Swallowing and Voice

This unit adopts a socio-cultural framework, to explore the physiology, assessment, diagnosis and management of voice and swallowing problems across the lifespan. Across the lifespan, individuals may experience problems with ingesting food and liquid and with voice production. Individuals with these problems often present to speech pathology. This subject will provide a broad overview of the systems that underpin voice production and swallowing. This will focus on the anatomy and physiology (to compliment material taught in Year 1, Semester 1) of vocal mechanism and the swallowing mechanism, where breakdown occurs and evidence based intervention strategies. This unit places the patient at the centre of the discipline with a focus on vocal function, voice disorders and treatments, swallowing function, disorders and treatments and the psychosocial components of both.