Speech pathologists: An endangered species?
Volume 12, Issue 6 - March 2008
By Sherry Posnick-Goodwin
While some believe that children should be seen and not heard, Marianne Dugoni does her very best to get them talking. As a speech-language pathologist (SLP) for the Milpitas Unified School District, her job is to help students develop verbal skills. Many of them have severe disabilities, including autism.
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| To help remedy the shortage, school districts must improve working conditions, say speech-language pathologists like Marianne Dugoni, a member of the Milpitas Teachers Association, shown here working with Brady Penrod. |
“If they can’t talk, they can’t read,” says Dugoni, a member of the Milpitas Teachers Association. “If they don’t have adequate skills to comprehend and use language, they won’t be good at reading and writing.”
For this reason, she has worked for 31 years to give speech-impaired students something invaluable — a voice.
Unfortunately, SLPs like Dugoni are in short supply throughout California and the country. The situation, reports the California Speech-Language-Hearing Association, has moved from a shortage to the crisis stage. And it is not expected to improve in the near future — especially with recent budget cuts.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the nation will need about 120,000 speech-language pathologists by 2012 to meet increasing demand and replace retiring employees. Some districts, including Los Angeles Unified School District and Orange Unified School District, have imported SLPs from other countries.
While their numbers are dwindling, the need for SLPs is growing. Increasing numbers of students have been diagnosed with severe disabilities that require speech therapy — especially autism.
“We have an autism epidemic pretty much everywhere,” says Dugoni. “And because of that, the severity of the children we work with is much worse.”
Dugoni and others say that having too few SLPs at school sites combined with increasing numbers of autistic children has taken a toll. Workloads have increased so tremendously that SLPs are stressed out, retiring early or seeking employment in the private sector.
There is no cap on the ratio of students per SLP. The Education Code requires an average of 55 to one, but that’s just an average. Even worse, says Dugoni, the Education Code only looks at caseload rather than workload. A child who takes 10 hours a week is viewed as equivalent to one requiring one or two hours. Increasing numbers of children require increasing hours.
“It’s driving people out big-time,” says Dugoni. “A lot of people I know are leaving because of the stress.”
Pamela Greenhalgh, chair of the CTA Caucus of Educators for Exceptional Children, worries that people are being driven out of the profession by the increasing demands of the job. Individual Education Plans (IEPs) that used to be one page may now be 10 or more. There are more and more meetings.
“I see people close to retirement getting out as soon as possible,” says Greenhalgh, a member of the Magnolia Education Association in Anaheim. “The high burnout rate is causing them to leave schools. And I see people not wanting to come into schools but instead choosing private practice and hospitals.
“Autistic kids and others with severe disabilities take hours of testing, classroom observation and report writing. These kids come in with advocates, lawyers and diagnoses from assessment teams outside the district. I once spent 40 hours writing just one evaluation.”
But all of it is necessary in today’s litigious climate. “Sometimes a speech-language pathologist may be the only thing standing between the district and a lawsuit.”
It’s not just the stress, there are other reasons for the shortage as well. The job requires a master’s degree. According to the Special Education Alliance, there’s a lack of college and university programs available as well as a limited number of SLPs at the doctorate level to teach courses and expand existing programs. The workforce is also aging: An estimated 50 percent will retire in the next five or 10 years.
As a result of the shortage, many districts are “contracting out” for SLPs, who tend to be non-union. SLPs who belong to CTA say contract employees may not be as well trained. And contract SLPs have a financial incentive to add students to their caseloads since they are paid on a per-student basis.
To help remedy the shortage, school districts must improve working conditions. And that can best be done, say SLPs, by implementing limits on both workloads and caseloads and making salaries competitive with the private sector.
Because CTA is concerned about the SLP crisis, a Speech-Language Pathology Subcommittee of the Special Education Committee was created at the June meeting of CTA’s State Council of Education.
“This was unprecedented, and SLPs throughout the state are thrilled,” says Greenhalgh, who chairs the subcommittee. “We look forward to working with CTA legislative advocates and the Speech-Language-Hearing Association to come up with legislation and find solutions to our problems.”
