Graduate Clinical Program
Our primary purpose is to support and guide our students’ growth as clinicians. We care about your interests and help you become the professional clinician that you aspire to be.
Graduate students participate in a dynamic clinical program at PSU. As a graduate student, you will engage in a range of clinical experiences that include specialty clinics during your first year of graduate school and community-based externships during your second year. Every graduate student completes 3-4 terms of PSU Clinics and 2 full time externships in the community. Our clinical faculty guide students through the process of learning evidence-based clinical treatment and assessment methodology.
PSU Specialty Clinics
Aphasia Supported Communication Clinic - Student clinicians work with individuals and groups on improving functional communication skills, supporting families, and utilizing SCA (Supported Conversations with Persons with Aphasia) to facilitate successful conversations.
Adult Medical Clinic - Student clinicians work with adults with disorders of speech, language, fluency, voice and/or swallowing disorders, within a community rehabilitation facility. Students also gain experience with screening of patients across all domains; group discussions of patients, interdisciplinary training, communication skills training, documentation training, clinical techniques and principles.
Pediatric Assessment Clinic - Student clinicians conduct comprehensive evaluations of children, determine strengths and challenges related to speech and language skills, and provide recommendations for intervention.
Bilingual Assessment Clinic - Student clinicians conduct comprehensive evaluations of children in Spanish and English, determine strengths and challenges related to speech and language skills, identify the impact of stage of bilingualism and language exposure and provide recommendations for intervention.
Cognitive Rehabilitation Clinic - Student clinicians work with adults recovering from traumatic brain injury, concussion, stroke, brain tumor, aneurysm or who have dementia, Parkinson’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis, or Primary Progressive Aphasia on processing, attention, memory strategies, and problem solving.
Dysphagia Clinic at the Northwest Center for Voice and Swallowing at Oregon Health Sciences University - Student clinicians work with Dr. Britton to gain hands on training with clinical and instrumental (Modified Barium Swallow Studies), assessment of swallowing, and dysphagia intervention. Students also gain exposure to working within a multi-disciplinary team in the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) clinic in the Department of Neurology at OHSU.
Preschool Speech and Language Clinic - Student clinicians work with children with a variety of speech sound and language concerns on improving speech intelligibility and communicative competence in the context of play while building and maintaining client confidence and motivation.
Social Communication Clinic at Camp Yakety Yak - Student clinicians work with children with Autism on social communication skills and facilitating the skills needed for positive, successful interactions in a fun, recreational camp environment.
Speech Sound Disorders Clinic - Student clinicians work with children with a variety of speech sound disorders, including childhood apraxia of speech on improving speech intelligibility and increasing communicative competence, while building and maintaining client confidence and motivation.
Telepractice Fluency Clinic - Student clinicians work with children, teens and adults with fluency disorders on strategies to improve communication through developing a strong understanding of stuttering and fluency while applying fluency facilitation, and stuttering modification approaches.
Gender Communication Lab - Student clinicians work with gender diverse individuals who wish to work on language usage, pronunciation, word choice, discourse patterns, intonation and voice (pitch and resonance). The focus is on exploring and practicing communication to achieve a comfortable and congruent connection between gender identity and presentation.
Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Clinic - Student clinicians work with children, teens, and adults who have significant speech or language concerns and utilize augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) tools and strategies.
Cleft/Craniofacial Clinic - Student clinicians work with children and teens with cleft lip and/or palate or craniofacial differences who have speech or language concerns.
Kiwanis Camp Clinic - Student Clinicians work with adults with communication disorders on functional/social communication in a recreational, camp environment.
Camp More Clinic - Student clinicians work with children and teens who stutter on facilitating positive experiences with communication in a recreational, overnight summer camp environment on the Oregon coast.
Externships
Our externship committee is committed to facilitating experiences for our students that meet their interests and provide them with the best training opportunities available. We have partnerships throughout the Portland metropolitan area with educational, medical and other clinical facilities providing speech-language services who are dedicated to mentoring our students on their journey to become professionals. Each graduate student completes 2 externships in the community where they work 1:1 with a professional speech-language pathologist to guide them in their practice.