Following the dolphins: an ethnographic study of speech and language therapy with people with learning difficulties

The purpose of this study was to examine speech and language therapists' practices, and their perceptions of the knowledge and skills that they use in everyday clinical practice. The paper compares the knowledge and skills identified in a much larger consultative study of speech and language therapists' competence with the knowledge and skills identified by four speech and language therapists reflecting on a representative or 'typical' day in their working lives. This comparison between the outcome of a large survey and a more detailed ethnographic investigation of speech and language therapists' competence confirmed earlier reports that speech therapy appears to have a broad knowledge and skills base. Ethnographic analysis also revealed that this broad knowledge and skills base was, in the main, highly relevant to everyday clinical practices.