RCSLT - Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists

Join us as we uncover the fascinating role of speech and language therapists working in awake craniotomy. We go to Birmingham to meet SLT Georgie Harrington and Mr Ismail Ughratdar, Consultant neurosurgeon to find out how they work as part of a team. Donald Innes, an expert by experience, who has had two awake craniotomies, shares his story and thoughts about the process. Kathleen Graham, SLT and now senior project manager for the ...

In this episode we chat with Professor Bronwyn Hemsley and Dr Lucy Bryant, both of the University of Technology Sydney, about their recent systematic review of interventions based on Gestalt Language Processing and Natural Language Acquisition. The discussion covers:

• What was the clinical question you were trying to answer?
• How did you go about undertaking the review? 
• What were the key findings?
• What does this mean for the speech ...

In our update this month:

Special guest Steve Jamieson CEO talks about:

• RCSLT’s 80th anniversary year https://www.rcslt.org/about-us/rcslt-at-80/ 
• Annual conference coming up https://www.rcslt.org/events/rcslt-conference-2025/ 
• Starting work on shaping the next strategic plan
• Inspire leadership programme update https://www.rcslt.org/learning/rcslt-leadership-programme/ 

Derek Munn, Director of Policy and Public Affairs...

In this podcast we speak with Anna Ekström and Olof Sandgren about their study of experiences of young people with DLD, which focused on language and communication in a school context. The study is guided by the following research question: How do young people diagnosed with DLD describe their experiences of language and communication in school?

The paper is:

'It depends on who I'm with': How young people with developm...

In our update this month:

• Update on special educational needs in England and Northern Ireland.
• Partnership report on children's services in Scotland.
• CAUK training for parliamentarians as part of National Inclusion Week.
• RCSLT conference.

Useful links:

• Sign up to our free Communication Access training: Home - Communication Access UK
• Book your place at the RCSLT Conference 2025: https://www.rcslt.org/news/book-your-place-...

In our update this month:
 
For Wales:

• Preparing for the Senedd elections in 2026: https://www.rcslt.org/wales/#section-2 
• Work has begun on a Welsh language version of CAUK training, funded by the National Lottery. (See original CAUK training: https://communication-access.co.uk/) 
• What’s happened following the launch of the State of the Nation report (See here: https://www.rcslt.org/wales/#section-2 ) in January.

Oppo...

In our update this month:

• Exploring the workforce implications of waiting lists in children and young people’s speech and language therapy services.
• Response to the 10-year health plan for England.
• Continued focus on SEND in England and proposals in Northern Ireland.
• Report from RCSLT Scotland with an experimental analysis of additional numbers of SLTs needed in education.

This interview was conducted by Victoria Harris, Head ...

A report, ‘SLTs on the tight rope: Learning from the experiences of disabled SLTs in the workplace’ (April 2025) by Mélanie Gréaux explores the experiences of disabled Speech and Language Therapists and what we can do to promote disability inclusion in the speech and language therapy profession. (You can hear more about this in the first podcast of this set of two.)

In this second podcast some of our members with disability discuss ...

This podcast is the first of two podcasts looking at the experiences of disabled speech and languages.

We open in this episode with an interview with Mélanie Gréaux, author of a report  published early April,  ‘SLTs on the tight rope: Learning from the experiences of disabled SLTs in the workplace’. The report explores the experiences of disabled SLTs and what we can do to promote disability inclusion in the profession.

We cover:

• ...

The June news podcast for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists featuring Derek Munn, Director of Policy and Public Affairs. Published 16 June 2025. 

In our update this month:

- What the Chancellor's Spending Review means for speech and language therapy;

- Developments across the UK covering children; the Health Select Committee First 1,000 days of Life  inquiry; involvement in the UK Parliament modernisation commit...

The May news podcast for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists featuring Derek Munn, Director of Policy and Public Affairs, and Steve Jamieson, CEO for the RCSLT. Published 27 May 2025.

In this month’s news podcast RCSLT CEO joins us to talk about the 80th birthday celebrations; the Equality, Diversity and Belonging (EDB) work with members; the leadership programme; applications for new governance roles and more. 
...

The  early May podcast for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists featuring Derek Munn, Director of Policy and Public Affairs and Ruth Sedgewick, Head of the RCSLT's Northern Ireland office.

Featuring:

- Language Launchpad, launching Tuesday 6 May https://www.rcslt.org/northern-ireland/language-launchpad-project/
- RCSLT Northern Ireland awards - Policy and campaigns in Northern Ireland | RCSLT
- General upd...

People with aphasia can have problems understanding or using numbers in everyday life - known as functional numeracy difficulties. However, testing this is hard because there are limited published assessments for functional numeracy difficulties for people with aphasia. 

This study aimed to explore, validate and pilot a wide-ranging, aphasia-friendly functional numeracy assessment to investigate how functional numeracy is impacted b...

The March news podcast for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists featuring Derek Munn. 

• Potential impact of the scrapping of NHS England.
• Primary Progressive Aphasia event in Parliament and awareness today 4 April. https://www.rcslt.org/news/parliamentary-event-to-shine-a-light-on-primary-progressive-aphasia/
• Hopes for the Spring statement.
• Curriculum and assessment review published their interim findings. See more: h...

How can we best implement communication partner training with familiar partners of people with aphasia?

In this International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders paper the authors set out to:
(1) determine the perceived and/or observed barriers and facilitators to implementing CPT with familiar partners of adults with aphasia;
(2) to map extracted barriers and facilitators to a common theoretical framework; (3) t...

The February news podcast for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists featuring Derek Munn. Published 27 February 2025.

We look at recent concerning news about growing waiting lists in adult community speech and language therapy in England, and also see how waiting lists compare across the UK.

See statement: https://www.instagram.com/p/DGBH1T1IdnW/ 

Derek gives an update on key topics keeping his team busy right ...

Welcome to the fourth episode in our RCSLT AI series. In this episode we chat with Dr Richard Cave, Project Manager SLT at MND Association and Consultant Speech and Language Therapist, about his work in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Richard has backgrounds in both computing and speech and language therapy and he brings these together in his work with voice banking and AI, working with Goggle, MNDA and most recently in his P...

The January news podcast for the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists featuring Derek Munn, Director of Policy and Public Affairs, Cara McDonagh, Director of Communications and Engagement and Pippa Cotterill, Head of Wales for the RCSLT. Published 24 January 2025.

It's the RCSLT's 80th anniversary! In this podcast our guests tell you all about a launch of the birthday year which was held in the Welsh Senedd and ...

In this, the third of our conversations around AI in speech and language therapy, we look at AI as a tool for people who have aphasia - a language disorder that affects a person's ability to speak and understand. Caitlin Longman, Accessibility Lead at the Stroke Association tells us about her work with people with aphasia and we hear from some of them about how they are using AI and also what are their concerns. Dr Abi Roper, ...