Inclusive Teamwork for Pupils with Speech, Language and Communication Needs

Rosalind Merrick

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781032063140
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000472783
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book provides a rationale for teaching inclusive teamwork and for understanding communication as a collective endeavour. It shows how teamwork can be taught within schools and emphasises the role that classmates have in facilitating good communication, particularly in the face of difficulty.

Grounded in evidence from hours of therapy and analysis of children's accounts of communication and children's interactions with their peers, the book explores the components of teamwork by looking carefully at the way schoolchildren really interact. It draws on research from the fields of education, psychology and speech and language therapy to propose the framework for a programme suitable for children aged 7 to 14 years, designed to include pupils with speech, language and communication needs. The programme includes activities, a set of criteria to use as an outcome measure and examples of the way that children and young people have responded in practice. In using the inclusive teamwork programme outlined in this book, teachers have the potential to support all children in developing rapport, effective communication and problem-solving skills.

Providing a framework designed to meet the needs of all learners, this book will be highly relevant reading for students of education, speech and language therapy and educational psychology, as well as speech and language therapists and practitioners in the field of education.

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Communication as a collective endeavour

DOI: 10.4324/9781003201717-2

Communication is crucial to social relationships, school achievement and quality of life. For everyone, therefore, overcoming communication difficulties is a valuable life skill. Moreover, learning to communicate with the diverse members of one’s community helps to promote the richness of that community.

People who share ideas – conversational partners – also share the role of facilitating good communication. Rix (2015), in a critique of special educational provision across 50 countries, concluded that there were children who were marginalised within each system, because inequality has longstanding cultural and historical origins. Reducing the marginalisation of children with SLCN requires a cultural shift, so that the onus is no longer solely on the children to acquire skills and fulfil expectations. Their listeners, and indeed the society at large, can adapt, accommodate and accept. It is in all of our interests to do so. I argue that adaptation involves mastering all the dimensions of inclusive teamwork, something that the classmates of children with identified SLCN, with the right support, are well-placed to do.

The shared task of teachers and speech and language therapists

A high proportion of schoolchildren are considered to have some form of communication disorder. More than 1.4 million children and young people in the United Kingdom are reported to have SLCN (ICAN, 2018). The inclusion agenda is prevalent in many countries (Armstrong, Armstrong, & Spandagou, 2010), and the UK Government is committed to inclusive education, that is, the removal of barriers to learning and participation in mainstream education (Department for Education & Department for Health and Social Care, 2015). However, children with SLCN do not consistently experience inclusion in schools. They are more likely than typically developing children to lack friendships, to experience bullying and to receive individualised help rather than engage in mixed-ability group work. For children with communication difficulties, this leads to a spiral of disadvantage, as they miss language learning opportunities and lack the resilience factors to cope with adversity later in life. None of this need be the case. There are examples of children with communication difficulties who have good friendships and collaborate well with their classmates, and the school community benefits.

Since speech and language therapists tend to work with school-age clients in school settings, they usually consider the children’s communication needs in that educational and social context (Dockrell, Lindsay, Roulstone, & Law, 2014). Teachers, meanwhile, are also aware of their role in fostering good spoken language skills as part of high-quality teaching. In England, the Special Educational Needs and Disability Code of Practice (Department for Education & Department for Health and Social Care, 2015) stipulates that a teacher should ‘retain responsibility for’ each child with special educational needs (SEN) in their class, and plan and assess how support ‘can be linked to the classroom teaching’ (6.52). Worldwide, it is the case that children’s developing speech, language and communication are relevant to the role and responsibility of teachers.

While the benefits of pupils’ good communication are well-understood, it can be challenging for teachers to know how to foster this (Dockrell et al., 2014). Speech and language therapists, with their pre-service training in linguistics, have a valuable role to play in sharing knowledge in a format that teachers can access; equally, speech and language therapists need to keep learning from teachers about the materials and information that are truly relevant (McCartney & Ellis, 2013). Indeed, children stand to gain when teachers and therapists combine their knowledge about child development and diversity, pool their creative resources and share their insights into pupils’ interests, wishes and strengths.

The extent to which teachers and speech and language therapists work together varies; it depends on the structural arrangement of services and on the strength of relationships (with each other and with the pupils and their families). This has been described as a continuum: first co-operation through basic information sharing; second collaboration through joint planning; third systematic co-ordination; and fourth integration of services (Davis, 2011). One of the most common models of collaboration is consultancy, where therapists offer advice and guidance to teachers on appropriate goals and how to attain them, and it is the role of education staff to put these into practice. There are, however, examples of a greater degree of collaboration than this. When teachers and therapists coordinate their expertise, take a client-centred perspective and integrate their work, there are agreed aims, common goals and a sharing of knowledge. In this case, it could arguably be either a member of therapy or teaching staff who implements the plan.

The presence of therapeutic interventions in the school context is not without criticism. Ecclestone and Hayes (2009, 2019) urge us to keep the pursuit of knowledge as the focus of education. They warn against a ‘therapeutic ethos’ which can in fact undermine autonomy and resilience and promote preoccupation with the self. We are indeed losing sight of the function of education if we make happiness our goal (Frawley, 2015). In doing so, we are likely to become inappropriately prescriptive about how children should feel and react. (It’s OK to be grumpy!) Therapeutic interventions also run the risk of over-emphasising the role of the individual, when some issues are clearly social and political (Brunila, 2012).

Positive psychology is relevant to education to the extent that it supports learning. I would add that learning to collaborate and to communicate well with all manner of partners is an important outcome of time at school, as well as an essential means by which to achieve academic outcomes. Monkman (2017) found that teachers embraced it as part of their educational role and responsibility to develop positive relationships and to support their students, but also that this depended on the language used. A medicalised discourse had the effect of alienating and disempowering teachers, so that they felt issues were best left to specialists. However, teachers also saw themselves as caring, wanting to help, in a position to know what makes their students ‘tick’ and what they enjoy, and able to support students’ well-being. Teachers were most proactive in finding solutions for their students’ mental health issues when they drew on the language of behaviour rather than pathology.

The approach proposed in this book assumes a degree of collaboration between the teacher and a speech and language therapist. For succinctness, the adult implementing the work is referred to as the teacher, but as stated above, the facilitator could equally be a speech and language therapist, teaching assistant, or speech and language therapy assistant. The teacher usually knows his/her pupils as well as the demands of the curriculum. A speech and language therapist will have the expertise necessary to assess SLCN and analyse functional aspects of communication. Inclusive teamwork may therefore provide a way of meeting universal, targeted and even specialist SLCN. However, it does not preclude the need for individual assessment and consideration of other forms of intervention. If a programme is implemented by an assistant, it is well-recognised that they will require appropriate deployment, adequate training in how to practise (in particular how to interact with pupils), and consistent support with time to prepare and share feedback (Webster, Russell, & Blatchford, 2016).

The reality in many schools is that speech and language therapy resources are highly limited. In the United Kingdom, the recommendation of a tiered approach for services means that only children with the most complex and pervasive problems are candidates for direct speech and language therapy (Ebbels, McCartney, Slonims, Dockrell, & Norbury, 2019; Gascoigne, 2006). High-quality teaching and education-led programmes are the medium of help for the vast majority of school-aged children with communication difficulties. Despite long-standing recognition of its importance (McCartney, 1999), inter-professional collaboration is still dogged by lack of a shared understanding and lack of governance (ICAN, 2018). A way through this is for professionals to align themselves better with the ideals of children with communication difficulties. We know that these children care deeply about their social participation and a supportive environment (Gallagher, Murphy, Conway, & Perry, 2019).

This book argues that with the benefits of a well-developed programme, education staff can naturally and effectively make a difference to teamwork in the classroom. Teachers can coach children on how to improve communication and include children with SLCN, providing experiences and opportunities that make a vital difference to all children, even those with a high level of need.

A public health approach to communication

Individualised therapy has an important role to play and can effect meaningful change in children’s lives. Yet we need to expand our thinking. Whenever we view communication as something for which certain individuals receive rehabilitation, we miss a really important point. Communication is a collective endeavour and a public health concern, which all members of society have a role in addressing (Law, Reilly, & Snow, 2013).

There are several strands to this argument. First, it is grounded in the social model of disability. Impairment is experienced as disability when activity and participation are restricted. Access to buildings can be facilitated for wheelchair users, and so too can participation be facilitated for those with communication difficulties, by the provision of a conducive environment. For example, it is easier for a child to understand a verbal statement when the meaning is also demonstrated. It is also easier for a child to find the right words when their partner is listening but not pressuring them. The disabling effect of communication impairment is intensified by the extent to which success in our society is dependent on specific verbal skills. There have been great artists, scientists and entertainers who were not known for their spoken skills. Whenever we as a community value the qualities and utilise the skills that people with communication difficulties have to offer, their disability is reduced.

Second, not everyone seeks help; less than one-third of the children with communication difficulty are referred for therapy. Access to services is uneven, affected by such factors as geographical location, socio-economic status, linguistic community and mental health. The irony is that communication is, at the same time, basic to many of the resilience factors that help people to cope with adversity. The reality is that many children with significant and pervasive communication difficulties, because of limited access to services, stand to benefit only from learning opportunities that are available in their everyday environment. Educational inclusion takes on a new significance in this context.

Third, many problems and their repercussions are preventable. Communication difficulties can affect anyone, but they have a higher incidence in areas of social deprivation (Alsford et al., 2017; Law, McBean, & Rush, 2011). Limitations on resources have led to intervention for SLCN being focused on children’s early years, when signs and symptoms may first become apparent. However, the potential for prevention work extends beyond this period. Communication disorders change in the way they manifest themselves over time; new issues arise and old difficulties persist. We can promote health and prevent impact of a condition at each stage in the child’s journey by educating others to improve the environment and enable participation. Speech and language therapists are ‘an untapped spring of prevention expertise’ in relation to mental health and well-being (Law et al., 2013, p. 491). Expertise in creating communication-supporting environments should be deployed at a population level, with far-reaching benefits.

Communication as a shared responsibility

Communication is a collective endeavour and a shared responsibility. To take one example, intelligibility depends on the skill and familiarity of the listener as well as on the clarity of the speaker. When McCormack, McLeod, McAllister, and Harrison (2010) asked children about what it was like having speech impairment, they told the researchers about others’ failure to ‘listen properly’. All parties were experiencing frustration, and solutions lay with both speaker and listener. Those close to a person with communication difficulties are often working hard to troubleshoot so that the other person can understand and be understood, and they are emotionally invested in facilitating communication.

For adults with acquired aphasia, there are communication partner programmes (Turner & Whitworth, 2006). In these programmes, a relative or volunteer receives coaching along with the person with aphasia, each of the partners learning compensatory strategies that they...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of tables
• Introduction
• 1 Communication as a collective endeavour
• 2 Speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) through children’s eyes
• 3 Learning within relationships
• 4 Mental health and experiences of participation
• 5 The dimensions of inclusive teamwork
• 6 A framework for teaching inclusive teamwork
• Index