"My voice isn't enough". Diverting the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Examining the role of a Speech Language Pathologist and Marginalized Youth of Color with Communication Disorders.
As schools enforce disciplinary zero tolerance policies as a method to combat school safety, these implementations are disproportionately designed against youth of color with a communication disorder. Many youth of color with a communication disorder show impairments in regulating their social and emotional behaviors, alongside deficiencies in language skills, and may be challenged to decipher the language and culture behind zero tolerance policies; these youth become predisposed to criminalization in schools under the pathway of the School-to-Prison pipeline. A Speech Pathologist can divert the School-to-Prison Pipeline and commit to work against zero tolerance policies against youth of color with a communication disorder through therapeutic intervention, advocacy, and treatment along with structural changes in these policies and the beliefs of the people who uphold them. Alongside the efforts to provide culturally relevant intervention and understanding for this population, it is critical for a Speech Pathologist to provide education towards the connections between criminalization against special education students as an advocacy measure for this population. To address the critical intersections of criminalization in schools towards youth with communication disorders, this literature review includes the findings from synthesizing peer-reviewed articles, that address the connections between a Speech Pathologist's role in diverting the School-to-Prison Pipeline and the impact of Zero Tolerance policies on children with disabilities. As raciolinguistics and ableist ideologies has framed the foundations of Speech and Language Pathology, alongside the lack of diversity within the profession and teachings of race and language connections within curriculum, this literature review collectively highlights the need to support and advocate for youth of color with a communication disorder from disciplinary actions, and replacing these policies to allow these youth to build on their language and social skills through intervention to foster a chance to succeed in schools without criminalizing efforts to suppress this population from their language and learning needs. With the clinical expertise and knowledge of addressing communication disorders and providing interventions for language and learning concerns, a Speech Pathologist can identify and support youth of color with a language and learning disorder against a future of criminalization, the School-to-Confinement pipeline, and the larger framework of the School-to-Prison pipeline. This directed study research project of a literature review addresses the intersections of criminalization in schools towards minority youth with communication disorders, zero tolerance policies, and disparities for treatment in Speech and Language impairments. The conclusion addresses the role of a Speech-Language Pathology program to provide future Speech Pathologists the foundations on Social Justice in Speech-Language Pathology, to address how clinicians must clinically and systematically support youth of color experiencing language-based disorders, against biased enforcement of zero tolerance policies in schools.