PERCEPTION OF SPEECH THERAPY PROFESSIONALS AND STUDENTS ABOUT THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

Abstract

Understanding the changes that occur during the course of human life is becoming increasingly essential in the field of health and requires an interdisciplinary approach. On the other hand, the professional speech therapist must be able to act in a generalist, humanist, critical and reflective way, in this way, the Psychology of Human Development (PDH) has become a fundamental piece for the excellent training of professionals in this area. Thus, the present study aimed to know the perception of undergraduates and graduates in Speech Therapy about the teaching of PDH in the process of academic training and professional performance. This is a cross-sectional quantitative and qualitative research, carried out online via a questionnaire and made available on the Google Forms platform. Two distinct instruments were developed to be applied to undergraduate students and trained professionals in the area, each with specificities about the environment in which the participants are inserted. In the analysis of the data collected, it can be seen that professionals and students believe that the content of the PDH deserves more emphasis and deepening during graduation. The importance of the discipline linked to better professional performance was pointed out by 95% of the professionals surveyed and 99.6% of the students. Additionally, among those surveyed, 90.2% of the professionals and 85.6% of the students showed interest in taking specialization courses in PDH, in order to offer better quality care to their patients. In general, it is perceived that the PDH must gain more prominence within the Speech Therapy courses with regard to teaching, research and university extension, since the knowledge of the PDH is extremely important in the performance of the professional speech therapist.