Spotlight on Spelling: Realising Speech and Language Therapists’ Interpretive Potential in Interprofessional Practice With Teachers

Despite the close and interdependent links between language and literacy and well-documented associations between difficulties in both areas, literacy remains surprisingly underexplored in Irish research on interprofessional collaboration between teachers and Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs). Emerging evidence from practice suggests that Irish SLTs are often uncertain about their role in this area. Yet, internationally, literacy is explicitly recognised as part of SLTs’ scope of practice. Drawing on these global experiences, Irish SLTs have clear potential to collaborate with teachers across multiple literacy domains. This tutorial spotlights spelling as an area deserving greater attention from SLTs and as a productive focus for teacher-SLT collaboration. It outlines the linguistic underpinnings of spelling, including phonological, orthographic, and morphological knowledge, and illustrates how SLTs’ expertise can be leveraged to interpret spelling errors, guide intervention planning, and support children’s literacy development. While spelling is rarely prioritised within SLT practice, it offers a clinically meaningful context to apply linguistic knowledge, complement oral language interventions, and facilitate collaboration with educators. By adopting a linguistically informed approach to spelling assessment, SLTs can enhance intervention and improve outcomes for children with co-occurring speech, language, and literacy difficulties. This tutorial positions spelling as a timely and underutilised domain through which Irish SLTs can strengthen clinical and collaborative practice and align their work with international standards and evolving policy priorities in education.