This collection of articles presents clinicians with evidence on a variety of topics in dysphagia that can be utilized in practice immediately. Alaina Martens and Emily Zimmerman offer insight regarding changes to feeding patterns in infants diagnosed with bronchopulmonary dysplasia after prolonged oxygen therapy in the newborn intensive care unit. Paula Leslie and colleagues provide a framework of health and illness and how food and drink are much more. They stress the importance of clinician appreciation as a cultural guest in our patients’ lives. Bonnie Martin-Harris and colleagues stress the importance of instrumentation with a thorough review of available practice guidelines and appropriateness criteria issued to date, revealing a deficit of up-to-date, comprehensive, evidence-based information on the diagnosis and evaluation of oropharyngeal dysphagia. Specifically, a lack of quality guidance on the ordering, performance, and reporting of the modified barium swallow study has hindered efforts to improve standardization and ensure quality continuity of care. Naomi Gurevich and colleagues stress the need to clarify guidelines and increase interprofessional education between both professions to improve patient care. George Barnes and Nancy Toms highlight speech-language pathologists’ need for a solid foundation of knowledge when it comes to patients with highly complex disease processes and care plans. Deirdre Muldoon and colleagues conduct a review of published literature regarding management of feeding difficulties at the oral phase of feeding in children with autism spectrum disorder and/or developmental disability. Finally, Paul M. Evitts and colleagues reveal a potential way to track aspiration in healthy adults using an app.

Learning Outcomes
You will be able to:

• describe the current research on oral feeding in infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia and how it relates to cardiorespiratory support, suck-swallow-breath coordination, and reflux
• plan a strategy in their own area for starting the discussion around the cultural perspectives of food and drink with clients and families
• explain the need for and benefits of guidelines for performing a valid, reproducible, reliable, high-quality modified barium swallow study
• identify potential areas of collaboration and increased education with nursing staff regarding dysphagia diet management
• describe how an assessment for patients with tracheostomies and vents may differ from a typical bedside swallow evaluation
• describe steps that speech-language pathologists could take to improve their understanding of the behavior management of oral phase and oral preparatory phase dysphagia
• describe the ecological validity of commonly used instrumentation assessment methods in dysphagia

Assessment Type
Self-assessment—Think about what you learned and report on the Completion Form how you will use your new knowledge.

Articles in This Course

1. Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia: New Research Insights on Infant Sucking and Feeding Development by Alaina Martens and Emily Zimmerman, published in SIG 13, Volume 6, Issue 3, June 25, 2021
2. It’s Not Such a Small World After All: The Intersection of Food, Identity, and the Speech- Language Pathologist by Paula Leslie, Bridget Xia, and Jaemin Yoo, published in SIG 13, Volume 6, Issue 4, August 20, 2021
3. The Modified Barium Swallow Study for Oropharyngeal Dysphagia: Recommendations From an Interdisciplinary Expert Panel by Bonnie Martin-Harris, Heather Shaw Bonilha, Martin B. Brodsky, David O. Francis, Margaret M. Fynes, Rosemary Martino, Ashli Karin O’Rourke, Nicole M. Rogus-Pulia, Noemi Alice Spinazzi, and Jessica Zarzour, published in SIG 13, Volume 6, Issue 3, June 25, 2021
4. A Preliminary Study of Nursing Practice Patterns Concerning Dysphagia Diet Modification: Implications for Interprofessional Education With SLPs by Naomi Gurevich, Danielle R. Osmelak, and Sydney Osentoski, published in SIG 13, Volume 6, Issue 4, August 20, 2021
5. An Overview of Tracheostomy Tubes and Mechanical Ventilation Management for the Speech-Language Pathologist by George Barnes and Nancy Toms, published in SIG 13, Volume 6, Issue 4, August 20, 2021
6. A Literature Review: Evidence Base in Speech-Language Pathology for the Management of Pediatric Oral Phase Dysphagia by Deirdre Muldoon, Laura Meyer, Jenna Cortese, and Rebecca Zaleski, published in SIG 13, Volume 6, Issue 2, April 28, 2021
7. Metadeglutition? Rate of Aspiration-Related Events in Healthy Females Using a Novel Data Collection App by Paul M. Evitts, Kyanne Fields, and Benjamin Lande, published in SIG 13, Volume 6, Issue 2, April 28, 2021