New Clinical Experience for Students

New Clinical Experience for Students

From adults with autism to bilingual preschoolers, CSD’s community partnerships introduce practicum students to a range of real-world experience.

Over the past year, our clinical educators have been hard at work making connections with community partners to create opportunities for our graduate students to gain critical hands-on experience in the field. Here are some of our exciting partnerships:

Voice In-Service at the Ali Forney Center

Jenna Battipaglia, Clinical Assistant Professor, and students within the residential clinical practicum sequence provided an in-service to the Ali Forney Center (AFC), which seeks to protect LGBTQ+ young people from the harms of homelessness and empower them with the tools needed to live independently. They provided education on the voice, including vocal care and gender-affirming voice exercises, which is a particular area of expertise and interest for Battipaglia.

“This past spring, I collaborated with and provided training to five volunteer practicum students to prepare an in-service at Ali Forney,” says Battipaglia. “The students did a great job providing education on how the voice works, how you can change your voice, and leading voice exercises for the group of attendees. We’re planning to go again in the fall so students can again get some practice applying the knowledge from their coursework and to continue to support folks at AFC.”

The recipient of a Steinhardt Continuing Contract Faculty Fellowship, Battipaglia is working on redesigning clinical education and services at the NYU Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic to bolster student training and continued access to services for gender non-conforming individuals.

Parent Education Forum about Language Development at Creative Steps

Alisha Gandhi and Dr. Kyung Hae Hwang, both clinical assistant professors who have their bilingual extensions, and their students led an in-service on multilingual speech and language development for parents at Creative Steps Early Childhood Center in Greenwich Village.

“This past spring, Creative Steps reached out about a workshop for parents focused on an overview of speech and language milestones in children’s early years—especially for multilingual language learners,” says Gandhi. “We wanted to inform parents of the speech-language milestones and provide some tools and activities to increase language and literacy at home for preschoolers.”

Gandhi and Hwang started the students with a basic outline, which they turned into a full presentation. “The students loved the opportunity to connect with families and present their knowledge. They did a great job answering difficult questions about speech and language development and communication disabilities. We are very proud of them.”

Working with Adults with Autism at Luv Michael

Alicia Morrison, clinical associate professor and clinic director of the Speech-Language-Hearing Clinic, is spearheading a new initiative with Luv Michael, a nonprofit dedicated to training, educating, and employing autistic adults and improving the lives of the autistic community beyond the lives of their parents.

“Luv Michael trains, educates, and employs autistic adults while they make granola at their bakery in New York City—they’re called granologists,” says Morrison. “Our role at the site will be supporting them with conversational experiences during their baking breaks and assisting with any communication needs, which includes visual schedules and light tech augmentative and alternative communication. This is a unique collaboration because it’s a unique workplace, and participating students will get to be a part of something larger and give back to the community, which is valuable.”