The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through one's thoughts, experience, and senses.
Knowledge and cognitive skills: Acquired skills that reflect an individual's ability to think. Cognitive skills include verbal and spatial abilities, concentration, memory, perception, reasoning, planning and organisation, flexible thinking, and problem solving.
- Introduction
Consistent knowledge and effective cognitive skills must be demonstrated to provide safe and effective speech pathology management. - Description of inherent requirement
Student demonstrates:
- Capacity to locate appropriate and relevant information
- Ability to process and recall information relevant to practice
- Ability to integrate and implement knowledge in practice in a responsive manner
- Ability to reflect on performance and develop action plans
- Capacity to develop clinical reasoning skills.
- Justification of inherent requirement
Safe and effective delivery of speech pathology management is based on comprehensive knowledge that must be sourced, understood and applied appropriately. Reflection, reasoning and professional development are essential for speech pathology practice. - Adjustments
Adjustments must ensure that a clear demonstration of knowledge and cognitive skills is not compromised or impeded. - Exemplars:
- Conceptualising and using appropriate knowledge in response to academic assessment items
- Appropriately applying knowledge of theory, research evidence, policies and procedures in the clinical setting
- Capacity to learn or change behaviours in response to feedback.
Literacy (language): This relates to the ability to acquire, understand, and apply information in a scholarly manner.
- Introduction
Competent literacy skills, in English, are essential to provide safe and effective speech pathology practice. - Description of inherent requirement
Student demonstrates:
- Ability to acquire information and accurately convey appropriate, effective messages
- Capacity to understand and implement academic conventions to construct written text in a scholarly manner.
- Justification of inherent requirement
The ability to acquire information and to accurately convey messages is fundamental to ensure safe and effective assessment, treatment and delivery of care. The ability to read, decode, interpret and comprehend multiple sources of information is fundamental for safe and effective delivery of care. Literacy skills are necessary to provide effective speech pathology services to children and adults. - Adjustments
Adjustments must demonstrate a capacity to effectively acquire, comprehend, apply and communicate accurate information. - Exemplars:
- Critically reviewing evidence on assessment and therapy approaches in speech pathology practice in academic and clinical contexts.
Numeracy: This relates to the ability to understand and work with numbers.
- Introduction
Competent and accurate numeracy skills are essential to provide safe and effective speech pathology management. - Description of inherent requirement
Student demonstrates the ability to interpret and correctly apply data, measurements and numerical criteria. - Justification of inherent requirement
Competent application of numeracy skills is essential to facilitate the safe and effective delivery of speech pathology services. - Adjustments
Adjustments must demonstrate a capacity to interpret and apply concepts and processes appropriately in a timely, accurate and effective manner. - Exemplars:
- Recording accurate data in client notes
- Scoring and analysing speech pathology assessments.
Sensory Ability
The way a person recognizes external stimuli - through sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch.
Visual acuity
- Introduction
Adequate visual acuity is required to provide safe and effective speech pathology management. - Description of inherent requirement
Student demonstrates sufficient visual acuity to perform the required range of speech pathology skills. - Justification of inherent requirement
Sufficient visual acuity is necessary to demonstrate the required range of skills, tasks and assessments to maintain consistent, accurate and safe care of self and others. Visual observations, examinations and assessment are fundamental to safe and effective speech pathology practice. - Adjustments
Adjustments must address the need to perform the full range of tasks involved in clinical practice. Any strategies to address the effects of the vision impairment must be effective, consistent and not compromise treatment or safety. - Exemplars:
- Observing and examining the functioning of oral muscles required for communication and swallowing
- Observing and interacting with clients using multimodal communication.
Auditory
- Introduction
Adequate auditory ability is required to provide safe and effective speech pathology practice. - Description of inherent requirement
Student demonstrates sufficient auditory function to undertake the required range of skills. - Justification of inherent requirement
Sufficient auditory ability is necessary to monitor, assess and manage an individual’s speech pathology needs consistently and accurately. Assessments and observations that rely on auditory perception and processing are fundamental to safe and effective speech pathology practice. - Adjustments
Adjustments must address the need to perform the range of tasks involved in clinical practice. Any strategies to address the effects of hearing impairment must be effective, consistent and not compromise treatment or safety. - Exemplars:
- Ability to discriminate speech sounds in a range of communication environments
- Responding appropriately to a client’s responses during assessment and management in a range of clinical context
- Ability to accurately model speech sounds in a range of communication environments.
Tactile
- Introduction
Sufficient tactile ability is required to perform competent and safe speech pathology management. - Description of inherent requirement
Student demonstrates sufficient tactile function to undertake the required range of skills and assessments. - Justification of inherent requirement
Sufficient tactile ability is necessary to monitor, assess and detect clients' physical functioning during communication and mealtimes for appropriate speech pathology management. Tactile assessments and observations are fundamental to safe and effective speech pathology practice. - Adjustments
Adjustments must have the capacity to make effective assessments of physical characteristics and abnormalities within safe time frames. - Exemplars:
- Assessing changes in oral muscular functioning
- Palpating muscles required for swallowing and detecting anatomical or movement abnormalities
- Demonstration of treatment techniques such as swallowing rehabilitation.