Communication Disorders 4620: Anatomy & Physiology of the Speech Mechanism

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID:  COMD 4620 – Anatomy & Physiology of the Speech Mechanism
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract: This open textbook is being utilized in a Communications Disorders course for undergraduate students by Tiffany Luong, M.A. CCC-SLP at California State University, Los Angeles. The free access textbook covers concepts in anatomy and physiology of the speech subsystems( respiratory, laryngeal, velopharyngeal-nasal, and pharyngeal oral), the auditory system, swallowing physiology, and neural structures and mechanisms that support speech/language, hearing, and swallowing. The publisher offers online student resources such as videos and review concepts, and faculty resources include PowerPoint lecture slides and exam question examples. The main motivation to adopt an open textbook was to limit financial barriers to helping students complete their course of study. Most students access the open textbook via university library subscription via a direct link to the e-book on the Canvas course site. 

Course Title and Number - COMD 4620 – Anatomy & Physiology of the Speech Mechanism
Brief Description of course highlights:  COMD 4620 focuses on anatomy and physiology of body structures employed in speech production with emphasis on respiration, phonation, resonance and articulation. 

This course provides students with a broad understanding of the anatomy and physiology of speech production with an emphasis on knowing and understanding the anatomical structures involved in the speech process and their action mechanisms, to support the evaluation and intervention process of clients (children and adults) with speech disorders. The main focus of the course is on normal processes of the speech production system; however, clinical implications of the material will be briefly discussed. By the end of the course, students should be able to:

1. Recognize the structures and systems involved in speech production; and
2. Describe the basic physiology of respiratory, laryngeal, resonatory, articulatory and nervous components of speech.
   https://ecatalog.calstatela.edu/preview_course_nopop.php?catoid=73&coid=535290 

Student population: This is an upper division undergraduate course that fulfills requirements for the bachelor’s degree in Communication Disorders. Students are 3rd or 4th year undergraduates or post-baccalaureate students in the Communication Disorders program with career goals to become Speech-Language Pathologists, Speech-Language Pathologist Assistants, or Audiologists.

Learning outcomes:  Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
1. Diagram the anatomical components of each system related to speech production.
2. Associate speech components with the corresponding anatomical structures.
3.Organize the speech process according to the anatomical structures and physiological mechanisms.
4. Predict speech effects based on anatomical differences and/or abnormality.
5.  Predict speech effects based on physiological dysfunction and lesions

Key challenges faced and how resolved: Because this is a specialized field, I had difficulty finding anatomy and physiology textbooks on OER sites that pertained only to the speech mechanism. Collaborating with other faculty members who have taught the course before, they guided me toward a text that the CSULA library has bought a license for and we were all able to add it to our Canvas reading list for easy access for our students.

Textbook or OER/Low cost Title: Foundations of Speech and Hearing: Anatomy and Physiology (2020), 2nd Edition, Plural Publishing

Brief Description: This comprehensive textbook for undergraduate-level anatomy and physiology courses in communication sciences and disorders programs is written with clinical endpoints in mind, and topics that are ultimately important to understanding, evaluating, and managing clients with speech, hearing, and swallowing disorders are covered.

Authors have provided chapters that cover basic concepts in anatomy and physiology, each of the speech subsystems (respiratory, laryngeal, velopharyngeal-nasal, and pharyngeal oral), the auditory system, swallowing physiology, and neural structures and mechanisms that support speech/language, hearing, and swallowing. The text was carefully crafted to meet the needs of entry-level university students and the figures were designed to feature the key elements of the concepts discussed in the text.

Please provide a link to the resource   https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/csla/reader.action?docID=6499981 CSULA Institutional ID and password will be required as the e-book is provided cost-free via CSULA Library’s subscription. 

Authors:  Hoit, Jeannette D., Weismer, Gary; Story, Brad

Student access:  Students have access to the textbook via a direct link to the external server, and this is provided for them in the Reading List on Canvas. They can also access the e-book via the university’s library website. 

Supplemental resources: The publisher offers online student resources such as videos and review concepts, and faculty resources include PowerPoint lecture slides and exam question examples.

Provide the cost savings from that of a traditional textbook.  $139.95, not including tax and shipping costs

License: Copyrighted

Instructor Name - Tiffany Luong
I am a lecturer in the Communication Disorders department at California State University, Los Angeles. I am a speech-language pathologist with my Certificate of Clinical Competence (CCC) from the American Speech-Language Hearing Association.

Please describe the courses you teach 
COMD 4610 - Descriptive phonetics: The goals of this course are twofold. The first is to provide students with the ability to transcribe General American English as it is heard using the International Phonetic Alphabet. The second is to provide students with a basic theoretical background in phonetics including articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics, narrow transcription, dialectical variation, and coarticulation.

COMD 4620 - Anatomy and physiology of body structures employed in speech production with emphasis on respiration, phonation, resonance, and articulation. The course provides students with a broad understanding of the anatomy and physiology of speech production. Knowing and understanding the anatomical structures involved in the speech process and their action mechanisms, support the evaluation and intervention process of clients (children and adults) with speech disorders. The main focus of the course is on normal processes of the speech production system; however, clinical implications of the material will be briefly discussed. 

COMD 5810 - Clinical practicum in speech-language pathology: graduate students engage in supervised clinical experience with children and adults with speech and/or language impairments. 

Describe your teaching philosophy and any research interests related to your discipline or teaching.  I teach Descriptive Phonetics, Anatomy & Physiology of the Speech Mechanism, and Clinical Practicum for Speech-Language Pathology. I am interested in deepening student learning (helping them encode to long-term memory rather than cram-type of memorization for exams) and hope to be able to help students access knowledge that would be directly applicable to their future clinical practice.

I have been a school-based speech-language pathologist with 12 years of experience serving student populations spanning preschool to high school levels. I have carried a caseload up to 79 students and completed IEP, assessment and therapy functions and collaborated with teachers and families in the school ecosystems. I specialized in multidisciplinary evaluation with the preschool intake unit, completing 50-75 assessments annually and welcoming the youngest students and their family to LAUSD.

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process

Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option.  To align with our university’s goals of student retention and recruitment, and understanding that most of our students are first-generation students, I was interested in limiting the potential financial barrier of a costly textbook.

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? I consulted with other faculty and looked at the university’s inventory.

Sharing Best Practices: In addition to requesting exam copies from the publisher, I just recently learned that instead of requesting the book, some publisher websites offer a preview or download of instructor resources. This helped me get a quick preview of resources or student-facing activities that helped me make informed decisions so that I would not need to request textbooks that might not be directly applicable to my course content (and also helping to save the publishing company on shipping). 

Describe any key challenges you experienced, how they were resolved  and lessons learned. I’ve been facing is in creating supplementary materials for a more interactive experience for my students. I have been sourcing coloring worksheets from multiple texts and I am hoping that when I have completed one semester of course prep, that I can work with the bookstore to make a course reader that is in essence a coloring book of anatomical structures that pertain to the speech mechanism rather than the entire human body (which is what is currently available).