Revisiting the roles and responsibilities of speech-language therapists in South African schools

South African Journal of Communication Disorders

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Revisiting the roles and responsibilities of speech-language therapists in South African schools
 
Creator Wium, Anna Maria Louw, Brenda
 
Subject Speech-language pathology; Audiology roles and responsibilities; collaboration; South Africa; speech-language therapists; teachers; learners; literacy; communication Collaboration in schools
Description The role of speech-language therapists (SLTs) in schools in South Africa needs to be revisited based on the changing educational needs in the country. Th is article builds on a paper by Kathard et al. (2011), which discussed the changing needs of the country with regard to the role of SLTs working in schools. South African policy changes indicated a shift from supporting the child to supporting the teacher, but also place more emphasis on the support of all learners in literacy in an eff ort to address past inequities. Th is paper addresses several of the questions that emerged from Kathard et al. and explores the collaborative roles played by SLTs on four levels in the education context. Collaboration at the learner level (level 1) focuses on prevention and support, whereas collaboration at the teacher level (level 2) is described in terms of training, mentoring, monitoring and consultation. Collaboration can also occur at the district level (level 3), where the focus is mainly on the development and implementation of support programmes for teachers in areas of literacy and numeracy. Collaboration at the level of national and provincial education (level 4) is key to all other roles, as it impacts on policy. Th is last level is the platform to advocate for the employment of SLTs in schools. Such new roles and responsibilities have important implications for the preparation of future SLTs. Suggestions for curricular review and professional development are discussed. It is proposed that SASLHA responds to the changes by developing a position statement on the roles and responsibilities of SLTs in schools.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2013-11-27
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajcd.v60i1.8
 
Source South African Journal of Communication Disorders; Vol 60, No 1 (2013); 31-37 2225-4765 0379-8046
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajcd.org.za/index.php/sajcd/article/view/8/14 https://sajcd.org.za/index.php/sajcd/article/view/8/13 https://sajcd.org.za/index.php/sajcd/article/downloadSuppFile/8/12 https://sajcd.org.za/index.php/sajcd/article/downloadSuppFile/8/13
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2013 Anna Maria Wium, Brenda Louw https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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