Home is where you’re heard

Speech and Sound Production, Expressive Language and Infant-Toddler Development, among many others, are services that communication disorder students learn to help others with.

On campus, there is a building that houses all those who learn this particular skill set: the Center for Speech and Hearing.

The center is community-based and runs about 100 sessions a week, serving individuals from the ages of one or two up to people in their 60s and 70s. With around 20 graduate students in the program per cohort, it is a small group that gets hands-on learning that can help them succeed in their field after they finish their studies.

Clinic coordinator Amy Herren said she thinks the level of support supervisors and faculty provide helps guide hands-on learning.

“We're a smaller program. Having around 20 students per cohort, which were a lot of programs, have larger cohorts. So we're able to give a lot of hands-on support.” Herren said. “And there's like a big safety net, the supervisors always right there to provide that extra help in that first year can help build students confidence and skills and then when they go out into the community, they're working at, like, you know, facilities that are not designed, you know, for training.”

Students are enrolled in a clinical practicum course for the first three semesters of their first year in the graduate program. Graduate students such as Makenzy Clubb and Maggie Dill received their undergraduate at SEMO and continue their graduate program here, as well.

Dill said students provide speech language services for clients with communication disorders of all ages

“I feel like everybody thinks that speech is just for kids. But it really is all ages. It’s not even just like kids and old people. It can be people in their 20s,” Dill said. “Like I had a client who was like 23. We were working on social communication. I think that would be it, just it can be you can work with literally anyone.”

While studying as an undergraduate, Clubb completed an honors contract and was involved in a special project . She created a language stimulation backpack to send home with parents of kids who visit the clinic that are just behind on their talking or delayed language.

“We have done a lot for the community. I know to get clinical hours for us. We've done like hearing screenings. So we've gone out into the community in different public schools or even some private schools, I think, and we've done hearing screenings, we've done speech and language screenings.” Clubb said. “That's one big, community outreach thing. We also will get the kids that maybe need a little extra help, like they're getting support in the schools, but they need a little bit more therapy than what they're getting in the school.”

Dill has worked with many clients in a variety of ages and services. Dill said she is more drawn to children due to their playfulness. She can't remember a turning point because she knew she wanted to do this career path, but a client asking about her from past experiences really solidified the path.

“I had a client last semester, there was a little guy and we have different clients each semester so we get more experience. My supervisor from last semester told me that he came into the first session this semester asking about me and that just really warmed my heart and kind of solidified where I wanted to be.”

The frequency and length of sessions at the clinic depends on each individual person. The usual transition model is twice a week for a 50-minute session. However, some may come in for a 100 minute session once a week, or they could come in once a week for a 30-minute session.

“Some of our clients have multiple disorders too. So they might have a speech sound disorder, they might have difficulty with language, and then they have difficulty with literacy.” Herren said. “And so when there's a lot of different things like the needs change over time, and so we might continue to see them but be working on different things over the course of their treatment.”