Speak Out Dec 2016

Clinical guidelines for SPs working in the literacy domain Speech Pathology Australia commissioned the preparation of clinical guidelines in literacy for the benefit of association members.

likely to face some challenges when seeking to work in the literacy domain, these guidelines were designed with two key foci: (i) as a practice document to guide speech pathology practice based on the best available evidence, and (ii) as a framework to assist with advocating for an established role as part of a literacy support team. At a practice-based level, the guidelines adopt a framework for working at various levels which include: prevention to reduce the risk of later difficulty in learning to become literate; strategies to promote strong oral language competencies and emergent literacy; assessment – from screening to detailed analysis and intervention – from young children who do not make a strong start learning to read and spell, through to secondary students who experience difficulty in any aspect of literacy. Difficulties may include poor word decoding, poor reading comprehension, poor spelling and/or poor extended written language or narrative. The clinical guidelines also explore and appraise the evidence for various service delivery models that reach well beyond the traditional one-to-one approach. With respect to the importance of acknowledging the quality of evidence (Sackett, Rosenberg, Gray, Haynes, & Richardson, 1996), the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines were referred to throughout the clinical guidelines when appraising the evidence for clinically oriented content. At a systems-based level, the clinical guidelines provide some strategies to assist speech pathologists to advocate to undertake a greater role in establishing and supporting literacy initiatives. This component of the clinical guidelines relied on some of the existing literature combined with experiences and reflections among working party members for this clinical guideline. In May 2016, the working party presented a workshop reporting on a draft version of the clinical guidelines at the Speech

Given the increasing focus for many speech pathologists supporting children and adolescents with reading, spelling and writing difficulty – collectively known as literacy – Speech Pathology Australia commissioned the preparation of clinical guidelines in literacy for the benefit of Association members. The aims of these clinical guidelines were to explore and document the scope of practice for speech pathologists in the literacy domain, to discuss models of service delivery, and importantly, to appraise the evidence for our practices. Dr Tanya Serry, PhD, a senior lecturer in the Discipline of Speech Pathology at La Trobe University in Victoria, was appointed as the project officer in 2015 to lead this project. On the eve of the release of these clinical guidelines for speech pathologists working in the literacy domain, Tanya reported on the journey of establishing a working party and creating the guidelines. Following Tanya’s appointment to lead the project, she called for expressions of interest from within the speech pathology community to form a working party to develop the clinical guidelines. Eleven speech pathologists were assigned and they represented private practitioners, school-based speech pathologists and academics from many states in Australia. The working party members are listed below. Clinical guidelines for speech pathologists working in literacy is timely based on recent evidence from Australia and the USA, describing a complex landscape for us to be fully engaged in supporting children and adolescents with poor literacy (Fallon & Katz, 2011; Katz, Fallon, DiDonato, & Van Der Linden, 2006; Serry, 2013; Snow, 2009). The training that speech pathologists receive for entry-level into the profession makes us well-equipped to work in literacy support given the fact that reading and related literacy-based activities are underpinned by oral language competencies. Taking into account the fact that speech pathologists are suitably equipped, yet are

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December 2016 www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au

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