Speak Out June 2018

Branch News

Speech Pathology in Schools workshop

WA

The Speech Pathology Australia WA Branch School Aged Project Working Party members were pleased to see the delivery of Speech Pathology in Schools workshops held at Trinity on Hampden on 9 and 10 March. Following on from the SPA Branch Advocacy Workshops held in Perth in April, 2017, the School Age Project Working Party has been meeting regularly to progress outcomes related to improving access and outcomes for school aged children with speech and language difficulties. Our first step was to support the speech pathology workforce in delivering evidence-based, best practice services to school-aged children through whole school service delivery. During our initial planning phase, we liaised with SPA National Office and were fortunate to link up with National Advisor Mary Gornik, who remained involved throughout the planning and delivery process. Mary has been responsible for the development of the SPA Speech Pathology in Schools (2017) document, which provided the theory and evidence behind the workshops and is a freely available resource for speech pathologists wishing to support engagement and participation of school-aged children with communication difficulties. The workshops were co-facilitated by Laura Glisson who is a speech pathologist with the Department of Education Speech and Language Outreach Team, Pamela Thuan a speech pathologist working in Education in Victorian Schools and Rosemary Simpson who has been principal of the North East Language Development Centre. The workshops were attended by 64 speech pathologists from a range of service areas including private practice (35), education (11), health (7), disability/NGO (8) and universities (3). Attendance by private practitioners was especially pleasing, given their potential for working within school environments to support children with speech/language needs who may have no other means of access. The program covered a huge amount of content in each single day workshop with electronic handouts and resources provided to

enable participants to continue with their own self-directed learning and capacity building. Participants were provided with a thorough overview of the current state of play with regards to speech pathology services for school age children and the supports available within the education system. The curriculum resources used by teachers as well as the data sets used to evaluate students and their outcomes were also presented. Considerable detail was given to analysing the intervention models used by both teachers and speech pathologists. Of particular interest were the Response to Intervention (RTI) model, explicit teaching and John Hattie's visible learning principles. Participants were presented with clear examples of school-based models and programs which aligned with best practice intervention principles to achieve positive student outcomes. Pamela Thuan's overview of her work with socially disadvantaged children in a Victorian school was particularly encouraging. Her presentation, complete with DVD teaching examples and detailed outcomes data, clearly demonstrated the significant and long term benefits of integrating speech, language and communication goals into the whole school setting. The key message for speech pathologists attending these workshops was well supported by the evidence presented. School-based speech pathology services delivered using a facilitative and consultative approach achieve positive outcomes for the greatest number of students in need. With an estimated 5–7% of school-aged children presenting with significant speech/language difficulties and developmental language disorder the profession needs to actively build relationships and capacity to achieve effective integration of speech, language and communication goals into school environments. The workshop was recorded and will be available as a webinar along with the electronic resources and links to additional DVD footage of speech pathology service delivery in schools and classrooms.

WA 970 members as at May 2018

Speech Pathology in Schools

A resource to support engagement and participation of students with speech , language and communication needs in schools.

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SpeechPathologyAustralia:SpeechPathology inSchoolsProject

Jodi Lipscombe Policy and Advocacy Portfolio Lead SPA Branch Executive

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June 2018 www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au

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