Collaborative Practices Among Professionals in Special Education Workplaces

The aim of this study is to examine collaborative relationships existing among professionals working in special education and specifically the relationships between school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and elementary school classroom teachers. A survey was administered to classroom teachers in New Hampshire. The first part of the survey asked teachers their opinions regarding the extent to which SLPs should be collaborating with teachers. The second part of the survey asked teachers to estimate how often they engaged in collaborative practices with the SLP currently working in their school. Results indicated that teachers would prefer SLPs to spend significantly more time in the classroom (p = \u3e .05) and co-teaching with teachers (p = \u3e .05). The results are discussed in regard to obstacles that may reduce collaboration between teachers and SLPs. This research highlights the obstacles that teachers and SLPs often face in collaboration and provides implications for solutions to overcoming those obstacles