What is it about?
School-based SLPs are overwhelmed and burned out from unreasonable caseloads and paperwork demands. Wondering why they don't self-advocate more, we ran two focus groups to find out. We assumed they don't know how to self-advocate, or are afraid of repercussions. Turns out that assumption was wrong. SLPs in schools advocate for themselves and their students constantly, relentlessly, engaging with people who do not understand what their job is and often do not seem to care, and with moderate to little success. This finding adds to what we know about overwhelm in the school setting, and offers a new explanation for it: SLPs and their needs, as well as the needs of their students, are all too often invisible in the school workplace.
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Why is it important?
School-based SLPs have struggled for too long against systemic inertia and problems that are poorly understood. This research offers valuable new insights on what they would need. In particular, we argue that clinicians need ASHA's support to make a difference. This is timely, as ASHA's role in the field is being increasingly questioned.
Perspectives
We hope this paper gives school-based clinicians a better understanding of their plight, and ASHA a rationale for getting involved in school-based SLPs' vocational wellbeing.
Tobias Kroll
Texas Tech University System
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The Invisible Workload of School-Based Speech-Language Pathologists Who Identify as Overwhelmed: A Grounded Theory Study, Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, July 2025, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA),
DOI: 10.1044/2025_lshss-24-00098.
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