I’ve found 24 podcasts that you may enjoy if you’re a medical speech-language pathologist (SLP) who works with adults. Podcasts have become very popular, and it’s easy to see why. They’re usually free, vary in length, are easy to find, and cover an amazing range of topics. I’ve mentioned before that I listen to podcasts and other audio during my workday (all the time, really).
NOTE: Here is an updated blog post: 51 podcasts for medical SLPs
Free DIRECT download: 24 podcasts for adult medical SLPs (cheat sheet). (Email subscribers get free access to all the resources in the Free Subscription Library.)
I’ve given a brief description of each podcast and it’s website (if there is one). In addition, I also noted if the podcast is available on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, SoundCloud, and/or Spotify. If the website’s listed other places, I’ve tried to include them here.
Outline:
- Augmentative & Alternative Communication (AAC).
- Acquired brain injury.
- Dementia.
- Geriatric topics.
- Parkinson’s disease.
- Podcasts that cover multiple SLP skill areas.
- Pure SLP fun.
- SLPs talking about business.
- SLPs talking about life.
- Swallowing.
- Tell us what you’re listening to!
Augmentative & Alternative Communication (AAC)
The University of Massachusetts Amherst produces the AccessAbilities Podcast. Kelsey Hall and Josh Pearson host the podcast which features interviews with experts in the fields of AT and AAC, as well as reviews of products. The monthly episodes generally run around an hour, which you can find on iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and TuneIn. The final episode aired 4.10.19.
Talking with Tech AAC Podcast features three SLPs (Rachel Madel, Lucas Steuber, and Chris Bugaj) who discuss issues in helping people communicate with AAC. I’ve listened to several episodes, and while they focus on young users who are acquiring language, they do include information relevant for adult users of AAC. The length of the episodes ranges from half an hour to an hour, and you can find them on their Podbean page, iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher.
Acquired brain injury
ANCDS Podcasts is from the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences. This podcast series features interviews with researchers and clinicians, including Professors Margaret Lehman Blake, McKay Moore Sohlberg, Leanne Togher, and Julie Wambaugh. Topics include treating aphasia, apraxia of speech, cognition, and right hemisphere impairment. Episodes are around one hour, and you can find them on the website, iTunes, SoundCloud, Spotify, and Stitcher.
Aphasia Access Conversations podcast features interviews with professionals who are dedicated to supporting Life Participation programs for people living with aphasia. Guests include SLPs and professors such as Roberta Elman, Darla Hagge, Audrey Holland, Aura Kagan, Nina Simmons Mackie, Barbara Shadden, and Linda Worrall. Episodes last roughly half an hour, which you can find on the website and in iTunes.
Stroke survivors and caregivers are producing the Hand in Hand Show: A Strokefocus Podcast. The show includes interviews with people living with stroke or Traumatic Brain Injury, as well as people bringing services to the community world-wide. The episodes are roughly half an hour, and you can find them on the website, iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher.
Dementia
The Dementia Caregiver Talkshow podcast is hosted by JoAnn Westbrook and Valerie Feurich of the Pines of Sarasota Education & Training Institute. While JoAnn and Valerie direct their conversation and teaching towards family caregivers, I’ve learned quite a bit of helpful information. I recommend this podcast to all my families dealing with dementia. Episodes generally run 20 to 30 minutes, which you can find on their website, iTunes, and Stitcher.
Dementia Matters Podcast is produced by the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and hosted by medical doctor Nathaniel Chin. Each episode is a chat with an expert in the research community. Episodes run about 15 minutes. You can find the podcast on their website, iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify, and Stitcher.
The Dementia Research podcast is produced by the National Institute for Health Research in the UK. The NIHR publishes new episodes every other week which feature discussions on a variety of dementia-related topics. I haven’t listened to this one yet, but I’m going to start with the 9/24/18 episode “Communication training for people with language led dementia (primary progressive aphasia).” Episodes run about half an hour, which you can find on their website, iTunes, SoundCloud, and Spotify.
Geriatric topics
The End of Life University podcast publishes weekly interviews covering a wide range of topics related to living well, palliative and hospice care, and dealing with grief. Karen Wyatt, hospice physician and educator, hosts the podcast. Dr. Wyatt also hosts a monthly book club, with recorded discussions available. Episodes vary between 30 and 80 minutes, and you can find episodes on the website (plus show notes), iTunes, and Stitcher.
The Seniors Flourish Podcast is hosted by Mandy Chamberlain, Occupational Therapist. Mandy created this podcast to help professionals who work with older adults find resources and learn strategies. Depending on your setting, there may or may not be overlap between what SLPs and OTs actually do. But I think we can learn a lot from OTs that apply to our interactions with older adults. Episodes run between 20 to 70 minutes, which you can find on the website (with show notes), iTunes, Stitcher, and SoundCloud.
Parkinson’s disease
The Michael J Fox Foundation Parkinson’s Podcast features discussions with experts, clinicians, and people living with Parkinson’s. Episodes are published twice a month and tend to be under 10 minutes, but some last half an hour. You can find the episodes on the website and iTunes.
The Davis Phinney Foundation for Parkinson’s publishes a weekly podcast called The Parkinson’s Podcast. Each episode features a different expert talking about a wide variety of issues related to Parkinson’s. Episodes run around half an hour, and you can find them on the website (with show notes), as well as iTunes, Stitcher, and SoundCloud.
The Parkinson’s Foundation produces the bi-weekly Parkinson’s: Substantial Matters podcast. Dan Keller, PhD, interviews experts in the field of Parkinson’s research and treatment. The podcast is directed towards people living with Parkinson’s disease and their families. Episodes are roughly 15 minutes long, and you can find them on the website, iTunes, TuneIn, and Google Play.
Podcasts that cover multiple skill areas
FOXcast SLP podcast is produced by clinicians working at FOX Rehabilitation specifically for SLPs working with older adults. FOXcast is a weekly podcast, but alternates between PT, OT, and SLP. Episodes are short and run around 10-15 minutes. You can find them on the website (with show notes), iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher.
The SLP-Minded Podcast is the brain child of Megan Nosol, who you may know from the ARK-J Program for treating trismus and the Speech Therapy Toolkit. This interview-style podcast delves into the research for adult medical SLPs, including aphasia, dysphagia, speech, voice, and cognition as well as clinical supervision and counseling. Resources and references accompany each episode including future episodes, and Megan invites us to read the research before listening to the episode. This monthly podcast started airing in October and episodes vary in length from 35 minutes to 1:20 in length. You can find the podcast on Castbox, SoundCloud, or PodBean.
The Speech Science Podcast features a weekly round-table discussion among four SLPs: Matt Hott, Michael McLeoud, Michelle Wintering, and Lucas Steuber. They also interview people who are making a difference in the lives of those living with disability or who have overcome impairments themselves. Topics include both pediatric and adult populations. Adult medical SLPs may be especially interested in the episodes touching on dementia, dysarthria, stroke recovery, and voice. Episodes range from around an hour to almost two hours. You can find the episodes on their website, iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher.
Pure SLP fun
SLP Trivia Fun is hosted by Erik X. Raj and features a game show set-up where he and an SLP guest (or two) have fun answering trivia questions and talking shop. Episodes run around half an hour, and you can find them on the website, iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher.
SLPs talking about business
Jena Castro-Casbon is a private practice SLP who interviews other SLP private practice owners to share their success stories and lessons learned in the Private Practice Success Stories podcast. Episodes vary in length, but generally run 25 to 45 minutes. You can find the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Stitcher.
Kyle Meades is a private practice SLP who hosts the monthly PrivateSLP podcast. Episodes vary in length, roughly between 10 and 40 minutes. You can find the podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher.
Lisa Kathman and Sarah Bevier are two school-based SLPs who are documenting their journey in setting up and running their own business with True Confessions with Lisa & Sarah. This is an ongoing podcast series by the two school-based SLPs who’ve created the SLP Toolkit. Sessions vary in length and seem to be getting longer as they go along, starting off around half an hour with the most recent being around an hour. This podcast is available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.
SLPs talking about life
Two west coast SLPs, Sarah Lockhart and Sarie Wu, share helpful, practical work and life management tips and strategies on the SLP Happy Hour. Sarah owns her own private practice and works short-term school-based travel assignments, and Sarie works in the school setting with kids aged five to 21. I chatted with them briefly when we shared a lunch table at the ASHA convention, and they’re as friendly and as nice as they are on the podcast. Episodes generally last around 30 to 45 minutes, which you can find on their website (with show notes), iTunes, and Stitcher.
Two SLPs from New York City, Deborah Brooks and Maria Kotsonis, talk about work and life on the SLPs Wine and Cheese Podcast. Deb and Maria both work in the schools, and Deb works per diem in a skilled nursing home. Although most of the therapy-related talk is about working with children, I’ve gotten some useful tips for working with adults. But the major reason I like this podcast is that they talk frankly about life and how to manage time, stress, and relationships while working as SLPs. Episodes generally run for around an hour, and you can find them on iTunes and Stitcher.
Swallowing
Down the Hatch – The Swallowing Podcast captures lively conversations between Professor Ianessa Humbert and PhD student Alicia Vose discussing controversial issues in swallowing assessment and treatment. Occasional guests include Professor Catriona Steele, Rinki Varindani Desai SLP, physical therapy professor Leonardo Ferreira, and neurologist Dr. Michael Okun. Episodes last around one hour, and you can find them on their website, iTunes, and SoundCloud.
Swallow Your Pride Podcast features Theresa Richard, owner of Mobile Dysphagia Diagnostics and Board Certified Specialist in Swallowing. Theresa interviews a different expert in swallowing with occasional forays into other SLP-related topics. Guests have included Ed Bice, Martin Brodsky, Edgar Vincent Clark, James Coyle, Paula Leslie, Yvette McCoy, Megan Nosol, Catriona Steele, Debra Suiter, Tiffani Wallace, and so many more. Episodes vary in length, from around half an hour to 1.25 hours. You can find the podcast on their website, iTunes, Google play, and Stitcher.
Tell us what you’re listening to!
I’d love to hear what your favorite work-related podcasts are, as well as your just-for-fun podcasts.
Free DIRECT download: 24 podcasts for adult medical SLPs (cheat sheet). (Email subscribers get free access to all the resources in the Free Subscription Library.)
Photo by Matt Botsford on Unsplash.
Lisa earned her M.A. in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Maryland, College Park and her M.A. in Linguistics from the University of California, San Diego.
She participated in research studies with the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) and the University of Maryland in the areas of aphasia, Parkinson’s Disease, epilepsy, and fluency disorders.
Lisa has been working as a medical speech-language pathologist since 2008. She has a strong passion for evidence-based assessment and therapy, having earned five ASHA Awards for Professional Participation in Continuing Education.
She launched EatSpeakThink.com in June 2018 to help other clinicians be more successful working in home health, as well as to provide strategies and resources to people living with problems eating, speaking, or thinking.
The Easter Seals has 3 assistive tech podcasts: Assistive Technology FAQ, Accessibility Minute, and Assistive Technology Update.
https://www.eastersealstech.com/on-air/assistive-technology-update-podcast/
Speech Uncensored Pocast (SUP) launched March 2019.
And you can earn CEUs!
New episodes live and interactive every Monday evening at 5:00pm PDT (8pm EDT)
https://www.speechuncensored.com/
SLPs of Color podcast is another great one! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/slps-of-color/id1481932624
ASHA Voices started with their first full episode on September 12, 2019. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/asha-voices/id1478037013
Here is a new podcast from two SLP professors, “Sunday Dinner with Dr. Stanford & Dr. Davis” with 6 episodes out so far talking about “true stories of the intersectionality between cognitive and communication disorders and involvement with the criminal justice system.”
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sunday-dinner-with-dr-stanford-dr-davis/id1550686701
I found these ASHA ethics podcast valuable. There are others but as a Med SLP, this one was very relevant for me.
https://ethics.fireside.fm/9
That’s great, thanks for sharing!
The Rural SLP Podcast – designed for SLPs who work in multiple locations. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rural-slp/id1594866314