Unit of Study SPCH2011 Communication Development Across the Lifespan (2024)

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Unit Snapshot

Unit type

UG Coursework Unit
Credit points

12
Faculty & College

Faculty of Health
Placement

No

Unit description

Students learn about communication development and changes across the lifespan in relation to range of practice areas: speech, language, voice, fluency and swallowing. In addition to lectures and tutorials students conduct an experiential activity to observe these phenomena in children and adults via case studies. Knowledge of typical communication enables students to contrast atypical communication in subsequent units to inform assessment and diagnosis in speech pathology practice.

Unit content

This unit covers content in three areas:

Communication development from infancy and childhood through to healthy adulthood and ageing and to the end of life.
Observation, interviewing, documentation and presentation skills in speech pathology.
Principles and protocols for speech and language sampling and basic analysis of components of communication.

Availabilities

Location	Domestic	International
Coffs Harbour	Term2	Term2
Gold Coast	Term2	Term2

Learning outcomes

Unit Learning Outcomes express learning achievement in terms of what a student should know, understand and be able to do on completion of a unit. These outcomes are aligned with the graduate attributes. The unit learning outcomes and graduate attributes are also the basis of evaluating prior learning.

On completion of this unit, students should be able to:

understand key stages of communication and swallowing development and understand the relationship between communication development and other developmental domains across the lifespan

record, analyse and report observations of typical communication behaviours in child and adult populations

synthesise and interpret observational and/or case history information for child and adult populations

conduct a case history interview to collect information about communication, swallowing and other medical and social history

Teaching and assessment

Teaching method

Workshop 1 hour (Weekly)

Tutorial 2 hours (Weekly)

Assessment
Report	30%
Report	40%
Presentation	30%

Teaching method

Workshop 1 hour (Weekly)

Tutorial 2 hours (Weekly)

Assessment
Report	30%
Report	40%
Presentation	30%

Prescribed learning resources

Prescribed Texts

McLeod, S & McCormack, J, 2015, An Introduction to Speech, Language and Literacy, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, Australia. ISBN: 95527926.

Prescribed Resources/Equipment

No prescribed resources/equipment.

Prescribed Learning Resources may change in future Teaching Periods.

Fee information

Domestic

Commonwealth Supported courses
For information regarding Student Contribution Amounts please visit the Student Contribution Amounts.

Fee paying courses
For postgraduate or undergraduate full-fee paying courses please check Domestic Postgraduate Fees OR Domestic Undergraduate Fees.

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