의사소통장애 상담 교육의 실태 및 필요성: 교육기관과 임상현장을 중심으로

Objectives: Counseling is an essential component of the treatment of communication dis-orders. Clinicians and students in the field have reported a necessity for the incorporation of counseling courses into speech-language pathology practice. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the current status of a counseling curriculum in the field of commu-nication sciences and disorders, and to present the professors’ and speech-language patho-logists’(SLP) perceptions of the counseling curriculum. Methods: A web-based question-naire regarding the current status and need for the counseling curriculum was developed and distributed to professors in undergraduate and graduate programs and to SLPs in clin-ical settings. Responses from a total of 66 professors and 121 SLPs were collected and were used for the analysis. Results: Overall, 66.7% of undergraduate programs and 26.9% of graduate programs offer a counseling course within the department. Also, 100% and 85.1% of professors in undergraduate and graduate programs reported the need for counseling education and training in the field of communication disorders respectively. A strong ma-jority of SLPs (95.7%) also felt counseling courses are needed. By clinical areas, SLPs work-ing in language development disorders reported the highest need (25.4%) for counseling courses, followed by neurological disorders and fluency disorders. Conclusion: The results show that the need for counseling programs was high among professors and clinicians. Thus, the implementation of a systematic and adequate counseling curriculum in the field of communication disorders is suggested.