Speech-Language Pathologist

Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing - Lexington, KY

Full-time

Remote - Lexington, KY

Educational Services

About the position

This position is located in the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Service, Audiology and Speech Pathology Section at the Lexington VA Healthcare System. The speech-language pathologist at this level conducts, plans, and coordinates all clinical and administrative aspects of a full range of services associated with contemporary speech-language pathology practice.

Responsibilities

• Independent diagnostic assessment and evaluation of cases that are referred to Speech-Language Pathology without limitation as to difficulty or complexity.
• Conduct interviews with the patients and appropriate family members and/or friends, selects, administers and interprets the diagnostic test necessary to detect and evaluate any type of speech, language, voice, fluency, cognitive, and/or swallowing disorders.
• Provide adequacy of assessment and for the reporting of the findings to other professional workers with whom he/she or other members of the speech-language pathology service may cooperate in formulating diagnostic and clinical judgments.
• Assess patient condition from close observation and consultation with other members of the inter-disciplinary health care team.
• Utilizing all diagnostic and evaluative procedures and techniques consistent with contemporary speech-language pathology practice.
• Plans, conducts, coordinates, and monitor the effectiveness and clinical outcomes of patient-centered treatment and rehabilitative services to maximize and restore to the greatest extent possible physical and social functioning.
• Administration of a full range tests of speech, language, voice, fluency, and cognition including modal level and variation of vocal pitch and loudness; variability of the rate of vocal utterance; frequency and complexity of speech disfluency; consistency and adaptation of disfluency in sustained or repeated speaking and aural reading; phonetic analysis of speech designed to identify and evaluate patterns of misarticulation, such as distortions and omissions of sounds, as well as phonemic substitutions, including patterns of variation and speech sound articulation; and identification of phonetic and semantic factors related to this variation.
• Develops an effective and comprehensive plan of care for swallowing disorders in collaboration with other health care practitioners.
• Establishes and maintains an effective therapy relationship with the patient, family and caregivers.
• Adjusts treatment plan to patient response and indicators of progress.
• Serves as a consultant to other facility personnel involving the most difficult and complex cases and is a recognized subject matter expert on matters related to speech, language voice, fluency, cognitive, and swallowing disorders.
• Remain current with new developments in speech-language pathology and will maintain professional competency by reading professional journals and engaging in continuing education activities and professional learning experiences and by communicating with other professionals in the profession and related professions.
• Supervising, mentoring, and precepting student trainees in speech-language pathology and maintaining liaisons with affiliated colleges and universities.
• He/she may also provide instruction to residents and interns who seek information relation to speech-language pathology practice.
• Participate in research activities pertinent to speech-language pathology.
• Although limited research is conducted in the clinical setting, the use of carefully executed procedures may be a part of a research design.
• Perform ancillary assignments, including program management duties on an occasional basis, where the complexity and amount of the work is not substantial.

Requirements

• United States Citizenship: Non-citizens may only be appointed when it is not possible to recruit qualified citizens in accordance with VA Policy.
• Education: A master's degree, or its equivalent, in speech-language pathology, communication disorders or a directly related field from an accredited college or university and one year of creditable experience or a doctoral degree in speech-language pathology, communication disorders and sciences or a related field, from an accredited college or university.
• Licensure: Individuals must hold a full, current and unrestricted license in a U.S. state, territory, commonwealth or the District of Columbia.