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.

Speech-language therapist and teacher knowledge of early literacy skills

“…Ehren and Ehren (2001) suggest that SLTs’ beliefs that they are underprepared to address reading and writing may contribute to their reluctance to do so. This supposition is indirectly supported by the extant literature: SLTs on average report being unprepared to support reading and writing acquisition (Blood et al, 2010; Serry, 2013; Serry and Levickis, 2020), but SLTs who have received training in reading and writing intervention are more likely than their peers to target reading-related an writing-related skills (Fallon and Katz, 2011).…”

“…However, SLT preprofessional education but does not necessarily tie knowledge of language structure to reading and writing instruction and intervention, so SLTs in the US generally spend little to no time targeting foundational reading and writing skills (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2020; Tambyraja et al, 2014). It would be prudent for SLTs in English-speaking countries to target foundational reading and writing skills such as phonological awareness in language therapy as they do in Australia (Serry and Levickis, 2020).…”

Supporting Children Who Are English Language Learners Succeed in Their Early Literacy Development

“…SLTs have also indicated the need (through survey responses) to better understand MTSS frameworks and how they can become more involved, including in the leadership and development of such approaches, within their communities. Other recent survey data highlight SLTs' expressed needs for ongoing professional learning and development (PLD) in children's literacy acquisition [25][26][27]. This report adds to current discussions through presenting an example of an MTSS developed by researchers in speechlanguage therapy and education, in collaboration with Māori and Pacific leaders, teachers, and community.…”

Educators’ perspectives about teaching and supporting students with learning difficulties in reading

“…The practice of utilising specialist support when needed is documented as a legal obligation in section 7.2 of the Disability Standards for Education (DSE, 2005). Little evidence exists about the intervention practices in use, yet momentum is building for allied health professional such as SLPs, to be fundamental to literacy support teams (Fallon & Katz, 2011; Serry & Levickis, 2020; Sun & Wallach, 2014).…”