The speech-language pathology department hosted its 24th Annual Spring Conference at the Monroe Civic Center. This year’s conference provided information about pediatrics in speech-language pathology.

The speaker was renowned SLP Dr. Joan C. Arvedson from the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. Arvedson specializes in and spoke about pediatric feeding and swallowing services.

Arvedson explained the complex process of swallowing. She said swallowing is difficult for a child because they can barely do it on their own.

Junior Sara Evans said, “I got useful information on how to hold kids up when feeding them.”

Junior Holly Hendrix found the conference educational and interesting. Hendrix said, “I really enjoyed learning about feeding and swallowing because it’s something we haven’t covered yet in our classes.”

During the conference, Arvedson showed a video of an infant swallowing on an X-ray. She asked the audience, “Did you see when the baby aspirates? He’s swallowing too much.” Aspiration occurs when food or fluid enters the airway below the vocal chords. Using radiology for swallowing helps check and pin-point childrens’ problem areas.

Arvedson also talked about how to deal with children who have dysphagia, or difficulty in swallowing. She said that helping a screaming child eat is not easy, but using thicker or thinner liquids can help improve the child’s ability to swallow.

“The presentation showed us how to control those situations properly,” said junior Rachel Gill. “It gives us progressed, non-progressed and graduates a chance to learn the things we will be doing later on.”

Gill said she also learned how to better help patients with swallowing.