title: Teaching future providers about dementia: the impact of service learning.
abstract: In this article, we describe an innovative approach for providing speech-language pathology graduate students with exposure to long-term care settings and clinical training in service delivery for persons with dementia. Our pedagogical approach emphasizes leading learners through distinct stages of creating awareness and a foundation of knowledge, teaching clinical skills, hands-on practice via service learning, and ongoing self-reflection. Outcome data presented in this article are derived from learner evaluations and written reflections as well as social validation data provided by dementia patients in a long-term care setting. Our findings reveal that a combination of high-impact practices, community-based service learning, and ongoing reflection can result in transformative learning and attitude shifts for speech-language pathology graduate students toward serving persons with dementia. This is a key finding given that a majority of our learners had little exposure to long-term care environments or had any prior interaction with persons with dementia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communicative Sciences & Disorders, California State University East Bay, Hayward, California 94542, USA. nidhi.mahendra@csueastbay.edu
authors.forename: Nidhi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mahendra
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fremont
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Dionne
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003704:Dementia / Q000628:therapy*; D004500:Education, Graduate / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008134:Long-Term Care / Q000379:methods* / Q000458:organization & administration; D008297:Male; D017145:Models, Educational; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012935:Social Justice; D013066:Speech-Language Pathology / Q000193:education* / Q000379:methods*