Critical Review of a Contemporary Therapy Approach/Program

As a result of completing this unit you will

a) Choose a therapy approach, for children and/or adults, for review

b) Critically review the chosen approach

c) Present the approach and your review of it in a poster session

d) Provide a handout that summarizes the information in your poster

e) Answer questions related to any aspect of the approach raised by participants

Tasks included in this unit include

a) Choosing an approach to review

b) Providing a summary of the approach

c) Analyzing the supportive evidence for the approach

d) Placing your results in a poster format

e) Presenting the poster to fellow students, 2nd year speech-language graduate students, and to interested faculty & staff (during our scheduled final examination period)

You will need to pair with another student to complete this assignment. You are required to illustrate, discuss and critically review a contemporary therapy approach or method via a poster presentation. You will be expected to present your poster to each other and invited students, faculty and staff on December 19, 2005 during the scheduled class period. Some of the possible contemporary approaches you may choose from can be found at the web sites indicated below. There are also a wide variety of approaches available for you to choose from in the literature found in the LRC or from commercial programs to be found in the CMC. The instructor must approve your topic. In addition to an explanation of the approach/method, you will need to address the following questions:

- How would this approach be classified (fluency shaping, stuttering modification, or integrated)? Why?

- What is/are the underlying theoretical rationale(s)?

- What is the style of presentation of therapy (intensive, 2x per week, etc.)?

- How is “success” defined and measured?

- How is generalization and maintenance addressed?

- Is there any data regarding the program’s success rate?

- What do you see as the program’s strong points? Weak points?

- Would you recommend using this approach? Why? Why not?

Web Sites

The Stuttering Home Page

http://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/kuster/stutter.html

The Stuttering Foundation

http://www.stuttersfa.org/

Here is a website that provides information regarding what a poster is, how it should look, etc. http://www.lcsc.edu/ss150/poster.htm

Grading

This project is worth 50 points. Your poster will be evaluated using the following rubric.

CD 723

Scoring Rubric for Poster Presentations

Poster Title: ___________________________________________

Presenters: ____________________________________________

1. Construction of the Poster (10)

The text was easy to read. Yes No

Comments:

2. Content (20)

Enough content was displayed. Yes No

Important aspects of the program were highlighted. Yes No

(Definition of success, rationale, generalization & maintenance, evidence)

Application to the treatment of stuttering was evident. Yes No

Strengths and weaknesses of the program were Yes No

presented.

Comments:

3. Presenter Aspects (10)

The presenters asked if I had any questions. Yes No

The presenters answered my questions. Yes No

The presenters conveyed a professional Yes No

demeanor.

Comments:

4. Handout (10)

The handout contained the main information of the poster. Yes No

Adapted from L. Plonsker’s CD 784, 2002.