This issue of Speech, Language and Hearing covers a wide range of topic areas that will be of interest to audiologists and speech-language pathologists. Two papers are presented by Miles and her colleagues that address clinical issues related to swallowing function following a stroke. The use of videofluoroscopy to evaluate swallowing function has been the gold standard in healthcare settings for many years. However, an alternative to this approach – the fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES) technique, is gaining in popularity. The views of various healthcare professionals were examined regarding the effectiveness of the FEES technique. The combined views across professions indicate that this alternative technique is useful for the inter-professional management of swallowing disorders. The second study examined the health outcomes in a large group of individuals who acquired dysphagia as a result of a stroke. Three months following a stroke, a considerable number of individuals were still in need of various forms of medical attention, indicating that the clinical services provided to these individuals is in need of improvement.
Classon et al. present the results of an intriguing study evaluating the verbal fluency in adults who have experienced a moderate-to-severe sensorineural hearing loss. The rapid recall of words according to various categories is a commonly used task to evaluate an individual's organization and integrity of lexical memory. In this study, the researchers suggest that one of the consequences of acquiring a severe hearing loss is a reduction in verbal fluency resulting from impaired lexical memory.
Over 50% of the world's population is now bilingual. The rising number of bilingual speakers increases the likelihood of a speech-language pathologist encountering a bilingual speaker with a communication disorder. This poses a challenge regarding the evaluation of a communication disorder, especially if one of the languages is not spoken by the speech-language pathologist. The study presented by Hemsley et al. provides some suggestions for accurate assessment of language behavior in bilingual children, which should be of use to speech-language pathologists working with bilingual clients.
It is not unusual for individuals with a communication disorder to also experience psychosocial difficulties. These difficulties may be directly related to the communication disorder or could be indicative of larger psychological issues. The professional management of communicatively impaired individuals with an overlay of impaired psychosocial functioning can be difficult for a speech-language pathologist, particularly one who is new to the workforce. Gibson and Purdy surveyed the perception of speech therapists in New Zealand regarding their educational preparation for dealing with the psychological issues of their clients. They found that a majority of therapists felt unprepared to manage the psychosocial issues of their communicatively disordered clients.
Speech, Language and Hearing is a peer-reviewed journal that welcomes submissions from clinicians and researchers who work with any aspect of normal or disordered speech, language, or hearing. I believe the collection of papers presented in the following pages provides an excellent sampling of the breadth of topics covered by SLH.