Teaching speech pathology students the interpretation of videofluoroscopicswallowing studies

This article examines a teaching package that was designed to cover the pro gression of skills agreed to by clinicians and educators as being pertinent to interpreting Videofluoroscopy Swallowing Studies (VFSSs). Sessions taug ht included knowledge of anatomy and physiology of swallowing, examination and identification of structures and landmarks from radiographs, and the us e of an assessment scale such as the Bethlehem Assessment Scale (BAS) to in terpret VFSSs. The ability to interpret eight VFSSs using the BAS was used as the final assessment. ANOVA for repeated measures and post hoc tests usi ng Tukey's HSD statistic revealed that there was a statistically significan t correlation between students' knowledge of anatomy and physiology and the ir knowledge of radiographic anatomy. There was a statistically significant correlation between their knowledge of radiographic anatomy and their abil ity to interpret videofluoroscopic examinations, as assessed using the BAS. There was also a statistically significant correlation between their knowl edge of anatomy and physiology and their ability to interpret videofluorosc opic examinations using the BAS.