If you are bilingual in Spanish and English, the Speech Therapy Education, Practicum, and Services (STEPS) program can position you to use your language skills to better serve Latine children with disabilities and their families.
Bilingual Track (STEPS)
Why is STEPS needed? Did You Know?
The Mission of STEPS
The mission of STEPS is to prepare future speech-language pathologists to provide culturally and linquistically responsive, evidence-informed services to multilingual individuals and families. Through integrated academic instruction, supervised clinical practice, community engagement, mentorship, and professional development. STEPS supports students in translating knowledge into thoughtful and effective clinical care. We envision a speech-language pathology workforce in which multilingual individuals can access services that affirm their languages, identities, and communication practices, and the right to participate in clinical decision-making.
The STEPS Multidimensional Approach
STEPS uses a multidimensional approach to train SLP students to provide appropriate speech-language services to multilingual children, adults, and families, with a focus on the Latine community. It provides:
- research-based academic training, including courses that focus on multilingual language development, assessment and treatment approaches, and contextual factors for servicing Latine children and families
- clinical/field experiences with multilingual Latine adults, children, and families, to foster a multicultural perspective and the application of evidence-based practices
- community-based service learning within these academic and clinical training requirements, to prepare students to work collaboratively with parents and professionals in SLP and related fields
STEPS is more than a collection of multilingual courses or clinical placements. It is an integrated graduate training experience where students learn from bilingual faculty, provide supervised services to Spanish-speaking children and adults, engage with multilingual communities, and develop their professional identities alongside a dedicated cohort.
STEPS is more than a program. The people and the opportunities that are part of STEPS demonstrate that it is a family, one that offers support and provides fantastic experiences.
Haley Fulk, class of 2017
The College of Arts