Collaborative speech-language services in urban schools.

Abstract

This article recounts elements of collaborative and classroom-based practices that SLPs reported enacting in an urban school district where these SLPs carried very large caseloads (on average approximately 50% greater than ASHA [1993] recommendations). Consultation with classroom teachers and team preparation of cross-disciplinary reading/writing IEP objectives were ongoing. SLPs perceived teachers as satisfied with collaborative efforts. Mitigating factors, including large caseload size, elements of teacher resistence, and the absence of SLPs from regular education curriculum planning committees, appeared to coexist with forestalled attainment of collaborative service delivery.

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Over the past decade several authors have described successful outcomes for students receiving collaborative speech-language services (Bland & Prelock, 1995; Borsch & Oaks, 1992; Falk-Ross, 1997; Farber & Klein, 1999; Throneburg et al., 2000). Other authors have proposed models for providing collaborative service delivery (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association [ASHA], 1999; Elksnin, 1997; Elksnin & Capilouto, 1994; McCartney, 1999; Pershey, 1998). Contemporary standards-based reforms emphasize that every student must work toward the expectations set for each academic content area. As the mandates of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 1997) become fully implemented (ASHA, 1996; ASHA, 1999; Mead, 1999), more school speech-language pathologists (SLPs) will assess students' abilities to meet curricular demands, design curriculum-based goals and objectives for students, and provide interventions designed to help students meet curricular requirements. This will apply whether the least restrictive environment for therapy is a classroom or a pullout setting.

Given the time-intensiveness of collaborative service delivery (Beck & Dennis, 1997), scheduling may be difficult for SLPs with large caseloads. Large caseloads remain a perennial point of dispute between speech-language organizations and state and/or local education agencies. As a case in point, one state prescribed a caseload maximum of 70, approximately 50% over the state speech pathology and audiology alliance recommendations (Foulkes & Givler, 2000). ASHA (1993) advocates a maximum caseload of 40 students for a full-time school-based SLP (25 when serving preschoolers).

Having larger caseloads may compromise a SLP's effectiveness. Control of session length, session frequency, group size, group composition, program duration, and total time spent with regular education peers may not be possible. It may be difficult to see each student in class at a time when instruction that is conducive to intervention is taking place, or the SLP may not be available to attend grade level or discipline-based team meetings and thus might not participate in instructional planning and/or design of classroom modifications for caseload students. In order for all students to be serviced, compromises may be made that results in programming where the collaborative element is less than optimal.

The purpose of this article is to describe how SLPs in a large, urban school district have begun to implement some collaborative practices. This article describes elements of collaborative practices that are in place and explores factors that influence why a relationship between speech-language intervention and classroom …