Technical Standards

Technical standards are essential abilities and characteristics required for admission, progression, and graduation from the LSU Health Shreveport School of Allied Health Professions. The following standards consist of certain minimum physical and cognitive abilities and sufficient mental and emotional stability to assure that students are able to complete the entire course of study and participate fully in all aspects of the academic and clinical curriculum, with or without reasonable accommodations:

Sensory: A student must possess sufficient visual and auditory skills—as well as skills of observation to evaluate, interpret, and treat communication deficits effectively. These skills include the ability to: 

1. Identify deviant articulation. 
2. Recognize abnormal voice characteristics. 
3. Identify characteristics of dysfluency. 
4. Recognize oral and written language disorders in the areas of semantics, pragmatics, syntax, morphology, and phonology. 
5. Read and comprehend text, numbers, tables, and graphs.

Motor and Mobility Skills: A student must possess adequate motor and mobility skills to: 

1. Manipulate testing and treatment materials.
2. Perform moderately taxing continuous physical work. This work may require prolonged sitting and/or standing.
3. Use a computer keyboard and mouse to operate laboratory instruments. 
4. Access transportation to all clinical and academic placements.

Communication: A student must possess adequate communication skills to: 

1. Communicate professionally and effectively with individuals and groups (i.e., faculty members, fellow students, staff, clients, and other health care professionals). 
2. Communicate professionally and effectively in recorded format (writing [e.g., SOAP notes, diagnostic and treatment reports], typing, graphics, and/or telecommunication).
3. Demonstrate proficiency in English for both oral and written communication.
4. Produce speech with sufficient intelligibility and fluency to provide an effective speech model for clinical purposes.

Behavioral Skills: A student must possess adequate behavioral skills to: 

1. Manage the use of time effectively and systematize actions to complete professional and technical tasks within realistic constraints.
2. Demonstrate the emotional health necessary to apply knowledge effectively and to exercise appropriate judgment.
3. Be flexible and creative in order to adapt to professional and technical change and function in new and stressful environments (e.g., provide co-treatment in noisy area, conduct testing or treatment in a hospital ward, deal with problematic client temperaments, and provide rapid turn-around for diagnostic results).
4. Recognize potentially hazardous situations and proceed safely to minimize risk of injury to clients, self, and nearby individuals.
5. Support and promote the activities of fellow students and of health care professionals in an effort to facilitate a team approach to learning, task completion, problem solving, and client/patient care.
6. Demonstrate honesty, compassion, ethics, and responsibility, upholding the ASHA Code of Ethics, and the LSU Health Shreveport School of Allied Health Professions Policy and Procedures Relating to Student Conduct, Dismissals, and Appeals.

LSU Health Shreveport seeks to comply with the American with Disabilities Act by providing reasonable accommodations, including resources and services, for students with disabilities, chronic medical conditions, a temporary disability, or pregnancy complications resulting in difficulties with accessing learning opportunities.