Foreword (2006)

Literacy acquisition is a complex, multifaceted process that requires educational pedagogy that is beyond the purview of any single discipline. Collaboration among general and special education teachers, speech–language pathologists (SLPs), administrators, and families is essential to meet the reading and writing needs of all children most effectively, especially those at risk for or with identified language and learning impairments. Despite a growing philosophical consensus regarding the value of collaboration to promote literacy, teachers and SLPs too often work independently and focus largely on separate linguistic domains. Typically, teachers work in the classroom and provide instruction in written language, whereas SLPs primarily operate outside of the classroom, providing intervention to address the spoken language needs of students. In fact, a recent survey by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (2003) indicates that school-based SLPs spend an average of 20 hours each week using a pull-out approach and only 1 hour working in the classroom and 1 hour providing consultation. A number of reasons may account for the disparity between philosophical orientation and actual practice regarding collaboration, including (1) uncertainty about roles and responsibilities; (2) limited appreciation of the connections among language, literacy, and learning; (3) lack of professional preparation at the preservice or in-service level in designing and implementing collaborative partnership models of instruction and intervention; and (4) insufficient research demonstrating the efficacy of collaborative practices. To make meaningful changes in professional practice patterns and to more closely align philosophy and practice about literacy collaboration, several questions have to be addressed. What are the roles and responsibilities of different professionals over the course of a student's school day with respect to literacy education? Where do members of the education team gain content knowledge about spoken and written language and their interconnections? How do educators obtain the training necessary to form and maintain productive collaborative partnerships? How do educators find and preserve time for collaboration? How do educators gain administrative support and resources for time-intensive collaborative practices? What information would be most beneficial for SLPs and teachers to share with one another to help students become literate? How do educators operationalize joint responsibility in order to meet students' Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals? How can SLPs most effectively support the learning needs of students in the classroom environment? When is a collaborative model appropriate and when are other service delivery models preferable to meet the language and literacy needs of students? This issue of Topics in Language Disorders attempts to tackle these and other questions and focuses on ways that SLPs and teachers in general and special education can collaborate successfully in the provision of literacy-related services for students at risk for or with identified language impairments. The compilation of articles addresses guiding principles, challenges and solutions, and evidence-based practices for establishing and maintaining productive literacy partnerships between SLPs and teachers. Case profiles are used to provide a framework for meaningful collaboration in the areas of emergent literacy, word recognition, reading comprehension, written composition, and assistive technology. This issue was motivated by the work of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC)/Division for Communicative Disabilities and Deafness (DCDD), Committee on Speech and Language Learning Disabilities in Children. The primary purpose of DCDD is to promote the welfare, development, and education of infants, toddlers, children, and youth with communication disabilities or who are deaf or hard of hearing. The Committee on Speech and Language Learning Disabilities in Children supports this work through its focus on the communication and learning needs of children and adolescents with speech, language, and learning disabilities. For the past several years, the committee has dedicated its efforts to encourage collaboration among school professionals to improve children's language and literacy development. In the first article, Paul, Blosser, and Jakubowitz put forth a set of guiding principles for successful literacy partnerships and propose possible solutions for many of the challenges encountered by teachers, SLPs, and other team members in the collaborative process. From the authors' perspective, adoption of these principles enables school professionals to take joint responsibility for selecting student goals and strategies consistent with curricular content and demands, preserving time for collaboration, making the literacy partnership a priority, establishing effective and ongoing communication systems, gaining administrative support, and participating in professional development experiences to prepare for and understand partners' roles and responsibilities. Paul, Blosser, and Jakubowitz remind us that embracing a partnership perspective does not preclude a direct service role for SLPs. Rather, the principles offer a framework for implementing collaborative services as appropriate to meet specific literacy needs of children in general and special education. In this regard, their article concludes with a Literacy Partnership Plan to assist teachers and SLPs in determining if, when, and how to implement a collaborative approach to literacy instruction and intervention. In the second article, Roth and Troia demonstrate how a collaborative philosophy can be applied to the emergent literacy and word-recognition needs of preschool children and children in early primary grades. The authors clearly demonstrate how language and literacy are connected, providing developmental information about spoken language skills that are associated with early literacy acquisition. They emphasize the value of collaboration for enhancing literacy development of all children, especially those at risk for or identified with language impairments or learning disabilities. Furthermore, they stress the importance of beginning collaborative efforts early in a child's school career. Roth and Troia provide specific examples of three partnership models for promoting emergent literacy and word recognition: demonstration lessons, team teaching, and consultation. The models highlight three practices that are critical to effective school-based service delivery: (1) developmentally appropriate, (2) classroom-based, and (3) consistent with an evidence-based paradigm. Readers will appreciate how this article on research-to-practice partnerships in emergent and early literacy supports national priorities for prevention and early identification of literacy deficits. The issue continues with Ehren's article, which highlights the particular challenges faced by SLPs who work with high-school students with reading comprehension problems. She explains that reading comprehension difficulties often occur because students have not become strategic readers; they do not use effective and efficient strategies for deriving meaning from printed text. From Ehren's perspective, high-school teachers need to recognize that reading comprehension difficulties may impede a student's ability to acquire subject content knowledge. Similarly, she stresses the need for SLPs to appreciate the importance of incorporating curricular content into their reading comprehension intervention programs. Because of the far-reaching effects of reading comprehension deficits, Ehren asserts that instruction and intervention in this area necessitate a collaborative approach among general education teachers, special education teachers, and SLPs to help students become strategic readers. Ehren shows how literacy partnerships can provide services that are responsive, intensive, and systematic, which she argues are the three main features of effective intervention for enhancing reading comprehension. Through her “before and after” case study, she demonstrates how a results-oriented and curriculum-relevant literacy partnership with these features can transform a student from a nonstrategic to a strategic reader. The focus shifts to literacy partnerships for improving writing composition in Nelson and Van Meter's article. They show how SLPs can partner with general and special education teachers in the use of an innovative writing lab approach. In this classroom-based model, literacy partners combine language instruction and intervention to address concurrently the written language composition needs of individual students. Continuous monitoring procedures permit partners to jointly modify initial objectives and document each student's growth over time. On the basis of their experience with the writing lab approach, they offer possible solutions to four challenges inherent in professional collaboration: gaining invitation into classrooms; establishing a shared routine through collaborative planning; creating opportunities to address individual goals; and negotiating theoretical perspectives and partner roles. Finally, Nelson and Van Meter show that benefits of their fully integrated instruction plus intervention model extend beyond written language composition to spoken communication, social interaction, and self-regulation. In the concluding article, Gillette delves into an area that may represent a novel pairing for some SLPs and teachers, that of assistive technology (AT) and literacy partnerships. She builds a case for collaboration as the key to providing quality AT services and making the general education curriculum more accessible for students with reading, writing, and spelling deficits. Although legislation mandates that AT services and devices be considered on IEPs for all students with identified disabilities, she argues that in actual practice IEP teams often address AT services only for students with the most severe communication disabilities. Gillette sees a critical need for teams to be involved at all stages of the assessment process: initial planning, implementation, and follow-up. She demonstrates how collaborative teams can work together to design effective AT technology assessment and intervention plans to augment students' literacy skills. Readers seeking guidance for conducting AT assessments for their students may find her discussion of the benefits and limitations of three different AT assessment frameworks to be particularly helpful. Gillette summarizes available evidence for the use of AT to improve reading, writing, and spelling skills and guides the reader through each stage of the collaborative process by interweaving examples from her case study throughout the article. We hope the information in this issue helps you answer the questions we posed about establishing successful literacy partnerships and leads to many productive collaborative relationships that support our shared vision of enhancing student literacy. Froma P. Roth, PhD, CCC-SLP, Issue Editor Associate Professor, Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, Maryland Diane R. Paul, PhD, CCC-SLP, Issue Editor Director, Clinical Issues in Speech–Language Pathology, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Rockville, Maryland