Speak Out April 2017

The results are in... National survey of speech pathologists working in education

THE NSW DEPARTMENT of Education’s Speech Pathology in Schools Resource Project is well underway and has sparked considerable interest from SPA members and non-members in addition to other key stakeholders. As part of this project SPA conducted a national survey of speech pathologists working in education. We had an overwhelming response to the survey across Australia with 715 respondents; 70 per cent were SPA members and 30 per cent were non-members!

Preliminary analysis of the survey data also showed that: • there are a range of employment scenarios across the states and territories, however 48% of speech pathologists are employed by the Department of Education or catholic education; • 80% of speech pathologists work in government schools with the remainder working in catholic and independent schools; • 93% of SPs use a collaborative or consultative approach with principals; • 95% of SPs use a collaborative or consultative approach with teachers and/or the learning support team; • 92% of SPs use a collaborative or consultative approach with psychologists, school counsellors, welfare staff and/or other allied health practitioners; • 75% of SPs work with education support staff, teacher aides and speech therapy assistants in individual therapy programs; 65% use these staff in individualised in-class support; 55% use these staff in small group therapy; 33% use these staff in whole classroom support; • 84% of SPs have some form of contact with the parents of the students they work with; • the most common disorders/difficulties worked with were language (95%), literacy (82%), articulation/ phonology (77%), learning (56%) and social skills/ pragmatics (54%). As part of the NSW’s resource project, key stakeholder forums were conducted in Sydney in collaboration with the department of education to gather information regarding the content of the resource and the information received was invaluable. Most representatives had some awareness of what speech pathologists can offer, however our scope of practice needs to be widely marketed. Collaboration with school staff, maintaining respectful relationships and adopting a whole school approach were key points raised.

Key results...

3%

of speech pathologists work in secondary schools

56% use the individual pull out model 63% of SPs self-manage their caseloads 21% are directed by school staff and 16% are directed by departmental/CEO staff and policies 80% of SPs are not involved in preparing school educational reports 56% were not involved in formal transition planning for students

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April 2017 www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au

Speak Out