With Speech Pathology Week wrapping up last week, there is no better time to highlight the work of speech pathologists and the breadth of the services they provide.
Haley Moran-Green is a Speech-Language Pathologist in the education sector working with schools all over the region.
Ms Moran-Green has assisted these schools to introduce communication boards, supporting students with complex communication needs, severe speech difficulties, younger siblings or kindy students not yet at school.
“It helps with comprehension and providing language input at their level and trying to bridge that gap,” said Ms Moran-Green.
“Sometimes if they’re not quite understanding what you’re saying, visuals can help with that.
“We’re trying to support people with communication difficulties, which can come about for anybody; anybody can have a communication difficulty at any point in time.”
Beaconsfield State School was the first to introduce communication boards to encourage interaction between peers, staff and students.
“Lots of kids took to it without us even realising we have quite a few students with what we would call complex communication needs,” said Ms Moran-Green.
“Initially, we saw kids leading other kids over to the board trying to talk to each other.
“I think it’s just become second nature because we’ve also spread the use of visuals throughout the school.
“It’s just expected that you will see it in the school now and when there is that communication breakdown everyone knows there’s something close by to turn to.”
The boards came about after a discussion between Ms Moran-Green and Beaconsfield State School Principal Lisa Laird.
Other schools in the region are now working towards getting boards installed, including Eimeo Road State School, Victoria Park State School, Mackay West State School and Mackay District Special School and Ms Moran-Green is advocating to have more signs installed in local parks.
Ms Laird says she has received amazing incidental feedback.
“We had a non-verbal child attend a kindy transition who couldn’t speak, they went to the board to indicate that they wanted a drink by using the pictures, so it’s the incidental that’s fallen out of this,” she said.
“Parent feedback is amazing…it’s all those fallout effects from something that we were trying to do to introduce communication to peer-to-peer and adult-to-student.”
The boards were custom designed by speech pathologists and school staff with simplicity, purpose and sentence flow in mind.
The signs were then manufactured by a local signwriter and can be found throughout the school available to students of all ages.
“Most of our students with these communication difficulties are in our lower year levels but we wanted to send out a message that we want you here the whole time so this is available in all of our year levels,” said Ms Moran-Green.
Ms Laird says Speech Pathology Week is an important time to recognise the services of speech pathologists in the school community.
“We are so lucky to have the services of Haley,” she said.
“We’re finding the need for a speech and language pathologist is of utmost importance and it starts, basically, at that prep foundation level.”
In the education department, Ms Moran-Green works with students and staff to improve communication skills.
“I feel like I do as much work with staff as I do with students, which I think has also led to a lot of the success of the communication signs as well,” she said.
“Everybody’s really embraced it.”
Speech-Language Pathologist Haley Moran-Green and Beaconsfield State School Principal Lisa Laird with one of the school’s many communication boards. Photo credit: Sam Gillespie
