Working toward phonetics competencies: an investigation of the current provision and techniques for teaching clinical phonetics and phonology within UK and Ireland based HEIs

Clinical phonetics teaching provides speech and language therapy (SLT) students with a core
skill base for working with speech disorders in developmental and adult populations. SLTs are
required to provide fast, automatic phonetic transcriptions of live speech assessments (Knight, Setter & Cornelius, 2014).
This data is analysed to inform the basis of differential diagnosis and management planning
To ensure students develop and maintain their transcription skills to a high standard, many hours of teaching and practicing of phonetic skills are required. However, allocated contact hours for this teaching are variable across pre-registration SLT courses, and often limited. Recent findings report that students and practicing SLTs acknowledge the need for additional phonetic transcription practice in training and throughout their clinical practice (Knight, Bandali, Woodhead & Vansadia, 2018).

This study surveyed clinical phonetics and phonology lecturers across the UK and Ireland to
access information on how clinical phonetic transcription and phonetic/phonological analysis
skills are currently taught, assessed and maintained. A questionnaire was distributed across
UK and Ireland HEIs and to collect information about current phonetics/phonology learning
and teaching such as learning outcomes, description and purpose of relevant module (s) and
any integration with other learning, number of credits (including emphasis/weight within the
year/programme), resources, and hours of direct contact and self directed learning in each year taught. The data demonstrated wide variation of the amount and content of clinical phonetics and phonology teaching across the pre-registration Speech and Language Therapy programmes.
The data collected will be used to support discussions with the professional bodies in the UK
(RCSLT) and Ireland (IASLT) who design SLT curriculum guidelines for UK and Irish pre-registration courses. The data will also help highlight potential areas of best practice, support discussion of challenges, contribute to the design of effective CPD for lecturers in clinical phonetics/phonology and optimally support pre-and post-SLT registration training in this area.