Hearing Loss Health Literacy in Speech-Language Pathologists: Impact of Academic Training and On-the-Job Experience.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore if academic training and/or on-the-job experience predicts general health literacy, hearing loss health literacy, and self confidence levels of speech-language pathologists (SLPs).

Method: Participants included 423 SLPs with differing levels of academic training and on-the-job experience working with children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH). General health literacy, hearing loss health literacy, and confidence levels treating children who are DHH were assessed. Data were analyzed using SPSS, with descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlations, and multiple linear regression models.

Results: SLPs had high levels of general health literacy but marginal to low levels of hearing loss health literacy. Neither academic training nor on-the-job experience predicted general health literacy, but they were predictive of hearing loss terminology knowledge. Only on-the-job experience predicted in-depth hearing loss content knowledge. There was an interaction of training and experience for confidence of SLPs in treating children who are DHH. SLPs with greater years of experience exhibited lower confidence with an increasing amount of coursework, whereas SLPs with fewer years of experience displayed higher confidence with an increasing amount of coursework.

Conclusions: Results indicated that the driving factor for development of in-depth hearing loss health literacy in SLPs is on-the-job experience. Methods of integrating experiential learning into academic training should be evaluated.