Speech Pathology

Our students rotate through our more than thirty practicum sites, located in the Louisville Metro area and Southern Indiana, every eight to sixteen weeks. By the time they graduate, students will have experienced the rigors and responsibilities of the profession in a hands-on experience within the context of several different facilities with populations of various ages and communication and swallowing challenges.

All students begin their practicum experience with a placement within the local public school system. Each student is supervised by a licensed, certified and experienced speech-language pathologist who introduces the student to both diagnostic and therapeutic services. The caseload varies across ages, pre-K through high school, and disabilities, mild through profound. Graduate clinicians encounter children and adolescents with phonological, fluency, voice and language disorders. This program is staffed by doctoral level faculty at the university who coordinate placements and serve as liaisons between the university and the public schools to ensure student success during the initial clinical experience.

External Sites

Some of our practicum sites are maintained by, or have departmental faculty on their staff. In other sites however, practicing speech-language pathologists have agreed to mentor our students in the role of clinical supervisors.

Faculty in Private Practice

Faculty-based private practices and practicum sites with faculty on staff provide students with a broad spectrum of pediatric and adult experiences, including voice, swallowing, fluency, cognitive, and language evaluations as well as therapy.

Hospitals

Students gain hands on experience in a number of Kentucky and Indiana hospitals, such as Norton Hospital Downtown, Norton Audubon Hospital, Norton Suburban Hospital, Caritas Health Services, Floyd Memorial Hospital, Jewish Hospital, Kosair Children's Hospital, Baptist Hospital East, Baptist Hospital Northeast and its satellites. Students gain hands on experience in either the rehabilitative units or in bedside care.

Habilitation/Rehabilitation

Several large habilitation/rehabilitation centers also host our students: Frazier Rehabilitation Institute, Bridgepointe Goodwill, Easter Seals Louisville, the Cerebral Palsy K.I.D.S. Center,  Hazlewood Center, Pathways and Home of the Innocents. Some of these centers receive patients as extensions of their hospitals stays or on an as-needed basis. Some are residential facilities for long-term care of adults or children with severe disorders such as brain injury, cognitive impairment, or neuromuscular impairment. Centers range in size and patient population from large to intimate.

Schools

In addition to medical and rehabilitative facilities, students will rotate into the Kentucky and Indiana public schools. Since the introduction of legislation that mandates free and appropriate public education (FAPE) for all children, regardless of disability, therapy within the public school necessitates that clinicians work in concert with teachers and support personnel to plan a child’s therapy program for maximal benefit. Students interested in teacher certification will do an additional school rotation to fulfill the student teaching requirement in the public schools.

Home Visits

Students also have the opportunity to work with Kentucky’s and Indiana’s Part C program, known as First Steps. With qualified professional speech-language pathologists, student clinicians visit infants and children to provide them with quality services at home.

Long-Distance Practicum

For the rotation of their final semester, students have the opportunity to arrange practicum at an approved site anywhere in the country for the last 8 weeks.

An Outstanding Experience

We are pleased to be able to offer our students the opportunity to participate in the hands-on application of the skills they have learned through coursework in such a wide array of settings. Feedback from students reflects their appreciation of this taste of the real world as an outstanding experience that helps to mold them as clinicians and inform their search for employment.