Exploring the impact of a ‘Clients-as-Tutors Program on speech-language pathology students’ and graduates understanding of client-centred practice

Abstract

Purpose

This study explored the impact of an Australian regional university’s Clients-as-Tutors Program (CTP) on speech-language pathology students’ perception and understanding of client-centred practice.

Method

Two focus group interviews comprising three final-year students and four newly graduated speech-language pathologists who had completed the CTP. An inductive thematic analysis was undertaken to identify salient themes.

Result

Three themes were identified: (a) learning from theory, (b) learning from others, and (c) learning from yourself. These themes represented all participants’ experiences in the CTP, yet there were unique, individual journeys that each participant experienced.

Conclusion

Findings from this study have the capacity to affect change in how client-centred practice is taught at universities across speech-language pathology and other health courses, to disrupt the traditional power structure between client and clinician, and to provide an evidence base for the role of experiential learning in this area.

Keywords:

• client-centred practice
• clients-as-tutors
• speech-language pathology students
• experiential learning
• higher education
• allied health

Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank the speech-language pathology students and graduate speech-language pathologists who participated in this study. We also thank the client-tutors, past and present, who have contributed to this Clients-as-Tutors Program.

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).