29 / 48
Speech Pathology Australia: Speech Pathology in Schools Project
29
Role of teachers and speech pathologists
in the educational setting
Speech pathologists can play many roles
supporting the development of speech,
language, communication, literacy and
numeracy skills of primary and secondary
students. Their roles include screening,
assessing, advocating, and designing
augmentative communication equipment in
addition to providing direct intervention with
students and indirect roles of consulting,
coaching, collaborating, team teaching and
training teachers and families. In some areas,
speech pathologists also function as case
managers, team leaders, and supervisors of
speech pathology assistants.
Speech Pathology Australia:
• endorses the critical role of speech
pathologists in prevention, identification,
and management of speech, language,
fluency and literacy difficulties from infancy
to adolescents;
• advocates that speech pathologists work
collaboratively with the education team to
provide language and literacy services;
• asserts speech pathologists should use
evidence-based approaches.
Those who have developed successful speech
pathology models in secondary schools and
have experience in using them emphasise the
need for flexibility using a mixture of approaches.
It is essential that there are shared beliefs
between you as the speech pathologist and
the school’s education team that Response-
to-Intervention services support a prevention
model, provide systematic, intense, and
evidence-based prevention/intervention, and
that all students can benefit from RTI.
Collaborative partnerships
The key components (McKean et al., 2016 for
establishing collaborative partnerships with a
school in the delivery of services to students with
speech, language and communication needs
are:
• establishing an interdisciplinary approach to
working with teachers;
• demonstrating that a collaborative working
relationship between yourself and the
school will be of value to student outcomes;
• ensuring that the service delivery model is
supported by teacher engagement;
• providing collaborative in-service training
and coaching; and
• collaboration when planning and
implementing lessons.
• It is important to note the speech
pathologist and teacher can co-teach the
students in a classroom. Lessons can be
divided into teachable segments or the
class can be divided into groups with each
group receiving exposure to similar content
or one group led by the speech pathologist
receiving more support in the language
area.
Teacher-speech pathologist partnerships
are strengthened when both individuals
have attended professional development
integrating communication knowledge, with
knowledge about educational pedagogies and
the curriculum, and have the opportunities to
discuss and apply this information in their own
professional settings.
This approach requires collaboration at many
levels, including assessment, goal-setting,
planning, and implementation of intervention for
students with communication needs as well as
for students who are at risk for language and
learning problems.
Importantly, no one person or profession
has sufficient expertise to execute all of the
functions associated with providing educational
services to students with SLCN in the
classroom. By working together, an effective
speech pathologist–teacher collaboration has
the potential to support more students more
effectively in the classroom and lead to better
student outcomes.
The teacher–speech pathologist team identifies
concerns regarding student performance for
both identified students and total classroom
needs. By establishing collaborative concerns,
the team can determine relevant curricular and
speech-language goals for the whole class or
with individual students and their families. It
is imperative that a collaborative team avoid
planning activities before establishing the goals
they wish to achieve.
There are challenges to establishing speech
pathology–teacher collaborations as well.
Ideally we need to assist teachers to achieve a
shared understanding of your respective roles
and expertise as a necessary and first step to
building a collaborative relationship. Teachers