Cleft lip and palate (CLP) has been determined to be the second most common birth defect in the United States, affecting 1 in every 940 births (Parker et al., 2010). The team approach is the accepted best practice for children with CLP (Kummer, 2020) and the school-based Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) has an important role to play in assessment and intervention of children with repaired CLP, however there is little research to describe their collaboration. This research aimed to explore and describe the referral practices of school-based SLP’s to CLP teams. A survey titled “Referral to Cleft Lip and Palate Teams: Practice of School-Based Speech Language Pathologist’s” was developed and distributed to members of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association’s (ASHA’s) Special Interest Groups (SIGs) 15 and 16 following an in depth literature review on the topic. A total of 57 practicing school-based SLPs acted as respondents. The results of the survey suggested VPD was the main reason for making a referral to a CLP team (89.72%), which validates the response that clients mostly referred had suspected VPD (89.47%). Making a team referral was not common practice, as 58.7% had never made a CLP team referral in the schools. ENTs (51.06%) were the preferred choice of referral in comparison to a CLP team (25.53%). Barriers to making CLP team referrals varied and obtaining permission from the school was experienced by some respondents (36.36%). Respondents made valuable comments which centered on positive experiences with working with CLP teams (11/56). The process of making referrals to CLP teams and collaboration between school-based SLPs and CLP teams needs to be addressed in graduate training and CE. According to Vallino et al., (2019) such communication enhances care, bridges the perceived gap between school-based SLPs and CLP teams, and will ensure that children with CLP and VPD receive the best care possible.

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This study examined factors contributing to Utah's critical shortage of school-based speech-language pathologists. Specifically, this study focused on the following three constructs: (a) stress levels among professionals currently in the field, (b) attrition and the reasons professionals leave their positions, and (c) factors at the university level. Stress among Utah's speech-language pathologists was assessed using the Speech-Language Pathologist Stress Inventory (Fimian, Lieberman, & Fasteneau, 1991). Of the 230 potential participants, 97 completed and returned questionnaires. Results indicated that Utah's school-based speech-language pathologists experience less overall stress than a normative sample of speech-language pathologists throughout the United States; however, Utah's professionals reported significantly greater stress related to caseload, salary, and use of prescription drugs. However, overall stress was not related to caseload size or the number of service delivery sites. In regard to how various aspects of burnout were related, a weak positive relationship was found between years of experience and Time and Workload Management. Overall, Total Stress appeared to be most strongly related to Lack of Professional Supports. Attrition was investigated by distributing an existing survey to the special education directors of Utah's 40 school districts, who reported the status of speech-language pathologists employed in their respective districts. All 40 of the directors responded to the survey. Based on their report, 67 of the speech-language pathologists left their positions during the 2004-2005 school year, representing 14.5% of Utah's school-based speech-language pathologists. The top reasons indicated for speech-language pathologists leaving their positions were (a) moved, (b) children/pregnancy, (c) changed district within state, (d) retired, and (e) left education. Finally, the directors of Utah's three university graduate-level speech-language pathology programs were surveyed to assess factors at the university level that may be contributing to the shortage. All three directors responded to the survey. The mean number of applicants over the three-year period in question was 186 per year, and of these, an average of 111.3 or 60.0% was accepted. From these three combined programs, an average of 67 students graduated each year, and approximately 30 to 40% of these graduates initiated practice in Utah's schools. Data from one of the three programs, Utah State University, indicated that the addition of an outreach program significantly increased their number of graduates.

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Parents of children with developmental disabilities seek out therapy in order to assist their child to reach full potential. In order to help parents understand where their child should be in comparison to a typically developing child, they must be provided with proper resources. While commercially available assessments are available to speech-language pathologists, parents only have access to checklists that provide minimal direction at certain age ranges. The purpose of this literature review is to discuss developmental domains important for the developing child, examine developmental milestone checklists available to parents as well as two commercially available assessments for speech-language pathologists, investigate available research on developmental milestones in the areas of language output, language comprehension, cognition, social-emotional skills, and motor development, and identify ages at which developmental milestones within the identified domains occur in typically developing children. The aim of this project will be to create developmental milestone checklists available for speech-language pathologists to provide to parents. / text