Essay

Pages 4 and 5 of this handout contain a made-up description of a person that may have a language pathology. Please write an essay that diagnoses this pathology and recommends a plan of treatment or management, with supporting references for both.

Your essay should address these two major points (though your essay does not need to be structured like these points):

1. Does this person have a language pathology? If so, what is that pathology?
   1. Please explain what details of the description made you decide on your diagnosis (and against others, if applicable).
   2. Please find and cite academic references (books or research articles, ideally) that support your diagnosis.
2. What (if anything) should be done about this person’s language pathology?
   1. Please give details for any interventions that you suggest. For example:

1. Surgery: What type, and what are the risks?
2. Medication: What kind(s)?

• Speech and language therapy: What type(s) or approach(es), with what methods and goals, and how often?

1. Augmentative and assistive communication: Which device(s) and/or method(s)?
2. Physical therapy: What methods and goals, and how often?

Note that you may not need all of these options, and that you may need other options not listed here. These are intended merely as illustrating examples.

1. 1. Please find and cite academic references (books or research articles, ideally) that support your plan of treatment or management.

Your essay must not be longer than 4,000 words. Anything shorter is absolutely fine, as long as it’s complete. This word count excludes bibliographies, tables, graphs, charts, and appendices. Please give a word count on the first or last page of the essay.

Please format your references according to the Harvard style guidelines available on Blackboard.

You may submit a draft of your essay to get feedback from me. This draft is voluntary – if you only want to submit one finished essay, you can do that. If you want to submit a draft for feedback, please submit it as a Word document via Turnitin on Blackboard by Thursday 17^th of December 2020 16.00 pm.

I will mark drafts and essays anonymously, to rule out any bias. Do not put your name, ID number, email or other address, or any other identifying information in the file you submit. Blackboard/Turnitin will keep track of who submitted what.

All submissions will be checked for plagiarism using Turnitin, and significant plagiarism will be handled according to UCLan’s policies on cheating. Marks and feedback will be available via Turnitin as well, but please feel free to ask me for them in a different format if you like.

If these instructions are unclear, if you have any problems with or questions about your essay, or if you need an extension, you can email me at MKyriacou9@uclan.ac.uk to ask questions or set up a meeting for a time that’s convenient for you;

Marking criteria

This assignment will be marked using banded marking as per Section 2.1.8 of the Assessment Handbook 2019. When marking, I will take all of the following points into account. The final mark is always a balance between them, and these criteria are not a checklist – I will be using my professional academic judgement to decide the most appropriate mark for each essay.

I expect your essays to diagnose the patient’s pathology with references to literature that are included in a bibliography, and recommend treatment. I also expect that the essays are in grammatically correct academic English, and that they reference all sources in the Harvard style as detailed in the guidelines on Blackboard.

First-class work (marks 74, 80, 87, 94, and 100) will demonstrate clear and accurate understanding of key themes and concepts. It will demonstrate knowledge of  different types of disorders by offering a reasonable diagnosis for a patient from the description provided, reference and demonstrate understanding of appropriate literature, and reflect on the notion of disorders insightfully and critically. The recommended treatment will be appropriate for the diagnosed pathology, it will be explained well, and it will be supported by academic sources that are relevant and not outdated. The writing will be of an excellent standard, with exact adherence to the Harvard referencing style guide and only a few minor formal mistakes (spelling, punctuation, and/or grammar).

2:1-class work (marks 62, 65, and 68) will demonstrate mostly correct understanding of key themes and concepts. It will demonstrate knowledge of different types of disorders by offering a reasonable diagnosis for a patient from the description provided, reference and demonstrate understanding of appropriate literature, and reflect on the notion of disorders. The recommended treatment will be appropriate for the diagnosed pathology, it will be explained well, and it may or may not be supported by academic sources. The writing will be of a good standard, with exact adherence to the Harvard referencing style guide and only a few formal mistakes.

2:2-class work (marks 52, 55, and 58) will demonstrate acceptable, but not entirely accurate, understanding of some of the key themes and concepts. It will offer a diagnosis of a patient from the description provided, but this diagnosis may not be reasonable (because of misunderstandings or other mistakes). The work will reference some appropriate literature. The recommended treatment will be appropriate for the diagnosed pathology, but it may not be explained and/or supported by references. The writing will be of a satisfactory standard, with reasonable adherence to the Harvard referencing style guide and some formal mistakes.

Third-class work (marks 40, 42, 45, and 48) will demonstrate limited and incorrect understanding of key themes and concepts. It may or may not contain a reasonable diagnosis, and it will reference limited or inappropriate literature. The recommended treatment may or may not be appropriate for the diagnosed pathology. The writing will be sufficiently comprehensible, referencing will not follow the Harvard style guide, and there will be significant formal mistakes.

Fails (marks below 40) will be awarded to work that is incomplete, incorrect, garbled, or not submitted at all. The writing will be poor, with unstructured or no referencing and so many errors that the work is difficult to read and understand.

Alfie Keyworth

Alfie Keyworth is a 48-year-old male. He has been referred for a speech and language assessment following a series of general health and psychological examinations after a period of anxiety.

History

Alfie’s parents are of average health and do not report any relevant disorders or delays. His father died of cancer 5 years ago.

There were no problems during pregnancy and birth. Physically, Alfie developed typically as a child, but his speech was sometimes “mushy” and “difficult” (in the words of his mother). At the time, family members remarked that he sounded similar to his paternal grandmother. After a speech and language assessment at age 5, Alfie attended a school for children with speech and language difficulties.

This school (now closed) regularly assessed children on their non-verbal intelligence as well as speech and language difficulties. Throughout his time there, Alfie’s non-verbal IQ was always in the average range, between 90 and 110. His receptive and productive language skills were and are significantly below average, however. His articulation improved during his school years, and he now speaks comprehensibly (see below). Alfie was an average pupil in most subjects (except English, where he achieved below the average) and left school without taking CSE exams. He now works as a gardener and lives with his mother, paying half the rent on their house from his wages. As far as it is possible to compare current abilities to the notes from the school that Alfie’s parents still have, Alfie’s abilities do not seem to have changed much after he left school.

A detailed assessment of muscle and neuron functioning just before Alfie left school (at age 16) showed full muscle control and no neurological deficits. He never suffered serious injuries.

Present situation

Alfie is of average healthy height and weight. He has no health complaints (other than occasional colds and the like).

As noted above, Alfie can articulate English speech comprehensibly, though there are some articulation errors (without apparent systematicity). His articulatory apparatus is undamaged, and he has good control over it (for example, he can move his tongue and can raise/lower his voice when asked to). He speaks in short and grammatically simple sentences or partially agrammatic, telegraphic utterances. These are often fluent, but sometimes contain longer pauses as Alfie tries to “sort out the words” (as he describes it). He understands sentences that are longer and more complex than those he says (proven, for example, by the fact that he follows instructions accurately), but does not understand certain complex grammatical constructions. For example, Alfie seems to understand the sentence “The boy who is walking the dogs is thin” to mean that the dogs are thin.

Alfie reads and writes with difficulty. There is no difference in difficulty between reading hand-written or printed text, or between writing by hand and typing. He can do basic arithmetic and has a personal financial budget, though it’s also apparent that his mother usually helps him with many things in day-to-day life.

There is conflicting information about Alfie’s memory: Some tests have shown he cannot correctly repeat back lists of words, even if he knows and understands the individual words and even if the lists are short (3–6 words). Other tests have shown that he can remember and recognise pictures, shapes, routes, and daily routines at average or slightly above-average levels.

Alfie has few friends and has never been in an intimate/romantic relationship (in his own words, “nobody wants me”). A close friend has recently moved away across the country for a new job, which has caused some anxiety because Alfie feels his speech and language problems will make it quite hard for hi