Dental and speech-language pathology students learn from each other during interprofessional activity focused on dysphagia management

Dental and speech-language pathology students participate in an interprofessional activity focused on managing swallowing disorders.

When people with swallowing disorders also have poor oral health, they are at greater risk of serious health complications - including aspiration pneumonia.

Dentists and speech-language pathologists encounter patients with swallowing disorders, including dysphagia, a condition that affects millions of Americans - particularly older adults. To ensure that dental students and speech-language pathology students can appropriately screen and refer patients with signs and symptoms of dysphagia and identify oral health diseases that might impact their overall health, the School of Dentistry and the School of Health Professions created an interprofessional dysphagia-oral health screening activity for third-year dental students and second-year speech-language pathology students.

"Interprofessional training empowers dental and speech pathology students to collaboratively address dysphagia and oral care, combining their expertise for comprehensive patient-centered care," said Associate Professor Annetty Soto, DMD, director of the Geriatrics Dental Clinic at UT Dentistry, the School of Dentistry's clinical practice.

In addition to Soto, the activity, held Oct. 9, was organized by Fang-Ling, Lu, PhD, CCC-SLP, associate professor, director of the Master of Science in Speech-Language Pathology program and chair of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders in the School of Health Professions, and Assistant Professor/Clinical Noorpreet Kaur, BDS, MPH, of the School of Dentistry.

"Treating patients with dysphagia, we need to address oral care," said Lu. She explained that speech-language pathologists must ensure their patients' oral hygiene is adequate before implementing swallowing treatment.

A holistic, interdisciplinary approach to dysphagia care

During the activity, 170 dental students and speech-language pathology students divided into small groups. They took turns teaching each other, collaborating in roles and responsibilities. Dental students demonstrated how to perform oral health screenings, which allowed the speech-language pathology students to perform the skills learned. Speech-language pathology students showed dental students basic safety measures and how to perform different swallowing screening protocols, which the dental students conducted using validated techniques.

Students also reviewed the interprofessional collaboration of dentists and speech-language pathologists in dysphagia care and reflected on how the two professions overlap in caring for patients with swallowing disorders. They also reviewed best practices for making referrals for dental and speech therapy services and worked through case studies.

"It was delightful to see how confident and competent our students were as they taught and learned from each other," Lu said of the students.

The opportunity to learn alongside dental students was particularly meaningful to Maya Datt, president of the Master of Science in Speech-Language Pathology Class of 2025.

"I liked having the small, focused groups to ask questions," Datt said. "This was really a unique experience."

The activity was a confidence builder for Gabriella Ward, a student leader for the project in the Doctor of Dental Surgery Class of 2026. Ward described the long-term benefits of interdisciplinary education as the students carry what they have learned with them into their professional practice.

"Interacting with students from other health care professions helps us better understand each other's roles, ultimately making us more effective clinicians when working together for our patients in the future," Ward said. "I feel more confident in identifying swallowing disorders in our geriatric patients after the SLP students demonstrated their screening procedures with the IPE hands-on activities."

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.