Language Literacy Laboratory: A Collaborative Service Delivery Model

Introduction

Providing inclusive speech-language therapy services for special needs students is the focus of speech-language programs nationwide. An integral part of these services is the successful collaboration between professionals, parents, and regular and special education teachers.

The Language Literacy Laboratory at Galvez Middle School in Prairieville, Louisiana is a unique, collaborative service delivery model that allows the speech-language pathologist to provide a firm foundation of basic language and literacy skills for all special needs students, speech-language impaired students, and "at-risk" students in the school.

The Language Literacy Lab is a comprehensive language program that bombards the student with a multitude of strategies to be utilized in teaching the basic language concepts necessary for academic success in reading, math, and language arts. Through their participation in the language lab, students discover their strengths, how to monopolize on them, and how to compensate for their weakness. Language-based activities are presented through a variety of modalities in interactive, hands-on settings through small group instruction. Because every concept is presented through a number of modalities, every child has the opportunity to succeed. Participating students should be able to build a firm foundation of basic language skills that become building blocks for the more complex language concepts needed in middle and high school settings.

The Language Literacy Laboratory at Galvez Middle School was designed to improve students' academic performance, enhance students' language/literacy skills, reduce drop-out rates through academic success, provide compensatory strategies for students and lastly, to address the nationwide focus on providing inclusive speech-language therapy services in schools. A similar language literacy lab was developed at Galvez Primary School, which is the feeder school to the middle school, to provide consistent and effective intervention. Both schools have large student populations (>600 students per school) and 30% of this population has been identified as low SES (socioeconomic status) based on free and reduced lunch numbers.