Speak Out April 2017 low res FINAL

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26 Speak Out June 2017
Student
Speech
Pathologist Family
School
Suggestions you provided regarding best
practice in schools were:
• Engaging with school leadership is essential as is working
collaboratively and respectfully with teachers.
• Working within the class and with teachers as much as
possible is highly recommended and minimises withdrawal of
students. If this does need to occur then an agent of change
needs to be present and trained.
• Speech pathologists need to be part of the staff, be available
to plan with teachers and to integrate the student’s speech
and language needs into the curriculum. They must also train
and monitor the support staff who work with the students.
• Resources for therapy should come from the teachers
embedding your recommendations into class programs and be
linked to school topics.
• It is important to build the knowledge and capacity of the
teachers through education, demonstration, team teaching,
etc. so that they can develop and generalise these skills not
only for your student but for the whole class.
• Try not to think in a medical model; look at participation
and functionality. Don’t assume teachers know what you
are talking about because often they know very little about
communication disorders.
• Respect professional boundaries, set realistic expectations,
know the school’s timetable and work with what is possible.
• Consider “who is my client?” Is the client the school,
the parent, the student or the teacher? This helps to
frame expectations and negotiations as well as workload
management.
Speech Pathology Australia thanks all respondents for their time,
information and suggestions about working in schools. These
results will be used to generate a number of recommendations
to the SPA Board and we will inform you of updates in the next
edition.
Mary Gornik
Senior Project Officer
Speech Pathology in Schools
Respect professional
boundaries, set realistic
expectations, know
the school’s timetable
and work with what is
possible.