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Located on the Baldwin Wallace campus, the Speech Clinic offers speech, language and hearing services free of charge to anyone in Ohio.
Imagine not being understood when you talk and having people ask you to repeat a word or phrase multiple times because they missed what you said?
The BW Speech Clinic has been helping adults and children since the early 1970s. It is the largest free clinic of its kind in Northeast Ohio. It provides individual and small group therapy on the BW campus to about 200 patients a week, with an additional 900 in community locations. Some virtual sessions are also offered.
Student clinicians are enrolled in the school's communication sciences and disorders undergraduate major and speech language pathology graduate program. Licensed speech-language pathologists, certified by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and licensed by the Ohio Board of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, are supervisors.
BW students begin their clinical work at the facility as sophomores and, as they advance, also visit schools, senior living facilities and other locations off campus.
According to Christie Needham, a professor in the communication disorders program and clinic director for the Baldwin Wallace Speech Clinic, students have two solid years in real-world settings, so they feel comfortable and confident about their skills when they graduate.
The Clinic provides diagnostic evaluations plus a wide-ranging array of services covering: articulation disorders, stuttering, voice disorders, language disorders and language-based reading disorders.
Their client services also extend to ADD/ADHD, autism, Down syndrome, feeding disorders, traumatic brain injury, concussion, Parkinson's disease, rehab after stroke plus memory, organizational and social skills.
"One of the biggest misconceptions people have is that speech and language therapy is just for children," said Needham.
"There isn't an individual you could meet who doesn't feel that the need to communicate is vital. When something is wrong or you are having trouble making yourself understood, it becomes a really critical hurdle. You need the intervention of a therapist," she explained.
The Clinic features 11 therapy rooms. There are nine full-time faculty members who supervise 70 undergraduate and graduate students.
The Clinic's sessions are held weekly throughout the year. That consistency fosters strong patient-therapist relationships. The arrangement also avoids long breaks in treatment when progress can stall or fall backward, and when patients may become depressed or frustrated.
"We urge anyone who is interested in our free services to call us at 440-826-2149 or email us," noted Needham.
"If you are interested in pursuing academic studies as an undergraduate or graduate student, we look forward to welcoming you into our communication sciences & disorders undergraduate major or speech-language pathology graduate program," she added.
NOTE: Content from this article first appeared in Cleveland Magazine Community Leader.
