An interprofessional education and practice curriculum for occupational therapy and speech language pathology graduate students to support writing in schoolchildren

The importance of interprofessional education (IPE) for health science students is well established and while many programs offer graduate students opportunities to gain knowledge across professions, there are fewer opportunities to gain clinical skills across professions. This curricular resource describes the curriculum for Project Write to Learn (PWTL), an interprofessional graduate training program for preparing occupational therapists (OT) and speech language pathologists (SLP) to improve written expression in schoolchildren with specific learning disabilities (SLD). The curriculum was designed to be administered by an interprofessional pair of instructors (one OT and one SLP faculty) and provided to an interprofessional cohort of OT and SLP graduate students across one academic year. There were three program outcomes that were targeted through five units of study each with unique learning objectives aligned with the program outcomes. Assessment procedures included ongoing assessment of coursework using instructor designed rubrics, surveys of interprofessional readiness and practice from research literature, and case study presentations at state conferences. Evaluation of outcomes utilized rubrics for assignments and presentations at state conferences, descriptive analyses of surveys, and coding of responses to open-ended questions. The PWTL curriculum provided an IPE experience that connected knowledge and skill gained from respective programs toward a common goal of supporting students with SLD in writing, the impact of which was demonstrated through increases on measures of readiness for interprofessional practice. A resource manual and suggested adaptations are provided to meet unique facilitators and barriers across programs.