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14 - The Oakville Beaver, Friday January 23, 2009 www.oakvillebeaver.com Province-wide shortage of speech-language pathologists Continued from page 11 Take the Chill Out of Winter! SIDEWALK SALE January 26 - February 8 Warm up your wallet with great deals and savings throughout the mall. HOPEDALE MALL Taking the Chill Out of Your Winter ITALIAN TAPAS AT THE BAR Enjoy small plates of Italian Tapas while relaxing at Oakville's most beautiful lounge bar, call a friend and ask them to join you any Tuesday-Friday from 4:00-7:00 Chef will present a varied selection of items to enjoy all priced at same, but it is at the end, when they are at the maximum, they are (about) $8,000 more than we are." The average annual salary for a speechlanguage pathologist working in a school board in the Greater Toronto Area is approximately $60,000, according to Don Butcher, executive director of the Ontario Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists (CASLPO). He said that these employees would likely also be eligible to receive standard benefits, such as health and pension. The HDSB isn't the only school board in need of speech-language pathologists. There are many boards in the same predicament across the province, according to David Hodgson, registrar of CASLPO. "There's a general shortage of speechlanguage pathologists across Ontario in all practice settings," said Hodgson. "Speechlanguage pathologists work in schools, hospitals, rehabilitation centres, with seniors and other individuals and they also are in private practice." A factor behind the shortage is the lack of educational institutions offering speech-language pathologist programs, Hodgson said. To work in the field in Ontario, it requires a bachelor's degree, a master's degree and licensing by CASLPO. "One problem is that there aren't very many university classroom opportunities for these folks," said Hodgson. "University of Western Ontario has a program, U of T (Toronto) has a program and University of Ottawa has a bilingual program, but still there's only about 40 students at U of T a year, Western might have 20 and the University of Ottawa might have 20, so there isn't a great supply coming through the pipelines. That's related to a bunch of things, like government funding for speechlanguage pathologist student opportunities." CASLPO is working to get the message out to young people considering post-secondary institutions or graduate school that this is an in-demand career field. Awareness is a big problem affecting the numbers, Hodgson said. "Speech-language pathologists, unless you are actually using their services, are kind of a mystery to a lot of people," he said. "Young folks coming up through high school and then into the university system don't recognize speech-language pathology as a profession, so we go out now to schools and job fairs and tell them about speech-language pathology and audiology, and try to encourage people to come." If this message doesn't get out, it could mean the shortage will continue for years to come. "We did a study a couple of years ago and what we found is that in terms of the number of new speech-language pathologists entering the profession, and the number who are leaving because of retirement and other factors like the aging workforce, about 10 years from now, there will be the same number of speech-language pathologists as there are today, if not fewer, but the population will continue to go up 10 or 15 per cent," Hodgson said. "The situation will probably get worse before it gets better." The work speech-language pathologists do in the classroom and the potential benefits to students cannot be underestimated, according to Carol Bock, deputy registrar with CASLPO, who has worked extensively as a speech-language pathologist for several different school boards. "They're involved in speech, speech production and pronunciation, but if you really look at the expanded scope of practice of speech pathologists, it involves all sorts of communication disorders," said Brock. "If you look at any specialty population, (like) autism, Down syndrome, they all have communication issues that need addressed." Speech-language pathologists are also essential in helping students with literacy, Bock said. "The other area that most people don't identify initially is that literacy, the whole process of learning to read and write, is based on communication," she said. "You need to speak and understand in order to learn to read and write. 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