The Need for Speech-Language Pathologists in

California Public School Districts: A Survey of

School Year 1980-81

Suzanne Diaz

Forty school districts or 69% of California's counties, responded to a mail

questionnaire concerning the need for speech-language pathology personnel in
California. About half of the school districts sampled did not need additional speech-
language pathology personnel based on their estimate of the number of personlael
required. However, when districts were asked to account for failure to provide
needed services, only 35% of the districts felt that their needs were met. Forty-seven
percent of the school districts sampled had emergency credentialed personnel on
their speech-language pathology staffs. Lack of funds and lack of available qualified
personnel were cited by administrators as primary reasons for unmet needs for
speech-language pathologists. Data concerning the need for bilingual speech-
language pathology personnel, turnover, methods of seeking personnel and prob-
lems in the delivery of speech/language services are presented.

According to the California Speech and Hearing Association's (CSHA) Ad-Hoc

Committee on the Emergency Credential (1980), a shortage of speech-language
pathologists in public schools became apparent during 1973-74, CSHA attributed
the increased need to the expansion of services for the speech-impaired and the
increase in the number of special instruction classes for children with severe
language disorders. The combination of new graduates along with out-of-state
recruitees was insufficient to fill the demand. To aid the school districts, the
Commission for Teacher Preparation and Licensing in 1977 approved an emergen-
cy credential for clinicians to serve children with severe disorders of language.
Although this credential was intended for personnel from out-of-state who had
appropriate experience, California clinicians in training who met the specified
criteria were granted emergency credentials where school districts documented a
need. The emergency credential did not resolve the problem and more speech-
language pathologists were needed.
In its November 1979 meeting with the Commission for Teacher Preparation and
Licensing, a CSHA Task Force on the Emergency Credential reported that there
appeared to be a shortage of qualified public school speech-language pathology
personnel throughout the state. The Task Force in July 1980 stated its first major

Suzanne Diaz is a speech-language pathologist currently affiliated with the Delta Institute,
P.O. Box 917, Tiburon, CA 94920. Requests for reprints may be sent to her at this address.

34
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 issue of concern to be the lack of sufficient, reliable data regarding the speech-
language pathology personnel needs of public schools, both now and in the future.
These data would provide the necessary basis from which inferences could be
drawn regarding present and projected needs. The Task Force designed two
possible questionnaires to be sent to either all districts, or to a large representative
sample of school districts, but neither was accomplished.
In September 1980, The Ad-Hoc Committee on the Emergency Credential
presented information regarding future needs based on population projections and
the 1978-79 school year's speech-language pathology personnel and pupil figures.
Although it predicted a normal increase in the number of speech-language patholo-
gists compatible with the increase in school populations for the 80s, the data on
which this prediction was based were questionable. The present study was the first
major attempt to systematically gather information about the shortage of public
school speech-language pathologists.

Procedure
A mail questionnaire composed of both open-ended and closed-ended questions
concerning specific and related factors about the need for speech-language patholo-
gy personnel was sent to the school district of the county seat for each of California's
58 counties (N = 58). Usable responses were obtained from 40 school districts,
which represents, a 69% rate of response. The raw data, converted to percentages,
were collected according to one or more of the following: (a) response of the total
sample, (b) response by geographical region, and (c) response by school district
size. Northern, middle, and southern geographical regions were determined by
dividing the state into approximately equal thirds. Small school districts had 2,400
students or less. Medium school districts had between 2,401 and 9,039 students.
Large school districts had 9,040 students or more. There were 15 large, 12 medium,
and 13 small school districts among the usable responses.

Results
Students in Need of Speech/Language Therapy
The school districts sampled showed 4.6% of their student populations to be in
need of speech/language services. Review of literature for national prevalence
estimates of communication disorders among school-aged children reveals that this
incidence is consistent with previous studies (3.75% and 6.3%, Asha, 1977; 5%,
Asha, 1952; Asha, 1959; Leske, 1981).

Methods Used to Identify Students in Need

The two most popular methods used to identify students were screening and
referral. Two-thirds of the sample used this combination. Very few did screenings
only (2.6%) or relied on referrals only (10.5%).

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 Need for Speech-Language Pathology Personnel
The following formula was used to determine the need for speech-language
pathology personnel:
Unmet Need = ideal number minus actual number (clear + emergency creden-
tialed). This formula was used to calculate the Unmet Needs for Language-Speech-
Hearing (LSH) specialists and for Severe Disorders of Language (SDL) clinicians.
The results were that slightly over half of the sample (57.6%) indicated met needs
for LSH and SDL personnel. About one-fourth (24.2%) needed LSH specialists,
one-eighth (12.1%) needed SDL clinicians, and one-sixteenth (6.1%) needed both.
The percentages for the three geographical regions were comparable in all respects,
except that the southern region showed a greater need for LSH specialists (40%).
Analysis by school district size revealed that 81.8% of the small school districts had
their speech-language pathology personnel needs met. Other small school districts
need LSH specialists only (9.1%) or both LSH and SDL personnel (9.1%). Medium
school districts had 30% of their speech-language pathology personnel needs met.
Forty percent of the medium school districts needed LSH specialists only and 30%
needed SDL clinicians only. The large school districts' figures were similar to those
of the total sample. These results will be discussed later. (See Table 1).

Use of Emergency Credentialed Personnel

Close to half (47.0%) of the districts sampled had emergency credentialed
personnel among their speech-language pathology staffs. Twenty percent of the
northern districts employed emergency credentialed personnel, approximately half
(52.6%) of the middle districts did so, and most (80%) of the southern districts had
some emergency credentialed speech-language pathologists.
As school district size increased and the proportional number of students in need
increased, so did the percentages of districts with emergency credentialed person-
nel. Small, medium, and large districts reported 25.0%, 37.5%, and 71.4% respec-
tively.

Caseload
The mean caseload for LSH specialists was 44 students. The mean caseload for
SDL clinicians was tl. These results show an increase for LSH caseloads of three
students, and for SDL caseloads of four students when compared to California
1978-79 school year (California Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 1980,
July).

Reasons Why the Need Was Not Met

Given a choice of four reasons for unmet speech-language pathology personnel
need, 22.5% indicated lack of funds and 20.0% reported lack of qualified personnel
available. These results were similar across geographical region and school district
size. A few mentioned administrative planning problems or other reasons (2.5%

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 TABLE I. Percent of school districts' speech-language pathology personnel needs.

Personnel need Total for state

LSH only 24.2%
SDL only 12.1%
LSH & SDL 6.1%
Both needs met 57.6%
100% (33)
No data (7)

each) as the single cause for unmet needs. Some districts indicated two reasons (see
Table 2).
The data under the Need section showed that about one-half(57.6%) of the school
districts sampled did not have a need for additional speech-language pathology
personnel based on their estimation of ideal number of personnel required.
However, when districts were asked to account for the failure to provide needed
services, only 35% of the districts said that their needs were met. It appears that the
school districts underestimated the number of personnel needed. This would
suggest that 60.0%, 65.2%, and 71.4% for the northern, middle, and southern
regions respectively, did not have adequate personnel to meet their needs. The
small and large school districts had just less than half of their needs met, with 53.8%
of the small school districts and 60% of the large districts in need of additional
personnel. Among the medium school districts, 83.3% were in need of more speech-
language pathology personnel.

Turnover
Two-thirds (67.6%) of the school districts had a turnover of speech-language
pathology personnel between this school year and the previous one. Table 3 shows

TABLE2. Reasons why the need for speech-language pathologists was not met.

Reason(s) Total for state

Lack of funds 22.5%
Lack of qualified personnel 20.0%
Administrative planning problems 2.5%
Other 2.5%
Lack of funds and lack of qualified
personnel 10.0%
Lack of funds and other 5.0%
Administrative planning problems
and other 2.5%
Need met 35.0%
Total 100% (40)

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 TABLE 3. Percent of school districts' speech-language pathology personnel turnover between
school years 1979-80 and 1980-81.

Turnover rate Percent

Less than 10% 23.8

10%c--19% 28.6
20%--29% 9.5
30%--39% 19.0
40% and above 19.0
Total 100 (21)
No data (7)
ungrouped data = 14.46

the distribution of turnover rate. The mean rate of turnover was 14%, which was
higher than the 8% attrition rate estimated in the literature (Asha, 1977). Reasons for
turnover included physical relocation of home (27.6%), employment in a different
school district (18.4%), and pregnancy (15.3%). These findings are in agreement
with the literature (Asha, 1977) where personal and family reasons were cited as
primary reasons for past and anticipated major breaks in employment. Few left the
profession (9.2%) and few sought a different speech-language pathology work
setting (i.e., hospital, clinic, etc.) (8.2%).

Recruitment Methods
Advertisement at university training institutions was the most popular method
used by school districts to seek speech-language pathology personnel for employ-
ment (35.8%), followed by CSHA Job Information Service (16.8%), advertisement at
professional conventions (15.8%), and advertisement in the Asha magazine, in
newspapers, and other (10.5% each). Fifty-nine percent of the sample used one or
two methods of advertisement, and the remainder used three to six methods when
seeking personnel.

Bilingual Need
Forty percent of the school districts expressed a need for bilingual speech-
language pathology services. These districts were all in the middle and southern
regions. English/Spanish personnel would have filled 50% of the middle and 62.5%
of the southern regions' needs for bilingual speech-language pathologists. One-
fourth needed English/Asian language combination, such as Chinese, Vietnamese,
Korean, etc. Only the middle region had a need for English/Portuguese personnel.
There were few other bilingual combinations needed.

Biggest Problem
The final question was open-ended and asked about the "biggest problem" in
delivering speech/language services in an attempt to identify problems not ad-

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 dressed by the questionnaire. The most common response was funding (20.7%),
followed by physical inaccessibility to schools due to severe weather conditions,
rugged terrain or extensive distances between schools (12.1%); lack of clear
credentialed personnel (10.3%); lack of bilingual personnel (8.6%); lack of adequate
physical facilities (6.9%); criteria for service (5.2%); recruiting (3.4%); excessive
paperwork (3.4%); other (15.5%). Only 13.8% of the sample responded that they did
not have any problems in providing speech/language services to their district
populations.

Conclusions
The percentage of children identified in need of speech/language services in this
sample was consistent with national figures for communication disorders among
school-aged children. If this sample was representative of the total school districts
in California for the 1980-81 school year, it would appear that the school districts
identified an appropriate number of speech/language-disordered children. Screen-
ing and referral were the two most common methods of identifying students in need
of speech/language services.
The extensive use of emergency credentialed personnel is evidence of a need for
more clear credentialed speech-language pathologists. The employment of emer-
gency credentialed personnel was a temporary answer to fill this need.
Caseloads for both LSH and SDL Personnel increased when compared to the
previous school year figures. These increases may reflect a lack of qualified
personnel, a lack of funds to hire personnel, and a lack of personnel available for
employment.
The two major reasons cited for the districts' inabilities to meet their needs for
speech-language pathologists were lack of funds and lack of qualified personnel
available for employment. The data also showed that only 35% of the districts had
their needs met. Comparison of these data with the data concerning need for
speech-language pathology personnel revealed that the school districts underesti-
mated the number of personnel needed to serve their district populations.
About two-thirds of the school districts experienced a turnover of speech-
language pathology personnel. The mean rate of turnover was 14%. Major reasons
for this turnover were generally centered around personal and family factors.
There was a need for bilingual speech-language pathologists by the middle and
southern regions. Because English/Spanish personnel was the most common need,
findings reflect the diversity of languages spoken by California's school-aged
population.
Funding and a lack of clear credentialed personnel were described as the biggest
problems, but the need for bilingual speech-language pathologists, and the physical
inaccessiblity of some schools also interfered with ettlcient delivery of speech/lan-
guage services.
This study provides information that can be of use to state administrative
personnel responsible for allocating resources, to university training programs
responsible for preparation of speech-language pathologists, to the credentialing

DIAZ: Need for Speech-Language Pathologists 39

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 c o m m i s s i o n r e s p o n s i b l e for creating c o m p e t e n c y areas i n v o l v i n g u n m e t needs, and
to C S H A as w e l l as other state agencies c o n c e r n e d about this need.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This article was based upon the author's directed graduate research presented to the faculty
of California State University at Fullerton in partial fulfillment of requirements for the Master
of Arts Degree in Communicative Disorders. The research was funded by Delta Institute, a
California nonprofit organization. Appreciation is extended to Glyndon D. Riley for his
comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

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Received December 23, 1982

Accepted May 23, 1983

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