Halima: The long haul

“I have been here for a few years and I do not know whether it is time for a change.” Halima is an experienced SLT, and an English-speaking Indian female. She started working in an urban special school and was still working there at the time of this research.

I was easily identifiable during home-time duty with my head scarf and garb. As the only speech-language therapist at the school I was quite well known with the small, diligent group of parents who would often follow up on their children’s progress after school. With 12 years of experience behind me, I had still found it a challenge to provide services for the 185 learners at my school. The learners came from different social, racial, economic backgrounds and many of the learners resided in the hostel which made parental involvement scare and as a result a challenge. The disabilities that the learners had ranged from language learning disabilities, language disorders, language delays, speech disorders, and then more severely Down syndrome, cognitive impairment and autism. I was expected to see each and every learner, which I thought was impossible.

I had to routinely consult with the teachers on how the learners were doing. I also consulted with the teachers and assistants on how they could better communicate with the learners. I used these consultations to also find out what themes they worked on in the classroom according to themes in the CAPS curriculum32 _{from the Department of Education. My} therapy had to be relevant because at the end of the day when the client went back into the classroom, it had to be functional for him or her. Sadly, therapy was still a challenge, because the teachers, parents and I were not on the same page. There was very little carryover taking place from therapy to classroom or to the home. The principal has promised that we will be drawing up individual programmes for each child and the teachers will be monitored on a weekly basis by the principal. Understandably, the teachers had been quite stressed about this.

Vusi was a new client that I saw for therapy. He was on the autism spectrum. I started the assessment with him. Even though this was an English-medium school I found that supplementing English with the isiZulu instruction helps in getting better understanding and compliance from the clients. As an undergraduate student at university, I did a basic isiZulu course which, as the name implied, was very basic. It did help me though with vocabulary and learning about sentence structure. It was only while doing my community service did I really develop more competence in the isiZulu language. The case history

32 _{CAPS which is an acronym for Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement in SA, which represents a} policy statement for learning and teaching in SA schools (Department of Education, 2011).

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interview with Vusi’s parents was done in isiZulu, which I am quite proud of. The code switching between English and isiZulu initially worked for Vusi however while in the therapy room he was very unsettled. I just put this down to him being in a new environment and he was alone with me in a one-on-one session. His deafening screams were enough for me to promptly return him to his classroom. When we got there the radio was blaring in the background. It was not soothing or classical music. It was the news, loud contemporary music, the radio DJ speaking fast and loud … people on edge. I tried to talk over that to get the teacher’s attention that we returned to class. I have asked the teachers to switch the radio off, but they do not listen to me. It was overstimulating for the learners, especially those on the autism spectrum.

When I was at university, we learnt about environmental modifications for clients who were on the autism spectrum. I had not treated very many learners with autism myself as a student because it was basically the luck of the draw in terms of client allocations to students. Had there been more time for practicals, we could have seen more of a variety of clients. Even with my limited exposure to clients on the autism spectrum I could see that this environment was not conducive to good listening and attention. Surely, the teachers could see how distracting this was for the learners? At university, we were also encouraged to consult with the teachers about modifications to the environment as well as setting functional goals which were in common between us for the learners. I have also spoken to the teachers about us needing to consistently use picture symbols for important information for the learners. I saw a few of these pictures up in the class, but I was not sure whether it was being used properly or just for decorative purposes.

On my way back to my office I noticed the toilet picture symbols that I put up some time ago. I felt that it could have been a good toilet training tool if used properly. A few weeks ago I noticed that on the playground a 12-year-old gesturing to his groin area which I assumed meant that he needed the toilet. And he did. This got me thinking that there had to be another, more appropriate or dignified way for this young man to express a basic need like going to the toilet. I have seen many learners ‘do accidents’ all because they were not understood because there is no consistent way here for the learners to express these basic needs. We knew that this was not working, yet seemed like verbal language is the only accepted medium of communication here for the teachers no matter the number of workshops and courses that they go to. This was something that I needed to address with them again in the staff meeting.

At our previous staff meeting the principal suggested that we do not send home programmes for the learners because of noncompliance from the parents and the cost implications incurred by the school. I had previously sent homework and I did not get it signed or even acknowledge my efforts. The turnout of parents for parents meetings and parent interviews were so disappointing. It has been the same parents who have attended

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time and time again. It appeared to me that parents saw the school as a place of safety for their children from 7.30 to 14:00 and were not actually invested in their learning.

Between the teachers and the parents it felt like no one really seemed to care or acknowledge what the speech therapist had to say. I have been here for a few years and I do not know whether it is time for a change. How will I survive with the lack of reciprocity between the teachers and me? Perhaps I needed to go where my voice will be heard because the frustration was mounting and I did not want to just be another PERSAL number.33 _{I wanted to make a significant difference.}

33 _{PERSAL is an acronym for ‘personal salary system’. PERSAL is a unique system which generates} an 8-digit number assigned to each employee who is appointed on the PERSAL system in public service in South Africa.

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5.6 Chapter synthesis

Chapter Five presented three narratives, which were set in a particular order of experience of the SLTs, and which reflected how they negotiated their communication in practice. The experienced SLTs appeared to speak about their communication strategies more effortlessly. They felt that they were not listened to within their contexts, which were similar to sentiments expressed by the newly qualified SLTs and reflected in Chapter Four. Further to this, the lack of carryover between themselves and teachers or nurses and parents or families was something that they had difficulty negotiating.

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CHAPTER SIX: Comparing the cases 6.1 Introduction

The narrative analysis depicted in Chapters Four and Five, brought to the fore the salient features of the participants’ individual journeys in their professional development as SLTs in negotiating their communication in the world of work.

As the SLTs recollected encounters of using communication in their interventions involving their clients and their families, their stories were tinged with relived emotions and with reflections on particular events or people. Relating the narratives in the first- person format was a deliberate choice as I wanted to privilege the participant’s voice. The issue of first-person narrative (story) was discussed earlier in detail in Chapter Three (see section 3.4.1). I fully acknowledge and declare the interpretation of events were from my researcher stance. The positioning added multiple layers to the narratives as they told of the enacted, espoused and intended interaction between SLTs and their clients. Primarily, it was their communication that was scrutinised, and it was through this lens that their stories were viewed. The data generated was rich and descriptive of the context and situations in which the participants found themselves. The participants were invited to debrief through the narratives and to provide suggestions to reflect their stories better. Although there were unique characteristics to each participant’s story where a storyline was developed, similar nuances resonated through and this will be discussed in this chapter as cross-case comparisons will be made toward a better understanding of the phenomenon under study and toward the next level of analysis.

6.2 Orientation to the chapter

The chapter presents the six issues prominent in the data, which were used for greater levels of abstraction in the subsequent chapters. After each subsection, a synthesis was presented in grey shaded paragraph to highlight the significant findings of the analysis.

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Figure 6.1

Factors influencing the negotiation of communication strategies of SLTs during clinical engagement

Source: Author’s compilation.

Figure 6.1 presents the factors that influence the negotiation of communication strategies of SLTs during clinical engagement. Each of these factors will be discussed further.