Trauma-Informed Care: A Guide for Speech-Language Pathologists in the Schools

A history of trauma is significantly related to the likelihood of having a language disorder. Given that one in seven children experience maltreatment in the United States, it is essential that school-based speech-language pathologists are well prepared to engage in trauma-informed practice when working with children and adolescents who have a history of trauma. The primary purpose of this tutorial is to provide an overview of trauma and its relationship to language and to synthesize the extant literature on trauma-informed approaches that could be used by speech-language pathologists. Trauma-informed practices include preventing retraumatization and recognizing trauma responses, creating a safe environment, collaborating with team members, using a strengths-based approach, obtaining a comprehensive case history to guide decisions, and empowering the students by including them in choices.

This tutorial discusses each of these approaches, describes how these approaches could be used in the context of speech-language practice, provides a questionnaire that was developed to obtain the case histories of students with a history of trauma, and illustrates case examples of how trauma-informed approaches might be implemented by speech-language pathologists.