Wiener Sprachheilschule
At the Vienna language therapy school, language therapy teachers look after compulsory school students with language and speech disorders. Funding takes place either on an outpatient basis (in so-called “language therapy courses” at elementary and special schools) or, if there is a serious language disability ( special educational needs “language” (SPF)), in integration classes with a focus on language therapy.
facts and figures
The Wiener Sprachheilschule has the largest faculty of any compulsory school in Austria . Around 160 teachers are currently (2007) in the state of the school, of which around 140 are in active service. About a third of them work in the 42 integration classes with a focus on language therapy at eight locations, the others work in outpatient care (language therapy courses, school outpatient clinic, mobile team). In the 2006/07 school year, around 5300 compulsory school pupils were able to receive language therapy education in Vienna.
history
As early as 1895, the school authorities in Vienna took the first step towards looking after language-impaired, school-age children. The then imperial-royal district school council informed the school administrators in a decree that the imperial-royal state school council approved the holding of a healing course to treat severe cases of stuttering . In November of the same year the first conference of the 20 specially trained teachers took place. It took another two years until official healing courses for school children were introduced. These courses will continue until the beginning of the First World War .
The plan to collect speech-impaired children of one age group and bring them together in a special class became a reality in 1912/13 when a separate special class was opened with children from four first elementary school classes.
After the end of the war, as a result of the school reform that was now beginning under Otto Glöckel, the question of the treatment of school-age children with speech disorders was taken up again by the school authorities . The establishment of special classes and healing courses was sought again. With the establishment of five speech healing classes and eight healing courses for children with speech disorders in schools, the Vienna language healing school was founded in the school year 1920/21.
After the Second World War , the Vienna Language School was institutionalized as a four-class elementary school with three locations. Even then it was a European model for similar institutions.
In the 1970s, the support of speech therapy courses at other special schools was expanded. After initially only the physically handicapped, hearing handicapped and visually handicapped schools as well as the institute for the blind were supervised, soon all pupils of the general special schools, the special schools for severely handicapped and behavioral children could be recorded.
When the integration movement first advocated integrated teaching for disabled children in the 1980s, the Viennese language therapy school also tried to meet these educational demands with new concepts. In the mid-1990s, in addition to 14 speech therapy classes and over 250 speech therapy courses, it also offered first integration classes with a focus on speech therapy. This successful, integrative teaching model has now been gradually expanded. Since the 2006/2007 school year, all compulsory school pupils in Vienna with language problems have been looked after in an integrative way. As a supraregional special education center (SPZ) for speech therapy, the Viennese language therapy school now offers exclusively inservice services.