Are Australian speech-language therapists working in the literacy domain with children and adolescents? If not,why not?

Abstract

A cross-sectional online survey was completed by 219 speech-language therapists (SLTs) to explore their views and practices when working with children and adolescents who have literacy difficulties. They were recruited via 11 workshops hosted by Speech Pathology Australia, held across Australia and completed the survey prior to attending their respective workshop. Participants reported overwhelming support for SLTs to work with students struggling to learn literacy and supported not only a role for SLTs to work with children in the preschool years to promote readiness to learn to read at school, but also a role for services to students beyond the early years of school. While SLTs valued specific clinical and collaborative activities, a significant gap was found between their perceived feasibility of those activities and their perceived value. Results show SLTs are less confident providing written support to students than they are in providing phonological awareness and vocabulary interventions. While SLTs clearly value their role in the literacy domain, this study highlights evident gaps in preservice training in this area, as well as a need for improved SLT and teacher knowledge exchange, and collaboration in supporting children and adolescents with literacy difficulties.

Keywords

collaborative practice literacy reading difficulty scope of practice speech-language therapist

I Introduction

Learning to become literate is critical to academic achievement, vocational success and wellbeing (Snow, 2016). Competency in literacy is a process which begins from birth, with oral language and phonological skills the foundations of literacy development (Snowling and Hulme, 2012). Evidence is well-established that children with poor reading skills often have concomitant oral language difficulties (e.g. Catts et al., 2002; Stothard et al., 1998). These close links between language development and literacy skills support the vital role that speech-language therapists (SLTs) can play in the growth of literacy for children and adolescents.

SLTs have high levels of knowledge about the construct of ‘language’, which, by definition, refers to the continuum from oral to written language modalities (Snow, 2016). This means that SLTs should be well-equipped to support children and adolescents who are struggling with mastering literacy (written language) skills. However, SLTs’ role in this domain is variable and often poorly understood. In a US national survey of school-based SLTs, Fallon and Katz (2011) found that over one third of SLTs reported that they did not provide any written language services to their students with written language disorders, consistent with findings from the ASHA Schools Survey (ASHA, 2018). A qualitative study by (Serry, 2013), explored the perspectives of nine primary school-based SLTs regarding their work with low-progress readers. Semi-structured interviews revealed that SLTs face more barriers than enablers to becoming members of written language support teams in schools, including factors such as: time constraints; resistance from educational colleagues and, a theoretical divide between educators and SLTs regarding reading difficulty. This may be unsurprising, given that although inter-professional collaboration is critical, a New Zealand study of SLT students and preservice teachers demonstrated limited understanding of one another’s expertise in literacy curriculum and spoken language concepts, and are shown to demonstrate minimal knowledge of spoken-written language relationships (Wilson et al., 2015).

It is important to acknowledge the contribution that SLTs can make to the literacy domain in order to improve literacy standards internationally but specifically in Australia, where the role SLTs are able to play in working with children and adolescents with literacy difficulties has been widely unrecognized (Speech Pathology Australia, 2011) and reading performance continues to decline against international standards (Thomson et al., 2019). The limited international research exploring the extent to which SLTs have expanded their scope of practice to include a focus on literacy has been mixed (Tambyraja et al., 2014). Response to intervention (RTI), a multi-tiered approach to the identification and support of children with behaviour and learning needs, is a recent educational initiative aimed at providing children with an intensity of instruction appropriate to their individual needs (Fuchs et al., 2003; Weiss, 2013). There has been a push for SLTs to make major contributions schoolwide for students with language and literacy needs within the RTI framework (Justice, 2006; Spencer et al., 2008), but the extent to which this is occurring is not clear.

Staskowski and Zagaiski (2003) identified the most important factors of successful primary school literacy teams (i.e. SLTs collaborating with other professionals and parents), are interprofessional practice, the understanding of another’s expertise and feeling part of the group. Self-efficacy refers to a belief about what an individual can do with a set of skills and knowledge (Bandura, 1977), such that those with high self-efficacy are far more likely to attempt tasks compared to those with low self-efficacy (Pasupathy and Bogschutz, 2013). To date, there have been no reports examining SLT’s perceptions and beliefs regarding their own self-efficacy in their roles contributing to the support of children with literacy difficulties. This is critical in order to address barriers to successful collaboration between SLTs and other school staff. While SLTs may perceive themselves as possessing the knowledge and skills to support children with poor literacy, self-doubt and low confidence may contribute to undermining their self-efficacy to work in the literacy domain. Moreover, Spencer et al. (2008) reported that while SLTs’ phonemic awareness skills were superior compared to other groups of teachers (e.g. reading teachers, first-grade teachers etc.), collectively, they did not score at ceiling. On their measure worth 47 points, SLTs’ mean score was 37.34 (79%) (Spencer et al., 2008).

Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore SLTs’ views about and experiences of working with children and adolescents who have literacy difficulties. Literacy is a less well-established area of practice for SLTs, particularly in Australia, and we sought to understand the enablers and barriers to working in the literacy domain. Specifically, the aim of this study was to address the following:

How and where are services provided and who is providing these services?

What do SLTs consider is their scope of practice when working in the literacy domain?

What is the relationship between what SLTs believe are valuable clinical activities and what are feasible clinical activities when working in the literacy domain?

To what degree do SLTs feel confident about their role working in the literacy domain?

To what degree do SLTs feel recognized by peers from other disciplines about their role working in the literacy domain?

II Method

A quantitative cross-sectional, survey was used to gather data (see Appendix A in supplemental material). The survey was completed online and was anonymous. Approval to conduct this research was provided by La Trobe University and from Speech Pathology Australia (SPA).

1 Participants

Participants comprised 219 SLTs who attended a two-day workshop delivered by the first author. The workshops were titled ‘Speech pathology in the literacy domain: From prevention to intervention’. Eleven workshops hosted by SPA were held across Australia during 2017. To be eligible to attend a workshop, registrants had to either meet requirements for membership of SPA or be enrolled in an accredited training program in speech-language therapy. In total, 429 people attended these workshops and 219 (51%) participated in the survey. All participants except for one person was qualified.

2 Recruitment

Information about the survey was provided immediately following confirmation of registration to attend a workshop. This process was managed by SPA. For those who chose to complete the survey, an electronic link took participants to the survey, which was hosted on the Qualtrics platform. Invitations were made on this one occasion only and all participants completed the survey prior to their attendance at a workshop. Participants were included regardless of whether they currently or previously had worked in the literacy domain or not.

3 The survey tool

A brief online, anonymous survey was used in the current study (see Appendix A in supplemental material). The survey was adapted from the questionnaire developed by Fallon and Katz (2011) to be suitable for SLTs working in the Australian context. Four experienced SLTs completed the adapted survey as a pilot and their feedback resulted in the addition of questions comparing how SLTs valued various practices compared to how feasible they believed these practices were in their regular work (see Appendix A, Section B in supplemental material). Participants were provided with a definition of the term ‘working in the literacy domain’ as it applied to the survey. Responses required participants to select one option from a list or to use a five-point Likert scale. The first section of the survey contained demographic questions about participants’ time in the profession and their current role. This section was followed by questions asking about participants’ attitudes and experiences about SLTs working in the literacy domain. Most questions were directed to all participants, however, sections C and D were specifically aimed at those who were currently working in the literacy domain, regardless of their employment sector.

4 Analyses

All data were analysed descriptively. Frequency of responses were reported for Likert scale questions. Due to the nature of the questions, the denominators for the variables referring to SLT workplace and caseload varied. Fisher’s’ Exact test was used to compare the perceived value and the feasibility of intervention approaches and processes when working in the literacy domain (research question 4). Value and feasibility activities were compared by collapsing strongly agreed and agreed responses into single variables. Finally, chi-square tests were used to examine associations between the degree to which SLTs feel recognized by peers from other disciplines about their role working in the literacy domain and their level of experience working in the literacy domain (research question 5).

III Results

1 The sample

The key characteristics of participants in terms of experience, qualification, workplace and caseload are shown in Table 1. Thirty-two percent (70/219) of participants had worked as an SLT for five years or less; including one who was still a student SLT. Twenty-seven percent (59/219) of participants had worked for between six and 15 years. The largest group of participants (41%, 90/219) had been working as an SLT for more than 16 years. The distribution was more evenly spread regarding the numbers of years that participants had been working in the literacy domain. The group most commonly represented as working in the literacy domain had worked for between two and five years (28%, 62/219). This was followed by 20% (42/219) of participants who reported working in the literacy domain for one year or less. The smallest group was those who reported never having worked in the literacy domain (8%, 17/219). No significant differences were evident in relation to participants’ years of experience as an SLT and their years of experience working in the literacy domain. Of the 33 participants (15%) who were dually-qualified, over half were qualified as teachers (55%, 18/33).

Table 1.

Key characteristics of participants.

	Frequency	Percent
Years as an SLP (n = 219)*:
Not at all	1	0.5
Less than one year	22	10.0
2–5 years	47	21.5
6–10 years	32	14.6
11–15 years	27	12.3
16+ years	90	41.1
Years working in the literacy domain (n = 219):
Not at all	17	7.8
Less than one year	42	19.2
2–5 years	62	28.3
6–10 years	38	17.3
11–15 years	21	9.6
16+ years	39	17.8
Dual qualification (n = 33):
A psychologist or neuropsychologist	1	3.0
An educator	18	54.6
Other	14	42.4
Main employer (n = 219):
A private practice operator	72	32.9
Self-employment	44	20.1
State government education^a	37	16.9
Catholic education^b	10	4.6
An independent school (or schools)^c	4	1.8
A university	9	4.1
Other	43	19.6
Work within one or more schools (n = 130):
One school for at least five days/fortnight	27	20.8
Across five schools or fewer/fortnight	79	60.8
Between six and 10 schools/fortnight	19	14.6
Eleven or more schools/fortnight	5	3.9
Level of school attended by caseload (n = 386 as participants could select two options):
Preschool^d	74	19.2
Early primary school^e (first three years)	179	46.4
Later primary school (> first three years)	104	26.9
Early secondary school^f (first three years)	21	5.4
Later secondary school (final three years)	8	2.1

Notes. * In Australia speech-language therapists (SLTs) are called speech pathologists or speech language pathologists.

In Australia, all states and territories fund state government schools to provide education to students at all year levels. Schools are administered by state or territory-based Departments of Education. All children have access to state government ‘public’ education. State Government Departments of Education employ SLTs and psychologists to provide support to students who are referred for services. There is significant variability between and within states and territories regarding the number of SLTs and psychologists employed to serve students.

Catholic schools are run by Catholic Archdioceses. Parents/Guardians may choose to send their children to a Catholic school which are partially fee-paying and partially subsidized. Catholic Education departments also SLTs and psychologists to provide support to students referred for services although the distribution of services is variable from school to school.

Independent or ‘private’ schools are is full fee-paying and are often but not always faith-based. Parents/Guardians may choose to send their children to an independent school. Some independent schools employ an SLT and/or a psychologist. Other independent schools contract these services to private providers. Some offer no in-school services.

In Australia, preschool refers to the year prior to school entry. Formal reading instruction is not part of the preschool curriculum. Children are typically four years old when attending preschool.

In Australia, primary school refers to the first seven years of formal schooling. Although there is some variability across Australia, children are typically five years old at school entry.

In Australia, secondary school refers to the final six of education. Students are typically aged between 12 to 18 years of age.

a Their workplace

Just over half of participants (53%, 116/219) worked in a private practice and close to one-quarter worked for an educational system; 17% in State Education and 5% in Catholic Education. Other common places of employment included the university sector, health services and not-for-profit organizations.

Of the 130 participants (59% of 219) who reported working within schools; either as private contractors or employees, nearly two-thirds (61%) worked across five or fewer schools per fortnight. A further 21% worked at one school at least five days per fortnight. Seventeen percent of this participant sub-group contracted their services to specific schools while the remaining participants worked with clients regardless of what school they attended.

b Their caseload

In response to the educational levels of students on participants’ caseloads, participants were asked to select two options across five brackets. Nearly 75% (283/386) of responses indicated that participants worked with students in primary school.¹ Further, 19% (74) of responses indicated that participants selected working with pre-schoolers.² Of the close to eight percent of participants (n=29) working with students in secondary school,³ 21 participants reported working with students in the first three years and eight participants reported working with students in the final three years of secondary school.

2 Beliefs about the scope of speech-pathology practice

When asked about their beliefs regarding the scope of SLT practice in the literacy domain, participants responded on a five-point Likert scale in relation to six pre-determined practice targets (see Appendix A, Section B, part one in supplemental material). Figure 1 illustrates the percentage of participants who agreed or strongly agreed with each of the six areas of practice. There was overwhelming support for SLTs to work with children who struggle to learn to read (95% agreed or strongly agreed, 165/173). Further, a similar proportion of participants (92.8%, 168/181) supported a role for SLTs to work with children at the pre-school level to facilitate their readiness to learn to read at school. In addition, 92% (155/169) believed that SLTs should offer services to students beyond the early years of school. A notable minority of participants reported being neutral as to whether SLTs’ practice should extend to include working with students who have spelling challenges (11%, 18/162) or difficulties with extended writing (16%, 28/180).

Figure 1.

Percentages of those who agreed and strongly agreed to each of the six pre-defined activities being within the scope of speech-language therapy practice.

3 Perceived value and feasibility of specific clinical activities

Participants were asked to report their support for the value and for the feasibility of seven clinical and/or collaborative activities in relation to working with children and/or adolescents in the literacy domain (see Appendix A, Section B, parts two and three in supplemental material). Figure 2 illustrates that using the same five-point Likert scale, all seven activities were highly valued as indicated by a response of ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’. The most valued activity was to consult to preschool settings about preparing children to be ‘reading-ready’ when starting school, with 92% (176/191) of participants agreeing or strongly agreeing. Using a response-to-intervention (RTI) model when providing intervention attracted the lowest amount of support with 75% (140/186) of participants agreeing or strongly agreeing.

Figure 2.

Speech-language therapists’ (SLTs’) support (indicated by choosing strongly agreed [SA] / agreed [A]) for the value and the feasibility of various clinical activities.

The perceived feasibility of implementation was lower than the perceived value for six of the seven activities as shown in Figure 2. Fisher’s Exact test was used to compare the perceived value and the feasibility of intervention approaches and processes when working in the literacy domain. There was a large gap for three of the seven activities where the perceived value significantly outweighed the perceived feasibility. The activities were: (1) To team-teach alongside the classroom teacher (p = 0.001), (2) To team-teach alongside the specialist teaching staff (p < 0.001) and (3) To intervene with one or more students within the classroom (p < 0.001).

For activities that were rated as notably less feasible than valuable, the proportion of participants who selected ‘Neither agree or disagree’ or ‘Disagree’ was greater than three of the four activities that were rated closely for value and feasibility. To demonstrate, for the activity of team-teaching alongside the classroom teacher, 22% neither agreed nor disagreed that it was feasible while 28% disagreed it was feasible. When it came to team-teaching alongside the specialist teaching staff, the proportions were 16% and 18% respectively for feasibility and for intervening with one or more students within the classroom, responses were 18% and 15% respectively.

The matter of using an RTI model when providing intervention was the only activity that broke with the overall trends in relationship to perceived value and feasibility. Twenty-four percent of participants neither agreed or disagreed that this activity was valuable and 29% responded similarly regarding its feasibility. In contrast, the proportion of participants who responded with ‘Disagree’ or ‘Strongly disagree’ in relation to value and the feasibility of using an RTI model when providing intervention was one percent or zero.

4 Self-rated preparation and confidence to work as a speech-language therapist in the literacy domain

Table 2 shows that only 10% (17/174) of participants agreed or strongly agreed that they left university with the expertise to work in the literacy domain with children and adolescents, while 82% disagreed or strongly disagreed that they were prepared to work in this area of practice on graduation. In contrast, 82% (142/174) of participants agreed or strongly agreed that they had gained their knowledge and skill to work in the literacy domain mainly through post-university training. Regardless of the number of years working as an SLT, no association was found with SLTs agreeing that they left university with the expertise to work in the literacy domain.

Table 2.

Capability and confidence to work as a speech-language therapist (SLT) in the literacy domain (percentages, with n in parentheses).

Item	Strongly agree/agree	Neither agree nor disagree	Disagree/strongly disagree
I left university with the expertise to work in the literacy domain	10 (17)	9 (15)	82 (142)
I feel confident to work as an SLP in the literacy domain	66 (115)	17 (29)	17 (30)
I gained my knowledge and skill in this area of practice mainly through post-university training	83 (143)	10 (17)	8 (13)
I am confident to provide intervention for:
– Phonological awareness	95 (163)	3 (5)	2 (4)
– Phonics (letter–sound correspondences)	86 (148)	8 (13)	6 (11)
– Spelling	59 (103)	16 (28)	24 (41)
– Vocabulary	87 (149)	5 (9)	4 (6)
– Morphological awareness	70 (73)	15 (26)	16 (27)
– Written narrative skills in story writing	56 (97)	15 (25)	30 (50)
– Written narrative skills needed for essay writing	37 (66)	16 (28)	45 (77)

Note. n ranges from 171 to 174.

Regarding participants’ confidence to work as an SLT in the literacy domain, two-thirds agreed (48%) or strongly agreed (18%) that they felt confident to do so. Seventeen percent were neutral while a further 17 disagreed (16%) or strongly disagreed (1%) that they were confident to undertake work in the literacy domain. Figure 3 shows that a large proportion of SLTs agreed/strongly agreed to feeling confident in providing intervention for phonological awareness (95%), vocabulary (87%) and phonics (86%). However, 45% of SLTs disagreed/strongly disagreed to feeling confident in providing intervention for written narrative skills for essay writing, while 29% disagreed/strongly disagreed to feeling confident providing intervention for written narrative skills in story writing. In the area of spelling, almost one quarter of SLTs (23.8%) disagreed/strongly disagreed to feeling confident delivering intervention in this area.

Figure 3.

Speech-language therapists’ (SLTs’) self-rated confidence to undertake intervention in specific areas within the literacy domain.

5 Views about how colleagues perceive the role of the speech-language therapist working in the literacy domain

Just over half (55%, 93/170) of participants agreed/strongly agreed that their non-SLT colleagues appreciated their expertise as an SLT in the literacy domain. Nevertheless, 28% (48/170) of participants were neutral and 17% (29/170) disagreed or strongly disagreed. Participants were less positive about how well they believed their non-SLT colleagues understood their specific role. Just over one-third agreed or strongly agreed (38%, 64/170) that they felt their colleagues understood the role of an SLT in the literacy domain. A similar proportion were neutral (30%, 51/170) while the remaining third disagreed or strongly disagreed (32%, 55/170). A similar distribution was revealed when participants responded to how easy they believed it was to collaborate with their non-SLT colleagues. Figure 4 displays these data.

Figure 4.

Speech-language therapists’ (SLTs’) views about how colleagues perceive the role of the speech-language pathologists working in the literacy domain.

Both classroom and specialist teachers were perceived as being more likely to seek the input of an SLT compared to school leaders and psychologists. Just over half of the participants agreed or strongly agreed (56%, 94/169) that classroom teachers would be likely to liaise with an SLT and similarly, 54% (90/168) agreed or strongly agreed that specialist teachers would do the same. Approximately one-quarter of the participants disagreed or strongly disagreed that both types of teachers (teachers: 27%, 46/169; specialist teachers: 24%, 40/168) would seek their support. This rose to just over 40% who disagreed or strongly disagreed in response to whether school leaders (73/168) and psychologists (71/169) would do the same.

Chi square analyses were conducted to explore the associations between years of experience working as an SLT in the literacy domain as well as number of schools SLTs worked in, and perceptions about how colleagues perceive SLTs’ roles working in the area of literacy. There was little evidence of an association between number of schools SLTs worked in and their beliefs about how colleagues perceive their roles in the literacy domain. Chi square comparisons did show an association between years of experience working in the literacy domain and the following perceptions of how colleagues perceived their role: well recognized for my role, x² = 28.01, p < 0.001; appreciate my expertise in this area, x² = 7.36, p = 0.007; collaborations with other non-SLT colleagues about a child/adolescent is easy, x² = 4.18, p < 0.04; specialist teachers seek my input about students who have difficulty in the literacy domain, x² = 5.01, p < 0.03; psychologists seek my input about students who have difficulty in the literacy domain, x² = 4.75, p < 0.03. There was no evidence of an association between years of experience and respondents agreeing that teachers or school leaders seek input about students who have difficulty in the literacy domain.

IV Discussion

In this study, we sought to explore SLTs’ views and practices of working with children and adolescents who have literacy difficulties. Study findings show that SLTs clearly support their role working with children and adolescents who have literacy challenges. Importantly, the majority of SLTs in the current study supported a role for SLTs to work at a preventative level with children at the preschool level to facilitate their readiness to learn to read at school. They also believed that SLTs should offer services to students beyond the early ‘learning to read and spell’ years of school. It is promising that almost three-quarters of SLTs responded that they felt that it is valuable to use an RTI model when providing intervention and that almost 70% felt that this is feasible. In order for RTI to be effective and the best use of SLT and teacher skills and resources, SLTs need to be directing their expertise toward Tiers 2 (targeted interventions in small groups) and 3 (intensive, highly specialist interventions), rather than focusing on Tier 1 (universal instruction for all students) (Snow, 2016).

While it is concerning that only 10% of respondents agreed that they left university with the expertise to work in the literacy domain, it is reassuring that a large proportion (over 80%) of participants felt that they gained knowledge and skill in this area of practice through post-university training. This reflects previous findings from a number of countries including New Zealand, Australia and the USA, which have highlighted that SLT students are not provided with adequate knowledge and training during preservice, although they do appear to acquire these skills post-university. Perhaps unsurprisingly, results from the current study suggest that SLTs feel more confident providing interventions aimed at improving aspects of language situated primarily in the oral modality such as phonological and phonemic awareness, morphology and phonics than they do providing interventions for spelling and extended writing skills which are located within the written language modality. Similarly, Fallon and Katz (2011) found in a US-based survey of 645 SLTs that while SLTs reported feeling knowledgeable about phonological awareness, they felt least knowledgeable about spelling and writing skills (narrative and expository). Interestingly, while ‘speaking’ and ‘listening’ have traditionally been viewed as falling within the work of SLTs and ‘reading’ and ‘writing’ have been viewed as the responsibility of the teacher, phonological awareness has always tended to be part of the SLT’s role (Ukrainetz and Fresquez, 2003). This may contribute to explaining why this is an aspect of the literacy domain that SLTs feel most confident in and likely receive sufficient preservice training in.

In terms of collaboration and how SLTs consider their role in the literacy domain is perceived by their non-SLT colleagues, only a little over half of participants felt that their non-SLT colleagues appreciated or called for their expertise as an SLT in the literacy domain. In an Australian study, Stark et al. (2015) measured the performance of teachers on a 56-item questionnaire examining language and linguistic constructs (including phonological, morphological and sentence-level information). These 78 teachers; all of whom were teaching beginner students, were also asked to self-rate their knowledge on these language and linguistic constructs. Stark et al. (2015) et al reported widely variable⁴ but on average, poor performance on the questionnaire among their participants whose mean score was 55%. There were relatively comparable results across the questionnaire’s items. Findings from Stark et al. (2015) echo earlier studies of Australian teachers (Fielding-Barnsley and Purdie, 2005; Mahar and Richdale, 2008) and international teachers’ (e.g. Arrow et al., 2019; Bos et al., 2001; Cohen et al., 2017) incomplete knowledge about linguistic constructs that are considered critical for teaching reading competently. Importantly, Stark et al. (2015) identified no significant relationship between teachers’ perceived knowledge about language and linguistic constructs and their actual performance on the questionnaire. The implication, albeit from this one study, is that teachers may not know that they don’t know, and this phenomenon is likely to be a contributing factor as to why teachers may not necessarily call on the expertise of SLTs in relation to students with literacy challenges. This phenomenon – that teachers may not know that they don’t know – is further compounded when considering the findings of a recent audit of content taught to preservice teachers about literacy at Australian universities (Buckingham and Meeks, 2019). They noted that the total tuition time remains limited⁵ and that many subject coordinators of literacy units were not content experts. Taken together, not only do SLTs face barriers for interdisciplinary practice in literacy because their educational colleagues may not appreciate their capacity, they may also be challenged by the fact that their colleagues may not actually perceive a need to seek additional expertise.

On the upside, our findings suggest that with more years of experience, SLTs are more likely to feel recognized for their role in the literacy domain and find collaborations easier to negotiate. Furthermore, in the current climate where, according to our findings, SLTs tend to feel poorly prepared by their university training to work in literacy, combined with the external challenges described above to interdisciplinary practice, it appears essential that SLTs pursue the additional professional development as well as professional mentoring to guarantee both adequate preparation and confidence to work in the literacy domain. There are also important questions that must be addressed to ensure that future SLTs graduate with the requisite competencies to work in literacy as well as the perception that literacy is as much within their scope of practice as more traditional domains such as fluency and aphasia.

1 Limitations and future research

Only SLTs attending the two-day workshop were able to participate in the study. This may have resulted in a skewed sample of SLTs with a greater interest, more knowledge and greater capacity to work in the area of literacy. Further research utilizing qualitative research techniques would assist to explore in depth SLT beliefs and practices in the literacy domain and could be used to identify barriers and facilitators to this, in their own profession as well as in working collaboratively with non-SLT colleagues in schools. The gap found in the current study between the activities that SLTs value and the feasibility of carrying out those activities is an important finding which warrants further investigation. The next step would be to explore why SLTs feel this gap exists, so identifying the barriers to carrying out those activities that they feel are valuable.

2 Implications

Current research supports the interrelationships across language and literacy with SLTs making a significant contribution to the literacy achievement of children and adolescents with communications disorders, as well as others who are at risk of school failure or who struggle in the school environment (‘Roles and responsibilities of speech-language pathologists in schools, [professional issues statement]’; ASHA, 2010). However, there is an urgent need to ensure that all entry-level SLTs are graduating with the requisite knowledge and confidence to practice in the literacy domain as they would in other areas of practice, such as working in dysphagia or fluency management. This would serve to bridge the disconnect that we identified regarding Australian SLTs’ lack of confidence to work in the literacy domain upon graduation, which stands in contrast to their strong support for SLTs to have a prominent role working with children and adolescents who have literacy difficulties. In addition, having clearly articulated, mandated entry-level competencies to practice in literacy for all graduating SLTs would position the profession to outwardly present a more consistent stance about their scope of practice is in this area.

More specifically, the breadth of any proposed entry-level competencies requires careful consideration in light of our participants who reported substantially less confidence working to support children and adolescents’ spelling and extended writing skills compared to areas more traditionally aligned with speech-language pathology practice; namely, phonological and morphological awareness along with vocabulary and semantics. Few would doubt SLTs have the theoretical linguistic knowledge necessary for them to support students’ spelling and extended written language. It is possible that there is a perceived risk of boundary-violation between SLTs and educators that results in SLTs working less in these areas and feeling less confident about working in these areas. It is also conceivable that SLTs actively choose to engage less with spelling and extended written language intervention as a means of managing a busy caseload. Further research is necessary to determine the underlying reasons for this divide in confidence to practice in certain sub-components of literacy.

Finally, when considering the needs of children and adolescents who are struggling to become competent in literacy, ideal outcomes are far more likely when there are effective and productive collaborations between all stakeholders; teachers, SLTs, educational leaders. Such partnerships are founded on trust and a clear knowledge about what each member of the team can contribute. As the relative newcomers to the literacy support team, it is vital that SLTs feel empowered to present a consistent and united message about how they can contribute expertise while also engaging in collaborative practice with the more established members of the literacy support team.

Supplemental Material

APPENDIX_1_survey – Supplemental material for Are Australian speech-language therapists working in the literacy domain with children and adolescents? If not, why not?

Supplemental material, APPENDIX_1_survey for Are Australian speech-language therapists working in the literacy domain with children and adolescents? If not, why not? by Tanya Serry and Penny Levickis in Child Language Teaching and Therapy

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge Speech Pathology Australia for facilitating the professional development workshops that created an opportunity for this research. I would especially like to recognize Sharon Crane and Anita Roddicks for their support and their tireless work. We also thank Speech Pathology Australia for their support for this research project and in particular, for advertising this study to people who registered to attend the workshop. We would like to thank each and every person who took the time to respond to this survey.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Tanya Serry

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

References

Arrow

Braid

Chapman

(2019) Explicit linguistic knowledge is necessary, but not sufficient, for the provision of explicit early literacy instruction. Annals of Dyslexia 69: 99–113.

ASHA (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association) (2010) Roles and responsibilities of speech-language pathologists in schools [professional issues statement]. Rockville, MD: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Available at: https://www.asha.org/policy/PI2010-00317 (accessed October 2020).

ASHA (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association) (2018) 2018 Schools Survey: SLP caseload and workload characteristics. Rockville, MD: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Available at: https://www.asha.org/uploadedFiles/Schools-2018-SLP-Caseload-and-Workload-Characteristics.pdf (accessed October 2020).

Bandura

(1977) Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review 84: 191–215.

Bos

Mather

Dickson

Podhajski

Chard

(2001) Perceptions and knowledge of preservice and inservice educators about early reading instruction. Annals of Dyslexia 51: 97–120.

Buckingham

Meeks

(2019) Shortchanged: Preparation to teach reading in initial teacher education. Sydney: MultiLit. Available at: https://www.fivefromfive.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ITE-REPORT-FINAL.pdf?fbclid=IwAR3M25d4xShnvITLwXRQ3S4n2cyQAjI8_Op-9HcaTpriztN_XFvL9QbN6R4 (accessed October 2020).

Catts

Fey

Tomblin

Zhang

(2002) A longitudinal investigation of reading outcomes in children with language impairments. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 45: 1142–57.

Cohen

Mather

Schneider

White

(2017) A comparison of schools: Teacher knowledge of explicit code-based reading instruction. Reading and Writing 30: 653–90.

Fallon

Katz

(2011) Providing written language services in the schools: The time is now. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 42: 3–17.

10.

Fielding-Barnsley

Purdie

(2005) Teachers’ attitude to and knowledge of metalinguistics in the process of learning to read. Asia - Pacific Journal of Teacher Education 33: 65–76.

11.

Fuchs

Mock

Morgan

Young

(2003) Responsiveness-to-intervention: Definitions, evidence, and implications for the learning disabilities construct. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice 18: 157–71.

12.

Justice

(2006) Evidence-based practice, response to intervention, and the prevention of reading difficulties. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 37: 284–97.

13.

Mahar

Richdale

(2008) Primary teachers’ linguistic knowledge and perceptions of early literacy instruction. Australian Journal of Learning Difficulties 13: 17–37.

14.

Pasupathy

Bogschutz

(2013) An investigation of graduate speech-language pathology students’ SLP clinical self-efficacy. Contemporary Issues in Communication Science and Disorders 40: 151–59.

15.

Rowe

, and National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy (Australia). (2005). Teaching reading: Report and recommendations. Available at: https://research.acer.edu.au/tll_misc/5/ (accessed 4 August 2020).

16.

Serry

(2013) Capacity to support young low-progress readers at school: Experiences of speech-language pathologists. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 15: 623–633.

17.

Snow

(2016) Elizabeth usher memorial lecture: Language is literacy is language-positioning speech-language pathology in education policy, practice, paradigms and polemics. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 18: 216–28.

18.

Snowling

Hulme

(2012) Interventions for children’s language and literacy difficulties. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders 47: 27–34.

19.

Speech Pathology Australia (2011) Literacy position paper. Melbourne: Speech Pathology Australia. Available at: https://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/SPAweb/Members/Position_Statements/spaweb/Members/Position_Statements/Position_Statements.aspx?hkey=dedc1a49-75de-474a-8bcb-bfbd2ac078b7 (accessed October 2020).

20.

Spencer

Schuele

Guillot

Lee

(2008) Phonemic awareness skill of speech-language pathologists and other educators. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 39: 512–20.

21.

Stark

Snow

Eadie

Goldfeld

(2015) Language and reading instruction in early years’ classrooms: The knowledge and self-rated ability of Australian teachers. Annals of Dyslexia 66: 28–54.

22.

Staskowski

Zagaiski

(2003) Reaching for the stars: SLPs shine on written language teams. Seminars in Speech and Language 24: 199–213.

23.

Stothard

Snowling

Bishop

DVM

Chipcase

Kaplan

(1998) Language-impaired preschoolers: A follow up into adolescence. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 41: 407–18.

24.

Tambyraja

Schmitt

Justice

Logan

JAR

Schwarz

(2014) Integration of literacy into speech-language therapy: A descriptive analysis of treatment practices. Journal of Communication Disorders 47: 34–46.

25.

Thomson

De Bortoli

Underwood

Schmid

(2019) Reporting Australia’s results: Volume 1: Student performance. Canberra: Australian Council for Educational Research. Available at: https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1035&context=ozpisa (accessed October 2020).

26.

Ukrainetz

Fresquez

(2003) What isn’t language? Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 34: 284–98.

27.

Weiss

(2013) Learning-related behaviors: Small group reading instruction in the general education classroom. Intervention in School and Clinic 48: 294–302.

28.

Wilson

McNeill

Gillon

(2015) The knowledge and perceptions of prospective teachers and speech language therapists in collaborative language and literacy instruction. Child Language Teaching and Therapy 31: 347–362.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.17 MB