SPEECH LANGUAGE THERAPY IN THE EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT

BY: Néstor Antonio Pardo Rodríguez* Speech Language Therapist Graduate of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Email: nestorpardo2000@yahoo.com http://www.fonocol.loquegustes.com

INTRODUCTION

Holland (1994), cited by Cuervo (1999) argues that "little importance have Speech Language Therapists generate more knowledge and expand the scope and sophistication of their clinical skills for trying people with disabilities in communication, if they are no able to achieve that services reach those in need "

For Bravo (1999, p.22), many children from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, are unable to successfully follow the school curriculum in the early years, even with a big intellectual capacity, due to enter primary school with a level cognitive and verbal development does not allow them to successfully carry out this learning. In turn, Fajardo and Moya (1999) indicate that learning refers to both the interaction between the individual and their environment as the internalization of the results of this interaction.

Rincón et al (2004, p. 44 and 45), argue that the quality is understood as the property or set of inherent properties of a thing that can appreciate it as well, for better as or worse than others of its kind. Thus, the objective of providing quality education for all is at odds with the ideas which were introduced many decades and offer an education for the poor "poor" and a "rich" education for the rich. The quality of education seeks to reduce the huge educational gaps separating different social groups and aims to overcome low educational levels diagnosed in Colombia, going beyond the social and cultural constraints. So when talking about quality of education, one should take into account the conceptual clarity of educational projects and purposes thereof, the domains should students to understand and transform their context and interact and live on equal terms and strategies and ways to implement educational assessment.

Cazden (1991), cited by Bustamante and Guevara (2003, p. 15) says that the areas of school life is presented as a multiplicity of communicative events. The school, like any social institution, is a communication system. And the latter (2003, p. 19) indicate that the network learning process - learning is linked through discursive social interaction teacher - student. Teaching practices would be given by the relations of production, circulation and reception (passive or active) of the shares of thought and language among its members.

* Speech Language Therapist graduate at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Over 27 years of experience in

Education, Health and International Cooperation, in Bolivia, Colombia, Nicaragua and Peru.

 He was Secretary of the Municipal Education, Municipal Advisory Council in the area of Education, Creator of Special Education Programs, and Promoter of NGOs related to the theme of Education and Language Therapist (public and private sectors) in Colombia. CIIR / Progressio in Nicaragua and British International Service in Bolivia Development Worker. Currrently, Consultant of the Cobija, Bolivia Mayoralty.

This indicates that a proposal for teaching reading - writing and other academic content can not be done just from technology, but should include other aspects from the perspective of the institution where they will be taken, whose purpose is to be student's intellectual development mediated communication processes, because the man acts within a social context, ie a set of conditions that affect the individual at a given moment, which over the course of time has generated in the human species language and thought are the two fundamental characteristics that differentiate it from the animal.

For example, according Puyuelo and Rondal (2003, p. 284), reading is a task that depends on factors perceptual, cognitive and linguistic act interactively. To be a good learning place the reader, the child must have developed certain phonological, language and cognitive, to be trained. They include phonological awareness or ability to move phonemes to graphemes, semantic memory and working memory.

From all this, the question arises. Who is for this training? Or rather, what training can help to be given opportunities to reach the welfare and well-connected from the school as part of the education system? The answer may lie in the statement Flórez (2004, p. 136): Every school should benefit from the services Speech Language Therapy school because language and communication skills are the foundation of all learning and an essential prerequisite for academic success, to develop social skills to become responsible citizens and perform productively in the world of work.

In this article, therefore, would need to have a school speech pathologist in every educational institution and the role of it in the school.

EDUCATIONAL SPEECH LANGUAGE THERAPY

Flórez (2004, p. 138) argues that any Speech Language Therapy Service in school seeks compliance with the objectives of preschool and basic education through the design, implementation and management of prevention, promotion, diagnosis, intervention, rehabilitation students with and without communication disorders, and advice and counseling to teachers and parents among others. In addition, the speech pathologist, on campus, performs functional and measurable changes in the communicative status of students to participate, as much as possible in all aspects of his / her educational, social and vocational, and prepares to meet the communication demands of the working world in the XXI Century (American Speech and Hearing Association - American Association of Speech and Language).

Colombian Association of Speech Language Therapy presented his official position about speech language therapy in the educational context (Alvarez, Beatriz Sepulveda, Angelica. "Colombian Association of Speech Language Therapy. Scientific Committee. School Speech Therapy Group. Bogotá, 2002)

"The School Speech Language Therapist is a professional trained in human communication sciences and disorders, in education policy in dealing with students of all grades - that may or may not communicative disorders -; is trained in the care of persons with disabilities who are in educational processes and is an expert consultant for: language and communication in the school, the optimization of communication skills in the

classroom, the integration of children with disabilities into regular classrooms, the implementation of curricular, among others.

This professional can answer a wide range of knowledge and technical skills and procedural, to the complex demands of school and school age students, is qualified to work in interdisciplinary teams and to assume other responsibilities outside the scope of practice, on the advice of other professionals.

The School Speech Language Therapist will optimize the skills of all students, prevent the development of communication disorders, serving students whose educational progress, social and / or personnel is adversely affected by communication difficulties (disorders, delays or variations); investigate the relationships between human communication processes, normal and altered, and educational processes, and offer counseling to all members of the educational community.

The services offered by the school speech therapist are organized to encourage all students to develop language and communication skills necessary for academic learning, participation in democratic life, the media and the world of work.

The School Speech Language Therapist carries out prevention of communication disorders, promoting the welfare of all school communication, identification of students with communication disorders or at risk for, evaluation - diagnosis and intervention of the same, inside or outside the classroom, as deem appropriate; counsel parents or caregivers, advice for teachers and other professionals, research and documentation.

The School Speech Language Therapist is a member of the team's educational institution, and meets five key roles related to Speech Language Therapy service planning, health services, development of prevention and promotion, consulting and research language. "

LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION

Bustamante and Guevara (2003, p. 65) explains that in traditional courses of Spanish and literature, education is often reduced to emphasize the importance of grammar, as it allows to achieve a good composition, ie the construction of texts "correctly" written by the standards set by the authorities of the language.

However, do not forget that communication is not just grammar. The communication process is the transmission, man to man, meaning with a certain intellectual or cognitive, to evoke in another person the same content, which implies that there is a simple transmission of information destined for an amorphous mass but the conceptual exchange between two or more partners aware, based on the analysis and focused on the appearance or behavior modification.

Habermas (1984, p. 393) complements this by saying that a speaker chooses an expression to understand language is intelligible to a listener about something and the time given to understand himself. The speaker's communicative intention therefore includes a) performing a speech act that is correct under the given regulatory context,

thereby to establish a personal relationship with the listener, which could be considered legitimate, b) make a true statement (or presuppositions of existence adapted to the reality) to assume that the listener can embrace and share the knowledge of the speaker, and c) truthfully expressing opinions, intentions, feelings, desires, etc., so that the listener can trust what you hear.

It should be borne in mind that the language or language, historical cultural phenomenon after the speech, is by Rojas (1989), the kingdom of the joints of the signs, or as Saussure (1982, p. 53), a system that combines different set of signifiers with a different set of meanings, so that these joints become the power of thought and spoken language mediates between the individual and society.

From there comes the idea that word and no grammar that points to an object, a phenomenon, an action or a relationship. The word gives us the ability to analyze objects, out of which the essential properties and place in a given category. The word is an abstraction and synthesis, reflects the deep connections and relationships that are behind the objects in the outside world (Luria, 1980, p.27)

For Sawyer and Butler (1991) identify what a word means is a complex problem. Within semantic memory is a speaker's mental dictionary. This provides information about the words, their meanings and pronunciation, and their associational contexts. As a result, the meaning of a word is activated within the context in which it reads. In other words, the context of aid has to choose which of the meanings is appropriate, provided that the child has sufficient knowledge of the world around him.

According to Miller (1979), no communication, social organization is impossible. The individual who does not speak with any member of a group is necessarily isolated and can not acquire knowledge, as it is constructed through dialogic exchange that allows the interpretation of world trade.

For Rossi - Landi (1970, p. 22 and 23), the language is not a creation of the individual, but a product of the community: In any case, the individual learning the language within a language was the production of the instruments that each language is today, was met socially through tens or hundreds of millennia and would be totally absurd to think that can be performed again by a single individual. It would be like learning to use tools and procedures, say, of modern mining, but only cover the history of such removal.

Miller (1979) indicates that the 1500 languages in the world offer strong evidence that implies learning. Thus, the child is unable to build, since according to Saussure (1982, p. 136), in fact, no company knows, no language has ever known otherwise than as a product inherited from preceding generations and we must take as it is. Simply learn from the first days of life, the language model that gives the society of his birth, by which he can grasp reality.

Based on previously discussed, it is assumed that both the sender and receiver are individuals with a substrate identical to the encoding or decoding (language). The emitter demonstrates an intention to express feelings, thoughts, ideas or concepts, and assumes that the receiver is ready to react and seize them, decrypted and compared with previous experiences that can match. The first encodes the message, which is sent through a channel, and the second decode it. If this is the ideal process, the receiver can

understand what is expected to transmit the caller to subsequently reversed roles, the latter becoming a transmitter.

A useful overview of the process is commonly seen as a set of sub - processes in the brain of the partners. The sub - initial process lies with the "speaker" in intention to communicate, and involves a series of steps usually hierarchical, from the implicit knowledge of meaning, syntax, word correspondence - sound or word - manual sign or graphic are used to encode a message into an audible signal, kinetics or graphic. The recipient, meanwhile, such as using a sub - the process by nested reverse perceptual processing stages, beginning with hearing or visual representation, and ends with the recovery of the message. Each stage of the process is assumed to transform the message of an internal representation to another, preserving the relevant linguistic information (Bailey, 1983).

Therefore, not only the teaching of grammar what to look for Spanish programs or Corporate Communication Arts in educational establishments, but, with the participation of Audiology professional, welfare-oriented students' communicative and wider education community, which according to Crow (1999, p. 45) is experienced when a person is able to develop an optimal capacity in the use of language and communication.

ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF SCHOOL SPEECH LANGUAGE THERAPIST

The Colombian Association of Speech Language Therapy (Alvarez and Sepulveda, 2002), quoted by Florez (2004, p. 140 to 142) indicates the main roles and responsibilities of School Speech Language Therapist, which are transcribed below:

PLANNING

Organize a Speech Language Therapy Service at school. Write annual School Speech Language Therapy offering services in the institution. Plan the time devoted to evaluation - diagnosis, direct services to students,

parents counseling and consultation to faculty members, meetings with district staff and other responsibilities.

ASSISTANCE

Direct services to students with eating disorders, delays or changes in communication, whether or not other disabling conditions such as cognitive impairment, autism, cerebral palsy, visual and hearing impairments, among others.

Organising, accepting and processing referrals of students to the service of School Speech Language Therapy by teachers, psychologists, parents, administrators and other professionals.

Perform or manage hearing screenings, speech and language to all students. Select, administer and interpret diagnostic tests to identify students' needs in

language, speech and hearing. Refer students to other services.

Monitor cases of students in Speech Language Therapy services outside the institution.

Write diagnostic reports and make recommendations for parents, teachers and other professionals.

Participate in the development of Custom Projects for students with disabilities communicate.

Intervention in disorders, delays, and / or variations of school communication, using collaborative consultation, classroom intervention, intervention outside the classroom, community-based intervention, or others as deemed necessary.

Coordinate the selection and adaptation of technological aids for students with communicative disabilities (eg FM systems, communication boards, computerized augmentative communication systems / alternative).

Advise on the creation of educational programs for students with special educational needs.

Record information on the effects of the services provided. Carry statistical reports of the specialized care offered by the service and provide

this information upon request. Monitor and facilitate progress of students and reassessed once a year. Inform the Director of the school's need for programs, services and special

resources for the institution. Evaluate the effectiveness of all programs undertaken by the service. Participate in meetings and projects undertaken by national education authorities.

PREVENTION AND PROMOTION

Train and educate parents, teachers, administrators and other experts on the needs of language, speech and hearing with students, attitudes towards disability, and other matters it deems appropriate.

Plan and provide in-service teacher training on communication skills optimization of all students, the prevention of language disorders, speech and hearing, and the mechanisms used for managing students with these disorders in the classroom, among others.

Perform actions to help students develop communication skills necessary to participate in democratic life, the media and the world of work.

LANGUAGE CONSULTANCY

Leading positions on the use of language and communication in school. Identify and communicate the need for continuing education in certain areas. Participate in the development and / or modification of Institutional Educational

Project.

RESEARCH

Conduct research as critical areas identified in the service.

Expand the knowledge base of their actions. Offer services based on evidence.

CONCLUSIONS

The constitution of the human occurs primarily through the language, because both are inextricably linked as two sides of a coin ... Thus, the human is only possible in the field of culture and cannot exist without language. This concept for our reflections lies in the particular relationship with these approaches to the field of education. Education, in whatever form, including schooling obviously, is an act of communication that is mediated by language.

Education in a country depends on the possibility of generating a communication process, mediated by culture through the school, organized according to the integral development of each student and the development of knowledge, in order to enable the achievement of autonomy and with it the active link to their changing environment.

For its part, the school, like any social institution, is a communication system. Therefore, all schools should benefit from Speech Language Therapy Services because language and communication skills are the foundation of all learning and an essential prerequisite for academic success, to develop social skills to become responsible citizens and productive performance in the world of work.

The school audiologist will optimize the skills of all students, prevent the development of communication disorders, serving students whose educational progress, social and / or personnel is adversely affected by communication difficulties (disorders, delays or variations); investigate the relationships between human communication processes, normal and altered, and educational processes, and offer counseling to all members of the educational community.

All this highlights the importance of the professional in Speech Language Therapy inside any educational institution.

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