The Speech Language Institute (SLI) of Salus University serves patients with a wide variety of speech, language, communication, feeding and swallowing disorders.
Speech-Language Pathology (SLP) faculty and students work closely with clients and their families in order to create treatment plans tailored to each client.
Aphasia – difficulty understanding speech properly – is one of the most common speech-language deficits people may have after suffering a stroke. SLI facilities support groups for multiple conditions with the clinic and community – including a support group for aphasia.
Here SLI clinical educator
Alison Briggs-Finkelstein, MA, CCC-SLP, along with students
Kylie DiGiacomo ‘24SLP and
India Jenkins-Brown ‘24SLP, speaks to an Aphasia support group.
Alison Briggs-Finkelstein: One of the things they do in preparing for the group is generally coming up with a theme or a topic that they provide a little bit of education to the clients at the beginning of the meeting and then they draw the clients in through discussion on that particular topic.
Kylie DiGiacomo: It’s really nice to see because in the clinic I working one-on-one with client and it's a lot of therapy. Where in the patient support group, it's more learning about some of the challenges they experience daily.
Eric C., client at SLI: I like it very much. I met Frank, Denise, I talked to them on Zoom. Then I had an opportunity to meet in them person when the students lead the discussion.
Denise M., client at SLI: It's just so nice to be in a room with a group of people who get your frustrations, your disappointments, your accomplishments. They cheer along with you when you do well and they'll pat you on the back when some things aren't going so well.
India Jenkins-Brown: In the book we just see a diagnosis, right? But when we see the client, it’s not is diagnosis, but it's also their life situations and so much more. So, I think that gave us just a great experience.
The Speech-Language Institute (SLI) offers assessments and individualized treatment plans to help children with their communication. Click
here to learn how you can help support clients at SLI.