Students with speech impediments are falling dramatically behind their peers in NAPLAN testing and NSW has among the worst conditions for students with language disabilities in the country, new research has found.
In a paper due to be tabled at the Senate inquiry into students with disabilities on Friday, researchers from Charles Sturt University and Speech Pathology Australia found that children with speech problems had poorer outcomes for every year of testing and that they were up to 17 times more likely to be excluded from NAPLAN exams altogether.
The researchers concluded that the gap in NAPLAN results between children of typical language development and those with speech difficulties showed no signs of closing.
"It is very sad data," said one of the report's authors, Sharryn McLeod. "Very few of these children have received speech therapy support throughout their schooling."
Up to 95 per cent of 10 and 11-year-old students with speech or language problems nationwide had never accessed speech therapy.
The NSW Department of Education does not directly employ speech pathologists in schools. By contrast, Queensland employs 186 full-time speech pathologists.
A spokesman for the NSW Department of Education said that principals have the responsibility of determining how best to use resources in their school to meet the learning and support needs of their students, including those with speech and language difficulties.
The research findings stated that: "Speech Pathology Australia members in NSW report that students with underlying communication disabilities are often identified with having behavioural problems ... [which] leads to inconsistency in the types of support being offered.
"Similarly, students with language-based learning problems such as dyslexia ... do not receive adequate intervention early in their education."
Professor McLeod, a speech and language acquisition academic at Charles Sturt University who conducted the study alongside Linda Harrison and Dr Cen Wang, said: "There is very little being done in NSW."
The research, which used the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children to survey 4322 children, found that in NSW students with speech problems were not "catching up with their peers during primary school" and that grammar was of the largest concern. The gap was also widening between typical language developers and those with speech problems between the year 3 and year 7 writing sections.
The research accounted for students who were excluded altogether from the test, as well as the fact that children with language problems were more likely to be male, from lower socio-economic families, from backgrounds other than English and have hearing problems.
"These are extremely robust figures," said Professor McLeod. "If all the other kids were included, the gap would be much larger."
