What books will help me prep for SALT MSc?

Hi, I have applied for the speech and language therapy msc, and was wondering if you could give some interview tips, and some advice as I am quite nervous, and any information about some of the questions they may ask would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

Hi and thanks for reading.
I've just been accepted onto the City & St. George's Speech & Language Therapy MSc. course for 2026 entry (woohoo!)
A question for current students - what are the books and resources you've found most useful?
I'm keen to make a start now as I am not familiar with related subjects and am a mature student, so would like to get stuck in before the course starts.
Thank you in advance!!

Good to know I am not going to be the only mature student in the course! I'm after the same info, I'll write here if I discover anything.

Mature student here too!

How old are you saying as mature as I feel like it's such a broad range? 😂

Over 25 of course! and double that in my case... Also shows in my immunisation records, which are proving hard to find, ha ha! My teenagers say I am truly ancient (actually, they said, do you realise some of your fellow students will be young enough to be your kids? To which I answered, if I were doing the BSc, they'd be young enough to be my grandkids! They paled at the thought 🤣

How old are you saying as mature as I feel like it's such a broad range? 😂

Over 25 of course! and double that in my case... Also shows in my immunisation records, which are proving hard to find, ha ha! My teenagers say I am truly ancient (actually, they said, do you realise some of your fellow students will be young enough to be your kids? To which I answered, if I were doing the BSc, they'd be young enough to be my grandkids! They paled at the thought 🤣

Hi and thanks for reading.
I've just been accepted onto the City & St. George's Speech & Language Therapy MSc. course for 2026 entry (woohoo!)
A question for current students - what are the books and resources you've found most useful?
I'm keen to make a start now as I am not familiar with related subjects and am a mature student, so would like to get stuck in before the course starts.
Thank you in advance!!

I get the enthusiasm but I would recommend just enjoying your 'time off' before the course starts as it is very intense.
If you desperately want to read something then it is quite tricky as no one book covers everything and each lecturer will have their own preference for certain approaches/books even for key topics (e.g. anatomy, child development, linguistics, phonetics, research methods). Somebody asked me a similar question on social media recently and I recommended Hilari and Botting's The Impact of Communication Disability Across the Lifespan. It basically introduces you to lots of developmental and acquired conditions and talks about the psychosocial impact it has on the person themselves and their friends/family. It is something that will be useful on all of your clinical modules.
If you have a particular area you want to focus in on just let me know and I will recommend something.

This is helpful for me, thank you. Is there anything you would recommend for anatomy?

This book seems to be universally recommended on most courses. It was written by two UK professors who taught speech and language therapy students so all of the case studies / clinical examples are relevant to us.
https://www.jr-press.co.uk/product/basic-medical-science-speech-language-therapy-students/
I was taught by one of the authors and find it a bit wordy to be honest. I prefer the diagrams etc. used in Gray's Anatomy for Students but obviously this is targeted towards medical students so large chunks of the book are obviously less relevant.
Anatomy is one of those subjects you will probably need to dip into a few books / resources to see style you prefer, especially neuroanatomy.

SLT / lecturer here.
I have had a couple of students older than 50 if that makes you feel any better. On a MSc course you will fit right in as everyone is a mature student and lots of people have worked, some have children, and people are retraining etc..

I get the enthusiasm but I would recommend just enjoying your 'time off' before the course starts as it is very intense.
If you desperately want to read something then it is quite tricky as no one book covers everything and each lecturer will have their own preference for certain approaches/books even for key topics (e.g. anatomy, child development, linguistics, phonetics, research methods). Somebody asked me a similar question on social media recently and I recommended Hilari and Botting's The Impact of Communication Disability Across the Lifespan. It basically introduces you to lots of developmental and acquired conditions and talks about the psychosocial impact it has on the person themselves and their friends/family. It is something that will be useful on all of your clinical modules.
If you have a particular area you want to focus in on just let me know and I will recommend something.

thank you for the anatomy book suggestion. Is there anything for an introduction to the Phonetics, Phonology & Linguistics module? while I can pick the other biomedical subjects quite easily with my background, this module is entirely new to me.

This is stressing me out, is it really necessary to do reading prior to the courses? I don't want to go and be behind but also I'm not really in a position to do anything before I start 😭 I have the same concerns as you around learning and picking things up as my academic background is very different

This is stressing me out, is it really necessary to do reading prior to the courses? I don't want to go and be behind but also I'm not really in a position to do anything before I start 😭 I have the same concerns as you around learning and picking things up as my academic background is very different