Teachers and speech and language therapists working together: a training package

Abstract

ABSTRACT A training package entitled ‘Teachers and Speech and Language Therapists Working Together’ was devised as part of a new mainstream school‐based speech and language therapy service. The package was developed and run by the speech and language therapy department for teachers who were or who would be working alongside therapists. In order for the new service to be effective, good collaboration with education staff was identified as being essential. Teaching staff (though the use of questionnaires) and speech and language therapists identified that in order to achieve successful collaboration it was necessary for skills and knowledge to be shared, with a view to: (1) Increasing teachers' awareness and understanding of communication difficulties; (2) Improving teachers' understanding of the role of the speech and language therapist; (3) Determining what information and advice teachers would find most helpful; and (4) Exploring ways of incorporating speech and language therapy aims into the school curriculum. A six‐session course was planned following consultation with the Local Education Authority's Learning Support Services and teachers who had experience of working alongside speech and language therapists. A two‐way learning process was felt to be vital and sessions were therefore designed to be interactive. The course first ran during the summer term 1993, and has run termly since then. It has been evaluated on each occasion via questionnaires completed by course participants. This process of evaluation has led to both the content and the presentation methods being changed. The changes have included removing items which teachers did not rate as useful and replacing them with more practical activities; making more time to discuss general strategies; increasing the use of video and refining presentation skills. Comments on the questionnaires have shown that participants found most of the content to be useful or very useful. All participants who completed questionnaires stated that they felt either more or much more confident about working with speech and language impaired children. The outcomes of running the course, as measured by questionnaire and therapists' feedback, are: (1) An increased profile for speech and language therapists within schools; (2) Therapists increasing their ability to provide advice which can readily be implemented as part of classroom routines; (3) More effective collaboration between speech and language therapists and education staff due to teachers' increased confidence in their ability to reinforce therapy targets across the curriculum, and an improved shared knowledge base leading to greater ease of joint working; and (4) Identification of the need for more practical training for Learning Assistants.