Tarleton NSSLHA chapter up and running

BY GAVIN PATRICK

Sports Editor

Tarleton State University's chapter of the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association, or NSSLHA (nis-luh), is the place to be for students pursuing a degree in communication sciences and disorders (CSDO).

The program opened in 2021 and is based on Tarleton’s Fort Worth campus, currently holding around 15 to 20 members.

Most members are looking to become speech-language pathologists (SPLs) or practitioners or audiologists after graduation. While in the program, they get exposed to people with communication disorders through volunteer work, community service and shadowing opportunities.

“We're committed to promoting accessibility and inclusion in CSDO,” current chapter president Rana Amin said, who graduates in May. “We want to be the voice that advocates for this cause, we want to be the voice that advocates for the people who can’t advocate for themselves.”

Communication disorders aren’t limited to speech, language and hearing. The CSDO field also accounts for people with feeding and swallowing issues.

“We don't do any treatment here on campus,” Laura Pierson, one of the program’s founders, said. “But when a student goes out to be a practitioner, they will encounter these people. All we're doing here in the student organization is exposing our students to these people, but then also helping out the groups that we serve.”

One of the groups Tarleton’s NSSLHA chapter frequently volunteers with is the Down Syndrome Partnership of North Texas (DSPNT).

Last semester, members participated in the DSPNT’s Step Up for Down Syndrome event at TCU. They got connected to the event through a guest speaker Pierson brought to campus earlier in the fall.

Part of the occasion was the Step Up Family Walk, which raised over $105,000 for the Down syndrome community.

“It was just amazing because we were able to assist them with all those services,” Amin said. “It was in two shifts, so part of us stayed to help them set up, and then the other part was helping when the event started.”

Another event Texan NSSLHA members volunteered at in the fall was the Aphasia Support Group Potluck at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital.

There they got to meet and network with all the support group members and interact face-to-face with aphasia patients.

“We do study [aphasia] in class, but it's also really fascinating to see [people with aphasia] in person,” Amin said. “We took what we learned in class and adapted it to the situation, to where we're not speaking over people… and it was a very, very eye-opening experience.”

Once members finish their CSDO degree, on top of their experience in NSSLHA, they are set up nicely for opportunities in the field, such as getting licensed as a speech-language pathologist assistant.

Students may also have the option to pursue a master’s degree in speech-language pathology at Tarleton-Fort Worth, which is pending approval.

“As SLPs, our scope of practice is very big,” Amin said. “We can work in the medical field, we can work in the school field, we can work private practice… and then some people also go into audiology. We do have a couple of classes like intro to audiology and oral habilitation, but the scope is so big that we're able to help a lot of people.”

Like many student organizations at Tarleton State, Tarleton’s NSSLHA chapter has rapidly grown since its inception and is always looking for new members.

“As far as leadership goes, they can serve as an officer, and then we also have some committee leads,” Pierson said. “Those committee leads work in different areas of the club to organize events or recruit members [and] do social media.”

The club meets the last Tuesday of the month on the Fort Worth campus, where they discuss upcoming events and different initiatives. They made ribbons for Deaf Awareness Month at a meeting last September.

“We typically have some kind of interactive activity as well as information gathering if we need input from the club members, and then we also have officer elections during meetings,” Pierson said. “But typically, it's pretty fun and interactive.”

The club’s adviser alternates between Pierson and Brittany Watson, another CSDO professor, every year. They both have been feeding the program from the beginning and will continue to be avatars for the mission of NSSLHA: “to inspire, empower, and support students in the field of CSD.”

“As a future speech-language pathologist, we should be the voices that advocate for people who are unable to advocate for themselves,” Amin said. “So, I just want people to know that we are willing and we're eager to be those voices.”

For more information on NSSLHA, visit Tarleton’s Instagram page for CSDO, @tarletoncsdo, or visit the National NSSHLA website at nsslha.org.