Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools最新文献

Purpose: This survey study examined factors that may influence interprofessional collaboration in schools to support children with oral and written language impairments, namely, knowledge, collaborative beliefs and practices, and resources.

Method: A survey was conducted across 319 school-based professionals, in a partnering public school district, to examine these constructs within the context of each individual participant's professional role.

Results: Between-groups comparisons were made between special educators, general educators, paraprofessionals, and indirect educators (i.e., those whose roles do not explicitly include language-based instruction). Special educators had significantly higher levels of learning experiences and knowledge about language disorders compared to other groups. Those who engaged in the most independent learning (i.e., learning outside of pre- or in-service learning) exhibited the highest levels of knowledge. Collaborative beliefs among professionals were best predicted by access to resources and overall professional learning experiences. More positive collaborative beliefs, in turn, predicted higher rates of collaborative behaviors. Resources were predicted by a small negative relationship with years of experience and by working in specific school buildings within the district. Those with less experience in specific buildings reported more resources.

Conclusion: Individuals with higher levels of individual learning and positive attitudes toward collaboration may enhance the interprofessional collaborative practices of teams supporting children with language disorders.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24059178.

Purpose: The goal of this study was to identify promising implementation strategies that may increase teachers' and speech-language pathologists' (SLPs) adoption of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) during routine classroom activities.

Method: A grounded theory approach was used to collect and code online, semistructured interviews with six special education teachers and 14 SLPs who taught children aged 3-8 years who used AAC in inclusive and self-contained special education classrooms. Interviews were transcribed and coded verbatim using the constant comparative method. During a member checking process, six participants (n = 30%) confirmed their transcripts and commented on emerging themes.

Results: Participants shared a range of implementation strategies to increase AAC use during typical classroom activities, which were organized into seven themes: distribute modern AAC equipment, provide foundational training, share video examples, develop a systematic plan for adoption, deliver practice-based coaching, alter personnel obligations to provide protected time, and connect with professionals. A preliminary thematic map was created to link implementation barriers, strategies, and potential outcomes.

Conclusions: AAC interventions effective in clinical research can be difficult to translate into routine practice unless investigators directly explore the needs of and demands on educational professionals. Future research should define implementation strategies clearly, solicit feedback from school-personnel, and match implementation strategies to the needs of local schools to support the uptake of AAC interventions in routine classroom settings.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23699757.

Purpose: The purpose of this exploratory study was to evaluate speech-language pathologists' (SLPs') conceptions and misconceptions about dyslexia.

Method: Participants were 86 school-based SLPs. They completed an online survey on which they rated their agreement and disagreement with true and false statements related to the scientific evidence about the nature of dyslexia and interventions for dyslexia, as well as common misconceptions about dyslexia.

Results: There was considerable variability among SLPs' agreement and disagreement with the statements. Critically, despite abundant contrary evidence in the literature, many SLPs believe that dyslexia involves a visual processing deficit.

Conclusions: These findings suggest that many school-based SLPs hold misconceptions about dyslexia, especially those related to dyslexia being a visual disorder. The identified misconceptions may contribute to some SLPs' reluctance to incorporate reading and prereading skills into speech-language assessment and intervention. SLPs need greater knowledge of dyslexia to provide more effective evaluations and intervention services.

Purpose: The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has prompted changes to child assessment procedures in schools such as the use of face masks by assessors. Research with adults suggests that face masks diminish performance on speech processing and comprehension tasks, yet little is known about how assessor masking affects child performance. Therefore, we asked whether assessor masking impacts children's performance on a widely used, individually administered oral language assessment and if impacts vary by child home language background.

Method: A total of 96 kindergartners (5-7 years old, n = 45 with a home language other than English) were administered items from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Preschool-Second Edition Recalling Sentences subtest under two conditions: with and without the assessor wearing a face mask. Regression analysis was used to determine if children scored significantly lower in the masked condition and if the effect of masking depended on home language background.

Results: Contrary to expectations, we found no evidence that students scored systematically differently in the masked condition. Children with a home language other than English scored lower overall, but masking did not increase the gap in scores by language background.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that children's performance on oral language measures is not adversely affected by assessor masking and imply that valid measurements of students' language skills may be obtained in masked conditions. While masking might decrease some of the social determinants of communication (e.g., recognition of emotions), masking in this experiment did not appear to detract from children's ability to hear and immediately recall verbal information.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23567463.

Purpose: The purpose of this article was to conduct a systematic review of the literature on teaching or increasing the use of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) by students with significant intellectual disabilities and complex communication needs (CCNs) within inclusive school settings.

Method: A systematic review of research literature from 1998 to 2022 was completed using multiple electronic databases, as well as citation chaining and cited author reference searches. Three hundred two articles were located with 17 meeting criteria for inclusion in this systematic review. Articles were initially screened by one author for potential inclusion; the remaining 83 were coded by one author and reviewed for consensus by three authors for inclusion in this review. Articles were analyzed and rated regarding both level of research design and quality of methodology.

Results: All studies reported positive outcomes, with students with significant intellectual disabilities and CCN, of AAC intervention implemented in an inclusive setting. Fourteen over 17 studies were single-case designs with an average rating of 76% on the Single-Case Experimental Design measure of methodological quality. Less than half of the studies assessed generalization of subject learning. Review of interventions used in the studies, however, revealed the majority of studies utilized packages of interventions, making it difficult to determine the effectiveness of individual approaches.

Conclusions: This systematic review indicates there are promising interventions within inclusive settings for improved use of AAC by students with significant intellectual disabilities and CCN. Further research is needed, however, to obtain more data on generalization of student gains as well as to determine which specific interventions might be the most successful for this population of students in inclusive settings.

Purpose: Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) have multiple roles and responsibilities related to language and literacy instruction in schools. The purpose of this exploratory, qualitative study was to analyze school-based SLPs' perceptions related to effective language and early literacy instruction for pre-K children with developmental language disorder (DLD). The goal of this study was to inform development of a new language and early literacy professional development program for inclusive pre-K teachers.

Method: Eight school-based SLPs participated in a 1-hr virtual focus group conducted via Zoom recording technology. The researchers used a conventional content analysis approach to analyze the focus group data and identify themes from the discussion.

Results: The researchers developed two themes: (a) SLPs identified repeated exposure to books, peer interaction, and teaching vocabulary with visual supports and props as key elements of language and literacy instruction that can be integrated into a variety of contexts, and (b) SLPs want more time with parents and teachers to support their book reading and model specific language strategies.

Conclusions: SLPs identified several instructional practices inclusive pre-K teachers could be taught to use during professional development programs to support the emergent literacy development of children with DLD. They also discussed the need for ongoing collaboration between SLPs, caregivers, and teachers to maximize children's early language and literacy experiences. Future research should explore the impact of partnerships with caregivers and teachers on children's language and literacy outcomes.

Purpose: Children's vocabulary and syntactic skills vary upon school entry in depth and breadth, persistently influencing academic performance, including reading. Enhancing early communicative abilities through multisensory, playful, and conversational experiences is essential and will benefit children's school readiness. This study investigated whether a language-to-action link created during language stimulation, which combines multisensory input, play, and conversation using clay, improves preschoolers' communicative abilities in terms of vocabulary, syntactic, and pragmatic language abilities more than traditional toy-based language stimulation.

Method: Language skills were examined in a pre- to posttest design in which 43 typically developing participants, ages 3-5 years, were randomly assigned to clay-based (n = 24) or traditional play-based (n = 19) language stimulation for 8 weeks.

Results: Receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge for items introduced in the language stimulation program, mean length of utterance (MLU), and conversational initiations improved for participants in the clay condition, whereas significant language skill growth was not observed for participants in the traditional play-based stimulation condition with toys.

Conclusions: A language-to-action link is created when children engage with open-ended materials, such as clay, as they craft target objects hands on and step by step, affording additional opportunities for language input and output. Results preliminarily suggest that using open-ended materials may enhance children's communicative abilities in receptive and expressive vocabulary, syntax/MLU, and pragmatics (i.e., conversational initiations) more than prefabricated toy objects during language stimulation.

Supplemental material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24093780.

Purpose: This purpose of this prologue is to introduce readers to the Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools Forum: Minding the Gap: Using Implementation Science to Improve Clinical Practice in Schools. Ten articles comprise this forum presenting a variety of topics, such as the use of implementation science frameworks and methods, program adaptation, de-implementation, and interprofessional collaboration.

Conclusion: As showcased in this forum, implementation science offers many ways to bridge the gap between research and practice and improve school-based services for children with communication disorders.