Prerequisites for admission.

Admission to the degree programme is subject to the possession of a secondary school diploma or a qualification obtained abroad and deemed equivalent.

Applicants are admitted to the programme after passing an entry test in accordance with the national applicable legislation relating to limited access degree programmes for health professions scheduled at national level (Law 264/99) and the teaching regulations of the degree programme.

The knowledge required for admission is assessed and must reach a minimum score set.

Applicants not achieving this score shall be assigned additional learning requirements (OFA) to be completed by attending the remedial courses indicated by the degree programme.

Skills associated with the function

Speech and language therapist
Under the ethical code approved by the Federation of Italian Speech Therapists (FLI) on 13.2.1999 as amended on 13.11.2012
professional skills of the speech and language therapist:
assessment and analysis in the speech therapy clinic (acquire objective and subjective information by means of standardised tools, interviews and observations for the identification of speech therapy rehabilitation needs, and the formulation of the relevant therapeutic objectives, after the definition of the physical, psychological, and social needs on which the functional recovery of the individual may depend)
care and rehabilitation (planning the speech therapy care and rehabilitation, defining the rehabilitation programme, identifying the most suitable therapeutic modes, carrying out the rehabilitation intervention based on the project, and verifying its outcome)
prevention (promoting the health, identifying the needs to prevent disabilities and promoting the actions required to overcome them, preventing further worsening of the disability)
therapeutic education (defining a relationship of assistance aimed at supporting the assisted person, defining an educational project, training the assisted person and his/her family to learn self-care and functional recovery skills, assessing the ongoing participation in the educational project)
adoption of aids referred to the assessment (recognising the patient’s communication resources, identifying and selecting the suitable aids to overcome the disability, training the user and his/her family to the best use, assessing the impact and utility, planning the outcome and the responses to the intervention)
general basic professional skills:
knowledge of the cultural, professional, legislative, and organisational basic principles for the correct definition and application of programmes and procedures, in order to set the healthcare and social-healthcare continuity in public and credited healthcare facilities
realisation of an organisational plan and propose solutions to organisational issues, in collaboration with the other professional figures
managing the privacy issues in the healthcare field
monitoring and early identifying one’s own working activity with regard to organisational critical issues and mistakes in the clinical intervention
designing and providing training programmes, by identifying and formulating the general and specific learning objectives
specific basic professional skills:
promoting and carrying out prevention actions by means of screening tools for the early identification of cognitive, communication-linguistic and functional alterations, and the recognition of the risk factors in developmental adult, and elderly age
identifying and promoting the acquisition of suitable behaviours and compensatory strategies able to modify or reduce disability in developmental, adult, and elderly age
practicing the talk management modes in the speech therapy clinic as a tool for the acquisition and interpretation of data useful to the knowledge of communication-linguistic features in developmental, adult, and elderly age
using the principles and the theories of linguistics when assessing the components of communication, verbal, non-verbal, and written language
knowing and using the knowledge of psychology to carry out the speech and language therapy intervention in relation to the cognitive, linguistic, and relational functions
managing the speech and language therapy record in compliance with the applicable legislation
using specific assessment tools for the overview and speech therapy analysis of language and communication disorders
carrying out individual and group settings with a suitable methodology of speech therapy intervention

Function in a work context

Speech and language therapist
Under the ethical code approved by the Federation of Italian Speech Therapists (FLI) on 13.2.1999 as amended on 13.11.2012
“The purposes of the speech therapy intervention are the appropriateness and professional quality when pursuing the protection of people’s health in its bio-psycho-social dimension, so that they can use any communication means available under physiological conditions.
In the event of a disorder relating to communication and/or of cognitive-linguistic nature and/or concerning the oral functions and relevant outcomes, the objective will be overcoming the consequent disorder by recovering the abilities and the skills aimed at communicating through the acquisition and consolidation of alternative methods that are useful to communication and social integration.
In the event of a disorder relating to deglutition and relevant outcomes, and when feasible in relation to the clinical conditions and objective sharing of the multidisciplinary Team, the objective will be restoring a functional deglutition, able to ensure a proper dietary intake (also by supporting and integrating it artificially) or food consumption for hedonistic purposes.
As a consequence, the functions in a work environment relate to the following fields:
a) Overall speech therapy Overview, Assessment, and Analysis; implementation of Rehabilitation programmes in response to communication - cognitive - language (general and specific) issues of the oral functions including deglutition, of the person and the community.
Such preventive, rehabilitation, and consulting activities are of a technical, relational, enabling and educational nature, and are implemented as follows:
- assessment and analysis in the Speech Therapy Clinic;
- acquisition of objective and subjective information by means of standardised tools, tests, interviews, observations;
- analysis of the clinical documentation provided by the assisted person;
- counselling;
- care, education/habilitation/rehabilitation;
- monitoring the interventions;
- schedule of the treatment/intervention;
- prevention;
- review of the intervention programme;
- semeiotics;
- assessment/verification of the treatment effectiveness;
- research
- training.
b) Study and research activities in Speech and Language Therapy subjects and in interdisciplinary fields.
c) Teaching in the speech therapy field.
d) Tutoring of the internship activity of speech therapy students within Degree Programmes in Speech and Language Therapy.
e) Professional counselling in healthcare services and in services requiring the professional skills of this professional figure.

Educational goals

The main objective of the programme is to train speech therapists with technical-practical and behavioural knowledge and skills that are suitable for carrying out the best professional practice based on what provided for in the professional profile and core curriculum of the speech therapist.
At the end of the training programme, speech therapists shall acquire knowledge, skills (know-how) and interpersonal skills (knowing how to be), with particular reference to the following fields:

1- PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY
This field translates the assumption of responsibility of the Speech Therapist Professional into the whole professional action through the attainment of the following competences:
- maintain a professional behaviour that, in accordance with the ethical code and current legislation, protects the profession and the relative image and maintains the transparency of interpersonal relationships and field of intervention;
- undertake a constant commitment towards the wellbeing of the individual and the community;
- respect citizens and the community;
- respect the culture and the autonomy of the individual by adopting a person-focused approach.

2- CARE AND REHABILITATION
This field refers to the competences that graduates shall posses at the end of the training programme, enabling them to:
- collect, analyse, and interpret relevant data for the patient’s needs by means of standardised tools, interviews, and observations;
- make a correct functional assessment by formulating the preparations needed to design a suitable therapeutic project (habilitation/rehabilitation; education/re-education);
- define objectives and prognostic hypotheses by taking into account both the extent of the damage and any recovery indexes;
- plan and implement the care and rehabilitation intervention aimed at achieving specific functional outcomes by adopting a person-focused approach;
- safely and successfully perform the intervention, making periodic checks and changes to the in-progress treatment plan;
- share the therapeutic programme with the patient, other subjects and professionals, defining the so called “therapeutic agreement”;
- assess the results of the treatment plan, by verifying the overall effectiveness based on the outcomes and responses to the intervention, recording any changes and preventing and facing any critical situations;
- offer a specific technical consulting to the patient, his/her relatives, other professionals or other subjects (institutions).

3- THERAPEUTIC EDUCATION
The healthcare activity aimed at raising awareness and responsibility in individuals and groups. It is an integral part of the assignment and is carried out through interventions of therapeutic education, by defining a relation of assistance aimed at supporting the assisted person and his/her family, and helping him/her to develop self-care and functional recovery skills.

4- PREVENTION
The speech therapist shall be able to carry out prevention activities towards individuals or the community, being them healthy or with health issues and/or mental disability; More specifically, this field is an integral part of the therapeutic programme in which the speech therapist is engaged in activities aimed at identifying and resolve risk situations for the individual and the community, with actions carried out through surveys, screening, and follow ups. The speech therapist shall also promote the actions required to preserve the health and face the disability, and prevent the disability from getting worse.
The speech therapist shall be able to identify the health and prevention needs by acknowledging potentially risk situations through Screenings aimed at identifying the language and communication, hearing and oral function disorders at an early stage, for all age groups.

5- MANAGEMENT
It includes all management tools (resources, information, economic aspects) which are essential to the proper implementation of the speech therapist’s daily activities, through the following actions:
- acting based on quality criteria by using specific tools,
- managing the privacy,
- managing the clinical risk,
- making decisions after adopting a correct troubleshooting process.
Speech therapists must:
- be able to identify the nature of the issue, analyse, choose and interpret, identify the solutions of the issue by resorting to possible collaborations;
- when managing their own work, be able to recognise and respect roles and competences, interact and collaborate with multi-professional teams, use General Lines and protocols to make the operating modalities consistent;
- when managing the clinical risk, identify and report any difficulties;
- be able to use the information and IT systems to analyse the data.
This field includes all procedures and tools that enable the speech therapist to organise his/her own work in the overall meaning of the word.

6- TRAINING/SELF-TRAINING
It is the context within the speech therapist trains, develops and consolidates his/her own cultural background knowledge, through the following skills: taking on training programmes after a proper self-assessment; being able to identify the learning and training objectives in the training programme with coordinator and tutor, and being able to assess the attainment of the objectives; assuming the responsibility of his/her training and professional development.

7- COMMUNICATION AND RELATIONSHIP
It is the primary dimension of the human social life and is fully attributable as an essential skill of the healthcare professional. This field defines the relational substrate through which the speech therapist will apply his/her professional practice to the rehabilitation, social, and institutional context, by means of communication and relational skills with the user and his/her family, by using active listening tools and relational dynamics management modes. Also interacting with other professionals, coordinators and tutors, and with operators of other facilities.

Communication skills

Graduates in Speech and Language Therapy must develop the following communication skills:
• Listen, inform, talk to patients and relatives in a suitable, effective, and understandable manner
• Communicate, argument and motivate their work and the decisions made with their colleagues and different professional figures
• Adapt the communication based on the context and in accordance with cultural, ethnic, and value differences of the assisted people
• Implement speech therapy counselling techniques to activate the resources and the clients’ ability to respond and involve their family and caregivers in the rehabilitation programme
• Use the tools for documenting the clinical-rehabilitation documentation


Training methods and activities, teaching tools to develop the expected outcomes:
• lectures
• videos and critical analysis of films, simulations, narration and testimonials
• discussion of case studies and paradigmatic relations in sub-groups with presentations in plenary sessions
• internship with experiences supervised by tutors in different contexts with debriefing sessions to reflect on and process interpersonal experiences with the users and the team.

Assessment tools to ascertain the attainment of the expected results:
• observation of video frames, documents and dialogues with structured grids
• assessment feedbacks during the internship (using portfolios, structured evaluation sheets and clinical reports)

Making Judgements

Graduates in Speech and Language Therapy must prove to possess independence of judgement through the following skills:
• Choose and use the assessment tools and procedures for the overview and speech therapy analysis of communication and oral and written language disorders in different age groups
• Be able to design and carry out suitable, effective, and efficient speech therapy rehabilitation interventions by recognising and respecting the dignity, culture, values and rights of individuals of different ages
• Take the responsibility and be held accountable in the exercise of their profession in terms of own profile, deontological code and ethic and legal standards
• Be able to coordinate with the different professional figures for processing common intervention projects
• Show awareness of the influence of their own feelings, values, and prejudices on the relation with their patients and the decision-making process

Training methods and activities, teaching tools to develop the expected outcomes:
during the entire degree programme, critical discussion of cases,
• when processing the degree thesis, students will be required to • make their own interpretation of the data collected, discussing alternative hypotheses based on models existing in literature or proposed by the tutors
• lectures and self-learning
• discussion of case studies in small groups and presentations in plenary sessions
• internship with experience activities supervised by tutors in different contexts and with a progressive acquisition of independence and responsibility

Assessment tools to ascertain the attainment of the expected results:
• written and oral exams, case tests in stages
• assessment feedbacks during the internship (using portfolios, structured evaluation sheets and clinical reports on professional practice)

Learning skills

Graduates in speech and language therapy must develop the following self-learning skills:

• Develop independent study skills
• Prove to be able to independently search for the information needed to resolve issues or uncertainties of the professional practice, by consulting the current literature and promoting its application to the speech therapy practice
• Show the ability to access and use research methods relating to speech therapy issues, also through IT tools, scientific literature of the specific and related sectors, by critically judging it and processing it in a personal manner
• Show the ability to continuously look for self-learning opportunities
• Show the ability to self-evaluate their own skills and define their development and learning needs

Learning tools, methods and training activities to develop the expected results:
• Use of self-learning plans and contracts to make students responsible for planning and self-assessing their own internship programme
• Laboratories on methodology of the bibliographic research, both on paper and online;
• Guided reading for the critical assessment of scientific and professional literature in both Italian and English

Assessment tools to ascertain the attainment of the expected results:
• Project works, reports on specific research projects
• Tutor supervision of the internship programme
• Active participation in work and debriefing sessions