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Australia, 2011). Teachers and SLPs must approach one another as colleagues that engage in a balanced partnership, ensuring an honest and flexible relationship with reciprocal sharing of knowledge and skills (Bauer, Iyer, Boon, & Fore, 2010). An insight and perspective that was shared with school staff was the communication demands of many commercially available and widely used social, emotional and behavioural interventions and programs. Working with teachers to consider the language demands of these interventions, and modify them accordingly, added value to the existing approaches to behaviour support. To improve and strengthen understanding of the links between classroom behaviour and the development of language and literacy skills, professional knowledge and insights need to be shared between the teaching and speech-language pathology professions. Individualised intervention The provision of individualised intervention to address specific needs is a core component of the speech pathology service within this specialist setting. As discussed by Snow (2014), students with disrupted early education experiences often reach the middle years of primary school with limited literacy skills. For these students, opportunities to acquire the necessary foundational skills to access the curriculum become fewer as they progress through school. For many students, whose insufficient language and literacy skills go unnoticed, creating a distraction through undesirable behaviour is often a preferable option (Armstrong et al., 2016). In line with the recommendations of Gallagher (1999), the tier 3 intervention included (a) supporting students to identify communicative alternatives to undesired behaviours, (b) building emotional vocabularies to support behaviour, (c) developing social stories and social scripts, and (d) including reinforcement for positive communication and behaviour. Specific areas of language, including curriculum-specific vocabulary and the comprehension of instructions and discourse, were targeted with either small groups or individual students. Intervention took place in the classroom or in a small room adjoining the classroom. A small number of students participated in a single case design study that targeted emotional vocabulary, the comprehension and use of conjunctions, and sequencing concepts. The results of this intervention will be published at a later date. Conclusion Working with this population is challenging and rewarding in equal measures. Regular exposure to students’ complex histories and ongoing experiences of trauma, neglect, and abuse can have a cumulative impact on practitioners (Baird & Kracen, 2006). Skilled professional supervision and mentoring is therefore essential for SLPs working in environments such as this. With the growing momentum that is building behind the role of the speech-language pathology profession in furthering social equity, efforts focused on addressing hidden communication impairments in primary school students with SEBD have the potential to achieve an impact that is evident well into these students’ futures. Acknowledgements The author wishes to thank the students and teachers who have participated in this project, the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust for their support of this research, and Associate Professor Patricia Eadie, Professor Pamela Snow and

Jacinta Berndt for their comments and feedback during the preparation of this manuscript. References American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. Antoniazzi, D., Snow, P., & Dickson-Swift, V. (2010). Teacher identification of children at risk for language impairment in the first year of school. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology , 12 (3), 244–252. doi:10.3109/17549500903104447 Armstrong, D., Elliott, J., Hallett, F., & Hallett, G. (2016). Understanding child and adolescent behaviour in the classroom: Research and practice for teachers . Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Baird, K., & Kracen, A. C. (2006). Vicarious traumatization and secondary traumatic stress: A research synthesis. Counselling Psychology Quarterly , 19 (2), 181–188. Bauer, K. L., Iyer, S. N., Boon, R. T., & Fore, C. (2010). 20 Ways for classroom teachers to collaborate with speech- language pathologists. Intervention in School and Clinic , 45 (5), 333. Beitchman, J. H., Wilson, B., Johnson, C. J., Atkinson, L., Young, A., Adlaf, E., … Douglas, L. (2001). Fourteen- year follow-up of speech/language-impaired and control children: Psychiatric outcome. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry , 40 (1), 75–82. Benner, G. J., Nelson, J. R., & Epstein, M. H. (2002). Language skills of children with EBD: A literature review. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders , 10 (1), 43–56. Bishop, D. V. (2003). The children’s communication checklist (2nd ed.). London: Pearson. Botting, N., & Conti-Ramsden, G. (2000). Social and behavioural difficulties in children with language impairment. Child Language Teaching and Therapy , 16 (2), 105–120. Bretherton, L., Prior, M., Bavin, E., Cini, E., Eadie, P., & Reilly, S. (2014). Developing relationships between language and behaviour in preschool children from the Early Language in Victoria Study: Implications for intervention. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties , 19 (1), 7–27. Bryan, K., Freer, J., & Furlong, C. (2007). Language and communication difficulties in juvenile offenders. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders , 42 (5), 505–520. doi:10.1080/13682820601053977 Chow, J. C., & Wehby, J. H. (2016). Associations between language and problem behavior: A systematic review and correlational meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review , 1–22. doi:10.1007/s10648-016-9385-z Christle, C. A., Jolivette, K., & Nelson, C. M. (2005). Breaking the school to prison pipeline: Identifying school risk and protective factors for youth delinquency. Exceptionality , 13 (2), 69–88. Cohen, N. J., Davine, M., Horodezky, N., Lipsett, L., & Isaacson, L. (1993). Unsuspected language impairment in psychiatrically disturbed children: Prevalence and language and behavioral characteristics. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry , 32 (3), 595–603. Cole, T., Daniels, H., & Visser, J. (2012). The Routledge international companion to emotional and behavioural difficulties . London: Routledge. Cross, M. (2011). Children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties and communication problems: There is always a reason (2nd ed.). London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

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