Developing a screening instrument for teacher referral of students with special needs to therapy services

Development of a screening instrument (the SRT) for teacher referral of students with special needs to therapy services is reported in this paper. Stage 1 was reported in Llewellyn & Maher (1993). In Stages 2 and 3, the instrument was trialed and subsequently refined with over 200 teachers and 60 therapists in NSW Schools for Specific Purposes and Support Classes. Multiple discriminant analysis was used to determine those items relevant to referral to therapy. The final version of the instrument contains 19 items. The instrument is suitable for determining individual student need for referral to occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech pathology for students with intellectual and/ or physical disability. The instrument can also be used for determining the extent and distribution of student need for therapy at classroom, school, regional or State levels.

The role of gender and student behaviour in teacher referral

Two studies investigated the influence of student behaviour and the gender of teacher and student respectively on teachers' decisions to refer children for specialist assistance. The first study examined the age, sex, and referral reason for 621 students referred to a major school support centre. The results indicated that twice as many boys were referred as girls, and that girls and boys were referred for different reasons. In the second study, 97 teachers were required to rank order the necessity for referral of four case studies presenting examples of either disruptive or non-disruptive behaviours. Boys' and girls' names were exchanged on alternate forms of the case studies. The findings indicated that neither the sex of the teacher nor the sex of the student in the case study hadany effect on teachers'rankings of the case studies. However, teachers viewed students displaying non-disruptive behaviour as significantly more in need of referral than students displaying disruptive behaviour. The implications of the findings of both studies are discussed in relation to the contrast between what teachers say about referrals and what they actually do, the access of girls to support services, and the need for further teacher education about criteria for referral.