Medical SLP Self-Rating Assessment of Knowledge and Skills

So I want you to grab a cup of coffee or tea, and sit down and have a chat with me. (Fine you can have wine or beer and cookies too).

Let’s talk about the insanely wiiiiiiide scope of practice that our profession covers.

OK don’t think too hard.

Just know that it’s crazy wide.

And that’s what’s so cool.

Cool… because we potentially have the power to help soooo many different patients of all different ages and conditions.

Not-so-cool in that we think that we should know everything about everything.

So let’s just get one thing straight right away…

It is okay NOT to know EVERYTHING…

As long as you know that you don’t know!!

And once you realize that what some supervisor told you ages ago may not be true anymore, then you’ve taken the first step toward helping just one more patient.

If you look at ALL of the approaches on the ASHA Practice Patterns page, NO one could have learned how to do ALL of those for ALL ages and ALL conditions perfectly.

Nope!

So let’s stop chasing perfection.

Progress over perfection my friend.

Our field is waaaay too fluid in many areas to determine what someone “must” know, or what skills they need.

You may have skills in one area, and still be considered competent in that area if you don’t know everything you need to know, but rather who or where to refer your patient for that.

Achieving “competency” is a very tricky and subjective thing.

We do not have rules or mandates, we just have ALL of these things that are within our scope of practice.

Does that mean you MUST be competent in all of them?!?

Heck NO!

Give yourself some grace, Gary!

Once you know what you don’t know, and decide what you want to know more about, then you can add a little “knowledge and skills” time to your life, and bring yourself up to competency that way.

No judgement, just encouragement for professional growth.

We all have so much to learn, and this is purely just a starting point.

Once you know better, you do better.

So here’s what I’ve created…

Below you will find a self-rating assessment that was adapted from ASHA’s Roles and Responsibilities pages (formerly the Knowledge and Skills Assessment).

I have created a competency checklist of sorts that can be used to measure where you are TODAY!

(Because where you were 2 years ago is VERY different from where you will be in 5 years, and that is A-OK!)

You may need very different knowledge and skills for your acute care job today, but decide to transition to home health next year, and again.. that’s A-OK!

All we are doing is identifying the areas that you wish to improve upon.

It’s OK to want to grow and change!

Think of it as a “Readiness Ruler” for professional growth.

So I want you to take the assessment, objectively and honestly.

Do NOT attach any emotions to this.

It is purely to say, “Yup! That’s my comfy corner where I could sit and see those patients all day!” and “Whoops, that is my not-so-strong corner and an area that I would like to focus a little more time on my professional growth!”

See how easy that was?!?

Now, I’ve developed an assessment for all areas of Medical SLP: Aphasia, Cognitive-Communication, Dysphagia, Motor Speech, Voice, and Pediatrics.

(Don’t get angry if you don’t like my categories… I polled quite a few friends and this is where we landed!)

Now here’s the fun part…

You can take all 6 assessments to see where you fall across ALL of Medical SLP, or just do the ones that really interest you!

For example, I’m really far down dysphagia lane, but I’m still curious as to where I fall! I also really want to focus some of my professional growth this year on motor speech and voice disorders, so those are the assessments that I’m going to take.

Each area shouldn’t take you more than 5 minutes to complete. (It’s just a bunch of YES/NO questions.)

Here’s the other juicy part… I don’t see any answers or have access to ANYTHING!