What is it about?
This study explores how itinerant speech-language pathologists and teachers in Taiwan work together to support students with speech, language, and communication needs. Based on interviews with 10 speech-language pathologists and 10 teachers, we found that successful collaboration grows through shared goals, trust, respectful communication, and mutual learning. The study also shows how speech-language pathologists, teachers, and parents work together to help students make progress.
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Why is it important?
In Taiwan, many speech-language pathologists travel between schools and have very limited time with each student. This means that teachers play a central role in carrying out communication support in everyday classroom routines. Our findings show that effective collaboration is not simply about giving professional advice; it depends on building trust, understanding classroom realities, and making strategies practical for teachers to use. These insights can help schools, therapists, and policymakers strengthen inclusive education and improve support for students with communication needs.
Perspectives
This article reflects my long-standing interest in how rehabilitation professionals and educators can work together in real school contexts. What I find most meaningful is that collaboration in this study was not only a professional arrangement, but also a relationship built through trust, empathy, and shared commitment to students. I hope this article helps readers see school-based speech-language therapy not as a service delivered by one professional alone, but as a collective effort shaped by teachers, therapists, families, and students.
Jasin Wong
National Tsing Hua University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: “An Unequal Two-Way Endeavor”: Building Harmonious Collaboration Between Itinerant Speech-Language Pathologists and Teachers, Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, June 2026, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA),
DOI: 10.1044/2026_lshss-25-00231.
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