Speech and Language Pathologist

**Position: Speech and Language Pathologist***

**Reports to: Chief of Speech, Language and Hearing Services***

**Job Purpose***

Uses specialized knowledge and skills to systematically identify barriers for students who have communication and language learning needs. Works in classrooms collaborating with educators, providing intervention coaching, and works as part of a multidisciplinary team assessing, consulting, and programming for a broad range of students with communication delays and disorders, including complex needs students. SLPs design and deliver workshops for parents and education staff, participate in meetings, and provide student specific programming for the home and classroom.

**Accountabilities**

**ASSESS STUDENTS AND INTERPRET RESULTS**: Independently determine individualized assessment, assess students and interpret results for students who are non-verbal, mínimally verbal or who have speech, oral language, communication and self-regulation difficulties and disorders, using communication disorder specific tools within a pedagogical framework, determining assessment measures based on various factors, analyzing the assessment results, and interpreting outcomes to parents, educational staff, and outside agencies. Collaborate in a multi-disciplinary assessment approach with educators, members of the special education team and outside agencies.

**PLAN, ORGANIZE AND IMPLEMENT INTERVENTIONS**: Plan, organize and implement interventions to support all aspects of verbal and non-verbal communication in accordance with CASLPO standards, including modeling and coaching in-class interventions to build educator capacity for growing student skills, delivering interventions to whole class, small groups and individual students, providing follow-up with respect to coaching strategies, evaluating student success and determining next steps, modeling, implementing, and extending the specialized communication strategies which have been recommended by outside agencies, engaging parents and guardians to implement identified communication goals, in the home or community, managing, organizing, and adjusting daily and weekly schedules, and collecting feedback to inform and evaluate effectiveness of interventions and make revisions as required.

**DOCUMENT AND COLLECT DATA**:Complete accurate clinical records according to professional college standards by completing detailed contact notes within a contemporary time frame using an electronic record collection system, developing formal assessment reports, progress reports, consultation notes, writing and sharing recommendations for an action plan which aligns with curriculum expectations, annually submitting a required compliance report to CASLPO to maintain registration status, and completing a daily speech and language specific statistics form to track student and system involvement of SLPs.

**ACQUIRE KNOWLEDGE**:Acquire knowledge to keep current with evidence-based practice within an educational setting and a constantly changing student population by attending and participating in Ministry of Education curriculum input and information sharing meetings, attending conferences, attending and participating in board level meetings, collaborating with teacher and instructional facilitator leads within DDSB, reading current evidence-based research and case studies, participating in study groups within the speech and language profession and across professional groups within education, partnering with universities for student mentorship, clinical education and research, and attending workshops and lectures from specialists in the SLP field.

**COLLABORATE WITH OUTSIDE AGENCIES**: Collaborate with outside agencies to meet student needs, including meeting and planning with community partners to develop policies regarding seamless, coherent service provision across organizations, communicating with outside agencies to ensure that intervention strategies are integrated into a classroom context, creating and delivering disorder-specific intervention programs during the school year and during the summer, making referrals to agencies for intensive supports not provided by the DDSB, instructing and guiding educational practices for Early Years programs within DDSB community literacy hubs, and developing Ministry of Education proposals for after-school programs to support the needs of students with autism, and students with early learning needs.

**Knowledge and Skills**
- Specialized training to support students in an educational setting (e.g., knowledge of, language, literacy and communication development, communication underlying behaviour, structured teaching principles, high
- and/or low-tech augmentative and alternative communication systems); prior experience in coaching-based intervention settings is an asset
- Ability to use a variety of technological platforms including Microsoft and Google Knowledge of evidence based clinical practices in the field of Speech-Langua