Talking points: Oral histories of Australian and British speech-language pathologists who qualified in the three decades after 1945

Abstract

Purpose: There has been limited academic exploration of the history of speech-language pathology (SLP). This article uses oral histories to explore the experiences reported by speech-language pathologists who began to practise in Australia and Britain, two politically related, but geographically very distant and distinct countries, in the first three decades after the Second World War. Method: Archived oral history transcripts from eight Australian and sixteen British speech-language pathologists were analysed using thematic network analysis (TNA). Result: Two global themes are reported, “personal stories” and “professional stories”. Transcripts revealed the ways in which participants negotiated the social and cultural expectations of their time and place and how they developed professional identity and autonomy as their careers progressed. While there were many commonalities, there were both between- and within-group differences in the ways the two cohorts reported the details of their career progression. Conclusion: This article offers a picture of the challenges and experiences of Australian and British speech-language pathologists in the second half of the twentieth century. It highlights some of the changes over time and forms the basis for comparison with current working practices in the two countries.