Discursive analysis of educational speech therapy from professional actors in teaching practice.

Abstract

Introduction: To analyze the tensions between biopower and school based on the discursive genealogy of educational speech therapy from the perspective of practicing professional actors within a Colombian Speech Therapy program. Methods: A descriptive study using a qualitative grounded theory paradigm was conducted with the participation of five undergraduate professors from a Colombian university. Results: Five in-depth interviews were conducted on educational speech therapy, resulting in open coding of 233 codes with axial coding of 20 categories organized into subcategories, properties, and dimensions. These open coding reveals the practices of meaning that shape the field of Educational Speech Therapy. Analysis and discussion: Educational speech therapy as a field is the result of practices of subjection that begin during undergraduate training within the relationships of meaning updated by the historicity of the speech therapy profession's discourse regarding its social role and its healthcare actions. Biopower practices emerge as a result of the organization of healthcare based on diversity and toward disability within schools, particularly in their designations of learning disabilities or disabilities. Conclusions: The genealogy allowed us to trace the tensions arising from the process of changing the concept of Educational Speech Therapy from biopower practices of separation to its manifestations of inclusion within schools.