Meeting today's health care and community needs goes beyond traditional programs and services. B-W's Speech Clinic offers distinctive learning opportunities.
While their eyes are often aglow with the reflection of joyful
youth, it is the silence amid the limitations of
their bodies and/or minds that can be unexpected and challenging at first. And yet, the rewards extend
far beyond anything imagined.
“To witness a nonverbal child begin to open up is a fantastic
experience for the parents, for our communication disorders
students and for me,” said Christie Needham, clinical
supervisor of Baldwin-Wallace College’s Speech Clinic and a
licensed and certified speech-language pathologist. “We
currently have 16 such students in our program and they are making
wonderful progress.
“B-W communication disorders students, under my direction,
are providing a much needed service to the community. This is
happening not only through the therapy we offer to these children,
but in the affordable price we charge to the families. For
us, this isn’t about profit in a monetary sense but in an
educational and goodwill sense. We care about these children
and their families.”
Real-world learning opportunities
This summer B-W offered a Functional Communications Camp that was a
pilot program for children who are nonverbal. It was the only one of its kind in Northeast Ohio. The original
plan was for five or six children to participate, but there was
such a strong community interest that Needham and her college
student clinicians revised the program to allow for more
participants.
It is a program that continues to build as the families of the
students stayed at the Speech Clinic beyond the initial camp.
For them it serves as a hub where they have formed friendships that
enable them to share frustrations and triumphs as well as resources
and recommendations.
“It is informal in the sense that our Clinic is a very
personable place for people. I, myself, am available to talk
with the families on a regular basis. As the B-W clinicians
provide services, I often sit among the parents as we observe the
therapy sessions,” explained Needham. “And yet,
our Clinic is very professional in the services we provide to our
clients and in how we operate the program.”
Comprehensive clinical experiences
B-W’s Speech Clinic offers
excellent preparation at the undergraduate level. In fact, it
is rare at the undergraduate level for communication disorders
students to work with children with multiple handicaps. Yet,
B-W students have multiple opportunities. According to
Needham, even at the graduate level a student may have only one
nonverbal client during the entire time he/she is performing
clinical duties. B-W students, on the other hand, will have
had two to three such clients over the three semesters he/she is
working at the Clinic.
This real-world exposure to a variety of situations plus an average
of 70 clinical hours per student (as opposed to the national
average of 44 hours) at the undergraduate level are what make B-W
communication disorders students successful in attaining solid
graduate school acceptance. In fact, over the course of the
past eight years 100 percent of the students who have applied to
graduate school have been accepted.
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