Competency-based Education in Communication Sciences and Disorders: The Proposal of a New Curriculum

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to describe the most relevant aspects of a competency-based curriculum in communication sciences and disorders education. Competences to be developed are associated to cognitive, technical, relational, affective, integrative and contextual dimensions. The new curriculum has duration of five years with 49% of the work-load assigned to supervised practice. This way, expected learning outcomes by the end of the first year involve the students knowing what they learned about the basic sciences of the area. By the end of the second year, the students should know what they learned about specific areas of the field. By the end of the third year, the students should know how to use what they learned. At the end of the fourth year, the students should be able to demonstrate how to use what they learned. Finally, at the end of the program, the students should perform professional activities with expertise, ethics and critical thinking. To sum up, the new curriculum proposed provides the student with general and specific knowledge about communication sciences and disorders and different scenarios of supervised practice. Its main objective is to develop the adequate competencies to professional practice.