Speak Out August 2013

Congratulations to our award winners!

La Trobe Intensive Fluency Program now offered rurally – Bendigo region

A t the SPA National Conference on the Gold Coast, a number of Victorian Branch members’ achievements were recognised. We congratulate and honour these members! Dr Amanda Scott’s long and outstanding contribution to the profession was rewarded with a Fellowship award. This honour is awarded to a person with considerable experience, responsibility and standing within the speech pathology profession. Amanda is a greatly admired speech pathologist with more than 30 years’ experience. She is a highly regarded clinician, researcher and educator who has actively and generously shared her expertise with many speech pathologists. A big congratulations to Amanda! We also wish to extend our congratulations to Victorian members Shane Erickson and Susan Block who won the 2012 JCPSLP Editor's Prize, sponsored by ACER. Victorian members’ achievements recognised at the 2013 SPA National Conference

F or the first time, the student- delivered La Trobe Intensive Fluency Program will be available in the Bendigo area for teenagers who stutter. Final-year Speech Pathology students at the La Trobe Rural Health School, on the Bendigo campus of La Trobe University, will have the opportunity to learn how to treat adolescents who stutter and they will provide a valuable community service to young people who stutter and their families. It is common for adolescents with speech problems such as stuttering to be referred to clinics in Melbourne because of a lack of intensive or specialist treatment options locally. This initiative is an attempt to meet the needs of rural students, to provide support and professional development for local speech pathologists and to provide specialist clinical experiences for the La Trobe rural students. Staff from the La Trobe Rural Health School, the Catholic Education Office and Department of Education and Early Childhood Development are delighted to offer the opportunity for children in Bendigo and surrounding regions

to benefit from intensive treatment for chronic stuttering. The program is a collaboration between the three departments, as well as private clinicians working in the area. The program will be conducted at the newly built Health and Human Sciences 2 building at La Trobe University Bendigo’s Edwards Street campus. It will provide La Trobe University’s first cohort of final-year speech pathology students valuable work experience under the supervision of experienced expert and local clinical supervisors. The program is being coordinated by Dr Susan Block, from the Department of Human Communication Sciences at the Melbourne campus of La Trobe University, in association with Ms Sheryn Long from The Catholic Education Office and Ms Madeline Leyden from the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development in Bendigo.

Co-authors Shane Erickson and Susan

Block won the 2012 JCPSLP Editor's Prize.

Shane and Susan were two of the authors of Stand-alone Internet speech restructuring treatment for adults who stutter: A pilot study (published in The Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology (JCPSLP) in Volume 14, number 3, 2012) which was judged by the JCPSLP Editorial Committee to be of the highest merit in 2012. To read more about Amanda's Fellowship Award and the JCPSLP Editor's Prize, please see page 7. We also would like to pass on our congratulations to Megan Howe and Zoe Stewart-Johns from La Trobe University who were both awarded SPA Student Awards for their hard work throughout their studies. Megan and Zoe will each receive their award at the 2013 Faculty of Health Sciences Prize Ceremony at La Trobe University.

Cathy Naismith

Speak Out August 2013

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www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au