The Speech Pathologist and Handicapped Learners

Some children attend school and learn what the teachers present to them. Other ostensibly normal children attend the same school and have the same teachers, but fail to learn the same material. Why? Instead of eliciting constructive answers, this question raises many others — Who can work with these children? Who should work with these children? This paper presents the position that speech pathologists are vital contributors to intervention programs for handicapped learners. It presents the contributions of speech pathologists that are important and explains how and when speech pathologists can be the appropriate professionals for providing certain necessary services to handicapped learners.