Person-centered care and speech and language therapy

Person-centered care (PCC) has become the foundation for practice in many areas of health care provision. Research has suggested that providing PCC may improve therapy outcomes, client satisfaction, and perceived quality of care, as well as address aspects of evidence-based practice. As members of the health care provider community, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) will be expected to provide PCC as part of their therapeutic interactions. Some research, however, has indicated that SLPs have a tendency to provide more structured, task-oriented therapies. In this article, a working definition of PCC is described, along with a pilot study designed to investigate the use of PCC by student SLP clinicians. Results from this study indicated no increase in the use of PCC as student clinicians gained clinical experience and suggested that current approaches to clinical supervision and grading may play a role in reducing the amount of PCC provided by student clinicians.