5 Goals to Achieve During a Clinical Fellowship Year for SLP

5 Goals for Your Clinical Fellowship Year (CFY)

This 36-week program prepares students to move into real-life career opportunities, with ongoing application and training that will support their future. This fellowship is required to achieve your Certificate of Clinical Competence for Speech-Language Pathologists (CCC-SLP) through ASHA, the American Speech and Hearing Association.

While it’s essential to complete the requirements to gain certification, there are other goals you will achieve through this program:

1. Integrate Academic Learning: After spending years in the classroom, it’s time to implement your education and skills. Moving into a practice environment helps you see real-world examples of how your new knowledge is essential for your ongoing career.
2. Hone in Areas of Opportunity: This hands-on experience provides clarity to help you identify your strong points as well as areas of improvement. The opportunity to work under supervision is a great way to receive feedback and advice to improve your skills and approach as an SLP.
3. Improve Clinical Skills: Understanding the textbook principles is just the first step in your education. Your CFY is the time to learn the clinical skills and techniques to use for patient care. Integrating the concepts and stratigies you learned in graduate school into managing a full-time SLP caseload will be a key goal of your CFY.
4. Transition to Independence: During your CFY, you will spend a lot of time working under the supervision of a certified SLP. This supervision creates the opportunity for transition to start working as an independent Speech-Language Pathology practitioner. By the end of your CFY you should have the tools and confidence to practice independently.
5. Complete Certification Requirements: The CCC-SLP requires you to meet specific requirements before earning certification, such as 1,260 hours of supervision, 80% of your time focused on patient care, supervision from an approved mentor, and an evaluation to measure core skills.

Why CBS Therapy for Your Clinical Fellowship?

Our team at CBS Therapy is committed to providing an optimal experience for Clinical Fellows. As you learn more about our program, you will see that our SLPs are working hard to provide the most comprehensive CFY program available in the industry.

We are proud to offer more than 13 years of experience supervising Clinical Fellows. Through every stage of your 36-week program, we provide ongoing support to help you build confidence through your training. In-depth training paired with personalized mentoring helps you apply your academic education to a clinical training environment. If you are interested in more information about this program, then we invite you to reach out to our team with your questions.

Technology isn’t a thing that was magnified during Covid and will dissipate. Online resources and live or asynchronous virtual classes are here to stay. They are convenient, accessible, and efficient. Use technology in your classroom in order to optimize your speech therapy practices.

4 Technology Ideas to Implement into Speech Therapy

Now is the time to embrace technology and implement it into your lessons with virtual and in-classroom students. Every child will be thrilled with the variety and familiarity. Take a look at some of these ideas:

1. Parent Involvement: Sending videos between speech therapy lessons or teaching online will reach parents more than the occasional meeting at the school. Parents can see you in action and model how an SLP asks questions and encourages the students.
2. Videos: Use commercials, movie clips, and learning videos to teach your students. You can use the videos to work on the students’ vocabulary, articulation, recalling of details, and pointing out inferences. There are so many questions to get their brains thinking after showing a short video clip.
3. No-Print Activities: Many resources are available online that use interactive worksheets that require no printing. Few families have printers in their homes, so it is unrealistic to require printing in your lessons. Provide easy fill-in activities that will sharpen the student’s typing skills as well.
4. Game: There are endless games online that can be accessed for your speech therapy lessons. Choose an online matching game including works with s-blends, articulation games, or more. You can make speech therapy fun and collaborative with online activities. Children love the playful elements of these games and can learn and develop at the same time.

It doesn’t matter whether you are teaching your students virtually or are able to meet face to face, switch things up with technology. You can personalize each lesson to their preferences. And most importantly, make the student look forward to speech therapy.  

Finding the Balance with Technology

Technology can be a great support in SLP, but there is a balance to ensure the child isn’t in front of a screen too much. Research shows that too much screen time for younger children can potentially play a role in speech and language delays.

Don’t let technology or apps disrupt daily routines. Instead, use them as a supplement to enhance communication. With the right integration, technology encourages an interactive learning environment, supporting the needs of the child and their family.

Ideally, technology should supplement an overall speech-language therapy program – digital tools shouldn’t be the only activities to support speech and language development. In addition to apps and technology, also look for ways to integrate screen-free activities to support the child’s growth and learning.