Ms Joanne Walters

Speech Pathology programs usually send students to workplaces to learn clinical skills necessary for practice. During COVID-19, programs needed to respond quickly to ensure that students continued to gain the necessary experiences and skills required to progress through their program and graduate as clinicians, while simultaneously complying with COVID-19 requirements. Case studies from seven different universities in Australia, Ghana and Hong Kong described the diverse ways in which placements were adapted to be COVID-safe, taking into account local needs. Some practices which had been included in placement education prior to the pandemic, such as telepractice and simulation-based learning, were extended and developed during this time. Educators, students, clinicians and clients responded to the rapidly changing needs of the time with flexibility and innovation, utilising a variety of technologies and tools to support case-based and virtual learning opportunities. Feedback from these diverse stakeholders about the experiences was positive, despite inevitable limitations and less-than-ideal circumstances. The positive findings provided insights for consideration in the future: could strategies implemented in response to the pandemic continue to be incorporated into placement experiences, enhancing current practices and maintaining student performance outcomes? Exceptional circumstances prompted exceptional responses; flexibility and innovation were accelerated in response to the pandemic and may transform future placement-based learning opportunities.

Despite the cultural and linguistic diversity of the Australian population, research suggests that speech pathologists do not feel confident when providing services to Cultural and Linguistic Diversity (CALD) clients and would benefit from further education and training in this area. Cultural empathy has been described as a precursor to cultural competence and previous research has demonstrated the positive impact on nursing students' cultural empathy toward CALD clients following an interactive cultural simulation experience. This study investigated the feasibility and effectiveness of an online cultural simulation activity in developing the cultural empathy of speech pathology students. Students completed an online cultural simulation in their own time, followed by a tutorial debrief. Both the simulation and debrief were considered to comprise the 'simulation activity'; which was a component of a first-year introduction to clinical practice course. Participants completed a pre-survey and post-survey, containing the Comprehensive Empathy Scale (CES) and demographic questions. Results were analysed using the Wilcoxon Signed Rank test and a Paired Sample t-test, and a power analysis was conducted to direct future studies. Ten students participated and improved an average of 11.3 on the CES (p=0.14). A power analysis revealed that a minimum of 45 participants would be needed in future studies to observe any statistically significant results. The online application of the cultural simulation activity was feasible, and results indicate an improvement in cultural empathy, although the improvement did not reach statistical significance. Implications for future studies are discussed.

Background: Simulation-based learning provides students with a safe learning environment, guaranteed exposure to specific clinical scenarios and patients, time for reflection and repetition of tasks, and an opportunity to receive feedback from multiple sources. Research including studies specific to allied health training programmes have demonstrated that simulation-based learning also helps increase learners¿ confidence and reduces anxiety related to clinical environments, activities and skills. Such evidence, together with increasing challenges in provision of workplace clinical education, has supported an expansion of integrating simulation-based learning into university curricula. Aims: To provide detailed information about the processes and considerations involved in the development of a simulation-based learning programme for speech¿language pathology. Methods & Procedures: Through reflection on the development process of a 5-day simulation-based learning programme, and in light of existing research in simulation, this paper outlines the important steps and considerations required for the development of a simulation-based learning programme to support student competency development in adult speech pathology range of practice areas. Main Contribution: A proposed framework for the development of future simulation-based learning programmes in speech¿language pathology. Conclusions & Implications: The framework can be applied to simulation-based learning for university programmes and/or workplace training in speech¿language pathology and across several other health disciplines.