NEWS VOICES: Speech-language pathology students lead inclusive cooking classes

Hello and welcome to News Voices, your weekly look behind the scenes at WVIA News. I'm Sarah Sinto. Thanks for joining us. Organizations all over Northeast Pennsylvania focus on making life more accessible for people with disabilities. WVIA's Lydia McFarlane recently spent some time in the kitchen with one of those organizations, and she's here to tell us all about it. Hi, Lydia. Hey, Sarah. Thanks for having me. Of course, thank you for being here. So you recently went to an inclusive cooking class. Can you tell us a bit about what that is? Yeah, absolutely. So students from the University of Scranton's Speech Language Pathology Master's program used these inclusive cooking classes as part of their clinical experience. So they were hosted, like you said, at Coffee Inclusive, and the students communicated with people of all different abilities to make different recipes this summer. Okay, so how does speech language pathology factor into something like cooking? Yeah, so I talked to one of the students, Julia Gallo, and she said it's really great experience for them as students because people communicate in all different ways. So some of the people that attended the classes used American Sign Language, so they were learning how to communicate with folks that were not verbal, people that needed a little bit more direction, and again, signing back and forth to some of the people in the classes and getting everyone to talk to each other together to achieve that goal of making. whatever it was that they were focusing the recipe on that class. So what were they focusing on the class that you went to? So the class I went to was celebrating America's 250th birthday. So it was a red, white, and blue theme. So they made red, white, and blue pancakes as well as a festive drink using blue Gatorade, cherry juice, and Sprite to make it red, white, and blue and festive. That sounds really good. So, like you said, this was at Coffee Inclusive, and they're going to be continuing this right after the students move on. So how is that going to work? Yeah, so the class I went to was the last of the series with the University of Scranton students. But they will be resuming these inclusive cooking classes in August. So it will be the once a month, every month, for 18 months starting, like I said, in August. And they will be led by a barista at coffee inclusive named Brian Boston, who actually has his culinary degree from LCCC. So from what you saw, How do these classes achieve this goal of making cooking more accessible or teaching cooking to people with disabilities, with varying disabilities, like you said? Absolutely. So they were really molding the class to each participant. So depending on what their abilities were, you know, they might have made things easier when it comes to holding some of the tools, maybe given different directions. based on, you know, everyone's ability level. But, you know, the students were really one-on-one with each of the participants, just making sure that they were going through each step. They understood what was going on. And if they were having trouble with something, they were right there to help. Any examples that you noticed while you were there? And again, the ASL example, like some people were nonverbal or hard of hearing. So the students were right there to help them if they...

didn't understand or grasp the instructions that were given to the group. All right, so after all of that, the pancakes are made, the drinks are ready to be served. How was the food? I didn't get to try the pancakes, but I did have one of the festive beverages, and I'm definitely going to add the recipe to my recipe book for the holidays because it was really delicious and red, white, and blue. Mm-hmm. And Coffee Inclusive does a lot of different things like this, and you've covered them quite a bit, yeah? Yeah, absolutely. They are a place that employs people with disabilities, so all of their baristas and chefs are varying abilities, and they always host events like this just to make sure everyone feels included and is learning these real-life skills. Okay, well, Lydia, thank you so much for your coverage. I'm a little sad you didn't bring us some pancakes, but that's okay. And we'll see you again next time. Thanks, Sarah.