Considerations for Using Academically Integrated Therapy Materials to Increase Collaboration and Support Varied Service Delivery for Treating Speech Sound Disorders in Schools.

BACKGROUND

School-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) play a critical role in minimizing the negative educational impact of their students' speech sound disorders (SSDs). Current studies on SSDs in children are rich with discussions of therapy- and child-level contributions to gains in speech sound production. However, while many studies have supported using curricular content during language interventions, there is little theoretical and no empirical evidence to demonstrate that using academically integrated therapy materials during intervention provides a positive educational impact for students with SSDs.

TUTORIAL OVERVIEW: This tutorial applies an implementation science lens to help SLPs translate research into feasible, sustainable school-based practices. This includes examining how the choice of therapy materials functions as an implementation variable that may shape students' educational access and success.

APPLICATION: The purpose of this tutorial is to guide practitioners to review adjacent research in school-based intervention practices for SSDs to determine if the materials used during school-based speech therapy could impact academic performance in the classroom.