Around the journals

Abstract

This column is usually devoted to one or two articles, reviewed by people at different points in their career, highlighting recent articles of relevance to the chosen theme of the issue. On this occasion I wanted to look at what is being published right now about the way in which all of our lives are changing as a result of COVID-19, and synthesise these findings in a single overview. A few weeks ago, I went to a photographic exhibition which explored our lives during lockdown. I reaslied that we are living through a time that is going to define us; it will be part of history that school children will learn about. That made me reflect on the bigger implications for us all.

How will speech pathology be delivered in the future? How much will social distancing continue to be the norm? How will that influence social relationships particularly for people with communication difficulties? We are on the cusp of this future way of living and the research being published is so new that we can almost view it as being embryonic. I wanted to explore that with you in this piece.

I carried out a search across PubMed, Web of Science, PsycInfo and Medline using the key terms “COVID”, “speech pathology”, “speech-language pathology”. I also added in the terms “implications”, “profession”, “responsive” and “agile” in line with the theme of this issue (they did not yield more relevant results). I have not included all papers investigating the use of telehealth in this column, but rather took a look at recent articles describing adaptations in services. I found four articles that I would like to share with you.