Date of Award

Spring 5-10-2025

Level of Access Assigned by Author

Open-Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Communication Sciences and Disorders

First Committee Advisor

Jessica Riccardi

Second Committee Member

Jane Puhlman

Third Committee Member

Jessica Lewis

Abstract

As speech-language pathology caseloads grow more complex, graduate students need to be well prepared to distinguish between the underlying characteristics of common communication disorders (e.g., cognitive-communication, language) to provide the most appropriate clinical services (Ciccia et al., 2021). This study explored first-year graduate students’ knowledge of cognitive-communication strategies and how they self-identified their use of these strategies using a Knowledge Questionnaire (n = 16) and a strategy identification task (SIT; n = 5). While participants correctly identified language and cognitive-communication in the Knowledge Questionnaire, their performance on the SITs varied, showing discrepancies between knowledge and implementation. Findings suggest a need for earlier foundational and applied learning opportunities for students to distinguish between cognitive-communication and language to ensure evidence-based practice. Future research should refine the coding guide and include larger, more diverse samples for better generalizability.

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