, D., Bourne, E., Clark, P., Beck, H., & Lyle, D. (2011). Model for rural and remote speech pathology student placements: Using non-traditional sites and partnerships. Australian Journal of Rural Health , 19 , 52–53. McAllister, L. (2005). Issues and innovations in clinical education. Advances in Speech–Language Pathology , 7 , 138–148 McAllister, L., & Lincoln, M. (2004). Clinical education in speech language pathology . London: Whurr. McAllister, L., Wilson, L., Clark, L., McLeod, S., Beecham, R., & Shanahan, L. (2004). Educating speech pathology graduates for the future: A non-medical curriculum. In B. E. Murdoch, J. Goozee, B.-M. Whelan, & K. Docking (Eds.), Proceedings of the 26th International Association of Logopaedics and Phoniatrics (IALP) 2004 Congress , Brisbane, Australia. Correspondence to: Dr Carl Parsons Andrew Dean Fildes Foundation for Language-Learning Disabilities 391 High Street Ashwood, Victoria 3147 email: parsons.carl.c@edumail.vic.gov.au website: www.adff.org.au service to clients. References

the prep students at the schools, and any other students referred by teachers, 2) multidisciplinary and comprehensive assessments of hearing, vision, gross and fine motor skills, speech, language, conversational and literacy skills (including reading, writing, spelling and maths) for students who were deemed to need them, and 3) intensive intervention for some students at the schools. In addition, CSU would offer support to the local preschools aimed at early intervention programs. Five different visits were organised for the period June 2009 through December 2010. These visits were for one or two weeks with the last one a 4-week intensive therapy program. Table 1 shows the number of university students involved in the various programs, the number of supervisory staff, the program type, and the duration of each program visit. Table 2. The type of programs offered and the number of children seen Type of program Primary school intensive therapy – 2 weeks (10 days) Primary school intensive therapy – 4 weeks (20 days) 76 The uni students worked from 8.30 to 5.00 each day. They worked with clients from 9.00am until 3.30. Table 1 shows that 30 students from two different speech pathology programs participated in this unique experience. Nine different qualified and experienced speech pathologists were employed to assist in supervising different parts of the programs. Table 2 shows the type of program offered and the number of children who participated in each program. A total of 76 preschool children were screened and 100 primary children were screened across the four schools. Forty-four students required additional assessments that were conducted during our programs. These assessments required classroom observations, language samples, reading samples, and multiple tests. In a number of cases the occupational therapy students collaborated with the speech pathology students in assessments. The assessment data were used to make referrals, make a formal diagnosis, apply for funding, and/or to ensure that a suitable intervention program could be provided. Eighteen children received a 2-week intensive comprising of daily 30-minute therapy sessions, 5 days per week for two weeks. These children mostly had articulation or grammatical errors that were believed to be “remediable” Number of children Preschool screening 76 Primary school screening 100 Primary school comprehensive assessments 44 18

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JCPSLP Volume 14, Number 1 2012

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