Abstract
To determine the level of teaching of neuropsychology within undergraduate courses of speech-language pathology in Brazil using an exploratory document analysis of the curricula of the undergraduate courses. It is a quantitative exploratory document analysis. A review of available documents from websites and/or received from course directors (pedagogical course project, course content, and/or syllabus) of public and private universities in Brazil was carried out. Using an agreed consensus checklist, 3 researchers verified which universities offered subjects on neuropsychology by means of a search for the term 'neuropsychology' or neuropsychological'. Associations between type of university and region and the provision of neuropsychology courses were also explored. 72 universities were included in the study and only nine of them offered subjects on neuropsychology. None of the associations tested was statistically significant. The provision of neuropsychology for speech-language pathology undergraduate students is limited, and not associated with the type of university, the year of the pedagogical course project, or the region in which the university is located. The findings call attention to the need to adapt undergraduate curricula in speech-language pathology to consider the entire scope of this profession and address the epidemiology of communication disorders.
Highlights
Neuropsychology was recently recognized as a specialty within speech-language pathology by the Federal Council of Speech-Language Pathology (in Portuguese Conselho Federal de Fonoaudiologia (CFF)) through resolution No 453/2014(1) and the attributions and competencies in this field were described by the resolution CFF of No 466/2015(2)
All higher education institutions (HEI) that offered the speech-language pathology course in Brazil, that were registered in the Ministry of Education (in Portuguese Ministério da Educação (MEC)), and that made available the Pedagogical Project of the Course (in Portuguese Projeto Pedagógico de Curso (PPC)), program and/or curriculum of the course for this research were included in this study
This study is the first to evaluate neuropsychology teaching in undergraduate courses in speech-language pathology in Brazil following the recognition of neuropsychology as a specialty
Summary
Neuropsychology was recently recognized as a specialty within speech-language pathology by the Federal Council of Speech-Language Pathology (in Portuguese Conselho Federal de Fonoaudiologia (CFF)) through resolution No 453/2014(1) and the attributions and competencies in this field were described by the resolution CFF of No 466/2015(2). Neuropsychology is an interdisciplinary science that focuses on behavior and cognition, and how behavior is coordinated by cognitive functions, such as memory, language, attention, perception, executive functions and praxias[4,5]. These cognitive functions are the object of study of the speech-language pathologist specialist in neuropsychology, because the work of the speech-language pathologist is in the prevention, evaluation, and treatment of communication disorders due to changes in cognition and brain functioning[3]. The expertise of this professional is their ability to use neuropsychology as applied to linguistic difficulties resulting from neurological, psychiatric, neuropsychiatric and developmental conditions[3]
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