Stitching a new garment: Considering the future of the speech-language therapy profession globally.
Bea Staley, Marise Fernandes, Ellen Hickey, Helen Barrett, Karen Wylie, Julie Marshall, Mershen Pillay, Harsha Kathard, Ryann Sowden, David Rochus, Carol E Westby, T Rosario Roman, Sally D Hartley
PMID 36453795WHAT IT FOUND
This paper is not a study of patients or treatments.
It is a call for the speech-language therapy profession to shift from fixing deficits to supporting communication as a human right, particularly in under-resourced regions. It reports no clinical outcomes.
What this paper is
This is a theoretical commentary and advocacy piece that reports the outcomes of a virtual retreat among 13 speech-language therapists. It proposes three provocative statements for changing the profession's focus from medical deficits to community participation and equity, but it contains no clinical methods, no patient data, and no measured outcomes. There is no finding here to act on with patients.