Changes are abound in the way speech pathology and education intermingle, and a University professor is a catalyst in the movement.
Janet Norris, speech-language pathology professor, is conducting research and working with students at Highland Elementary as part of the new Speech and Language Support for All, or SALSA, Initiative to improve reading and writing skills.
Norris said rhyming is one example of a phonemic awareness task, or an activity that helps children grasp the sounds connected with letters. She is conducting experiments on preschoolers. Half of the children will be taught how to sound out words using sound blending while the other half uses rhyming.
The goal of the experiment is to see if rhyming is a bridge in helping children to learn how to sound out words or if it doesn’t have any benefits, she said. Norris thinks rhyming is a logical segue into spelling, but there isn’t enough reliable research, which is why she’s conducting her own.
The state’s education department developed a task force to define the speech pathologist’s role and to research ways they can deliver speech and language services through the context of literacy, she said.
“We’re helping to develop ways the speech pathologist can work on the articulation of speech in the context of helping kids gain phonemic awareness,” Norris said.
In the past, speech pathologists only focused on speech, but it’s been recently discovered that the same children who aren’t aware of sounds in words are having difficulties while learning to decode words, Norris said.
This lack of phonemic awareness shows up in their speech and when they learn to read and spell, she said.
Norris said SALSA makes every person in the school accountable for children’s literacy — including their speech-language pathologist. The goal is to help everybody in the school get a better handle on what they can do to improve language in young students, she said.
“It’s one of the most important changes in our profession that has come along in a long, long time,” Norris said.
Cindy Lane, a graduate student under Norris, described the role-changing initiative as an intervention-type change where the speech pathologist works with a group of children in the classroom rather than during one-on-one appointments in a separate room.
It’s a different yet more efficient approach to the field, Lane said.
Lane said Norris is a great mentor who has an old-school way of approaching topics. Lane said Norris taught her everything she knows.
Norris’ intelligence in the field and desire to share her knowledge makes her beneficial to Louisiana’s school system, Lane said.
“She’s changing the role of the speech pathologist,” Lane said.
Graduate student Katelyn Rodrigue said Norris never taught from a book but instead from experience and her research so students could be competent when they enter the workforce.
Rodrigue said Norris wants to help the teachers in the school systems and change the way public schools in Louisiana perform speech therapy. She said Norris is desperately trying to get therapy to the children who need it.
Norris said speech-language pathology is becoming a critical profession right now because it ranges from young students to baby boomers who are losing their ability to communicate.
“Really exciting things are happening in the school now as we start to get involved in literacy,” she said. “I think we have a lot to contribute.”
 
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Contact Ferris McDaniel at [email protected]