A recipe to avoid disaster: Harnessing the power of the Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System (RTSS) to make neuro-intervention plans easy-to-follow and easy-to-explain.
Tracks
3
Acquired brain injury/traumatic brain injury (ABI/TBI)
Adolescent
Adult
Aphasia
Apraxia
Cognition
Cognitive communication
Collaboration
Complex communication needs (CCN)
Comprehension
Dementia
Dysarthria
Dysphagia
Executive functioning
Expressive language
Head injury
Interprofessional collaborative practice
Motor speech
Neurological disorders
Oral language
Practice (clinical) education
Pragmatic language
Quality improvement
Reading
Reading comprehension
Receptive language
Social communication
Stroke
Therapy
| Saturday, June 14, 2025 |
| 1:30 PM - 1:40 PM |
Overview
Justine Hamilton
Details
⏫ Peer-led dialogue
⏲️ 1.30pm - 2.30pm
⌛60-minutes
📚 Assumed knowledge of attendees: Intermediate (Some previous learning/working knowledge of topic e.g. treated a few cases)
⏲️ 1.30pm - 2.30pm
⌛60-minutes
📚 Assumed knowledge of attendees: Intermediate (Some previous learning/working knowledge of topic e.g. treated a few cases)
Presenter
Ms Justine Hamilton
Cental Queensland University
A recipe to avoid disaster: Harnessing the power of the Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System (RTSS) to make neuro-intervention plans easy-to-follow and easy-to-explain.
1:30 PM - 2:30 PMPresentation summary
Neurorehabilitation is, by its nature, complex. Add to this a lack of clarity in describing exactly what speech pathologists do and sprinkle in poor interprofessional understanding of interventions (Hamilton et al., 2022), and we have a recipe that results in clients, colleagues, and funders having a decidedly poor understanding of what we are doing and why.
Most speech pathologists are familiar with the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF; World Health Organization [WHO], 2001). The ICF ensures clinicians consider all aspects of a client when identifying areas of need, in other words, when determining the “what” of intervention. What it doesn’t do is elucidate the “how” of intervention. The Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System (RTSS; Hart et al., 2019) fills this gap.
This session will introduce attendees to three key elements in the RTSS: targets, aims, and ingredients. Targets and aims provide much-needed clarity on the concept of “goals” (short- vs long-term) so that speech pathologists and interprofessional team members have a shared understanding of exactly what the client hopes to achieve and when. Ingredients are the actions, words, and objects used by clinicians to help a client move toward achieving their goals. Until the advent of the RTSS, ingredients were rarely and usually only generically described, resulting in significant difficulties in transferring client care, teaching students how to carry out interventions, and communicating effectively within interprofessional teams.
Specifying aims, targets, and ingredients is a crucial step toward removing ambiguity and increasing transparency within neurorehabilitation. This skill-building session will progress attendees from understanding these concepts and the rationale for their use, to applying them when formulating goals and intervention plans. This will be a hands-on workshopping session to provide attendees with a recipe for success when utilising the new concepts in their own clinical practices.
Most speech pathologists are familiar with the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF; World Health Organization [WHO], 2001). The ICF ensures clinicians consider all aspects of a client when identifying areas of need, in other words, when determining the “what” of intervention. What it doesn’t do is elucidate the “how” of intervention. The Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System (RTSS; Hart et al., 2019) fills this gap.
This session will introduce attendees to three key elements in the RTSS: targets, aims, and ingredients. Targets and aims provide much-needed clarity on the concept of “goals” (short- vs long-term) so that speech pathologists and interprofessional team members have a shared understanding of exactly what the client hopes to achieve and when. Ingredients are the actions, words, and objects used by clinicians to help a client move toward achieving their goals. Until the advent of the RTSS, ingredients were rarely and usually only generically described, resulting in significant difficulties in transferring client care, teaching students how to carry out interventions, and communicating effectively within interprofessional teams.
Specifying aims, targets, and ingredients is a crucial step toward removing ambiguity and increasing transparency within neurorehabilitation. This skill-building session will progress attendees from understanding these concepts and the rationale for their use, to applying them when formulating goals and intervention plans. This will be a hands-on workshopping session to provide attendees with a recipe for success when utilising the new concepts in their own clinical practices.
Refrences
Hamilton, J., Sohlberg, M.M., & Turkstra, L. (2022) Opening the black box of cognitive rehabilitation: Integrating the ICF, RTSS, and PIE. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/1460-6984.12774
Hart, T., Dijkers, M.P., Whyte, J., Turkstra, L.S., Zanca, J.M., Packel, A. & et al. (2019) A Theory-driven system for the specification of
rehabilitation treatments. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 100(1), 172–180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2018.09.109
Mashima, P.A., Waldron-Perrine, B., MacLennan, D., Sohlberg, M.M., Perla, L.Y. & Eapen, B.C. (2021) Interprofessional collaborative management of postconcussion cognitive symptoms. American Journal of Speech–Language Pathology, 30(4), 1598–1610.
Sohlberg, M.M., Hamilton, J. & Turkstra, L.S. (2023). Transforming cognitive rehabilitation: effective instructional methods. New York: Guilford Publications, Inc.
World Health Organization (2001) International classification of functioning, disability and health. Retrieved from Geneva:
Hart, T., Dijkers, M.P., Whyte, J., Turkstra, L.S., Zanca, J.M., Packel, A. & et al. (2019) A Theory-driven system for the specification of
rehabilitation treatments. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 100(1), 172–180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmr.2018.09.109
Mashima, P.A., Waldron-Perrine, B., MacLennan, D., Sohlberg, M.M., Perla, L.Y. & Eapen, B.C. (2021) Interprofessional collaborative management of postconcussion cognitive symptoms. American Journal of Speech–Language Pathology, 30(4), 1598–1610.
Sohlberg, M.M., Hamilton, J. & Turkstra, L.S. (2023). Transforming cognitive rehabilitation: effective instructional methods. New York: Guilford Publications, Inc.
World Health Organization (2001) International classification of functioning, disability and health. Retrieved from Geneva:
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Justine Hamilton is a grassroots educator and researcher who just loves meaningful goal writing, effective outcome measurement, client-centred interprofessional engagement, and efficient assessment and treatment of cognitive and communication disorders secondary to acquired brain injury. Justine initially worked in hospital-based neurorehabilitation and then opened a private practice, which grew to three locations and 15 staff. In 2017, Justine made the move to academia to help develop and launch North America’s first problem-based learning program in speech-Language Pathology at McMaster University in Canada. Justine received the highest award for speech pathologists in Ontario, the Honours of the Association, as well as the prestigious President’s Award for Outstanding Contributions to Teaching and Learning from McMaster University. Justine is now the Head of Course for Speech Pathology at Central Queensland University. She is a co-author of the highly acclaimed textbook “Transforming Cognitive Rehabilitation: Effective Instructional Methods”, released in January 2023.
The information contained in this program is current at of the time of publishing but is subject to changes made without notice.
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