Understanding Speech-Language Pathology from the Standpoint of Families: A Systemic Analysis

The Inclusive Early Childhood Service System (IECSS) project is a longitudinal institutional ethnography that studies disability services in early childhood, and the interactions between these services and other systems, from the standpoint of families. In this paper, we examine speech-language services as part of a system of services and a site of participation for disabled children. We use longitudinal data from annual interviews with 117 informants to map Speech and Language services over the first six years of children’s lives. We report that speech and language pathology (SLP) as a professional discourse holds cultural significance and influences the organization of disabled children and their families. The analysis of the data illustrates the pervasiveness, organizational structure, and governance of speech and language pathology (SLP) in early childhood, leading to professional discourses of childhood and disability in early intervention, preschool, and school-based services which reinforce individualized pathology as the dominant way of understanding development. We discuss how the professional practices of SLP-related services could help to disrupt disabling constructs of childhood development and colonial practices in early childhood disability services. We emphasize how speech and language development emerges in relationship with individuals and socio-political contexts. We suggest possibilities for SLP to operate within community contexts where speech and language services contribute to reducing family workload, increasing the participation of all children, and disrupting ableism in practice.