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In a writing lab approach, speech-language pathologists (SLPs) work on collaborative teams with general and special educators to foster language growth using inclusive, curriculum-based, computer-supported writing process instruction. By engaging students in authentic writing projects using recursive writing processes--planning, organizing, drafting, revising, editing, publishing, presenting--and supporting them with instructional scaffolding, peer feedback, and computers, SLPs can address individualized needs while achieving goals of the general education curriculum. Case examples illustrate how intervention can be designed to meet the needs of students with diverse disabilities to interact socially and progress academically within the general education curriculum.

This article describes a research study comparing the effects of two computer-based writing tools on the story-writing skills of fourth-through eighth-grade students with language-related learning disabilities. The first tool, the prompted writing feature of FrEdWriter (Rogers, 1985), allowed students to answer story grammar questions, then type stories using those responses as the plan; the second tool, Once Upon a Time (Urban, Rushing, & Star, 1990), allowed students to create graphic scenes, then type stories about those scenes. Nine students attended a series of after-school writing labs twice weekly for 11 weeks, using each tool for half of the writing sessions. Group results did not clearly favor either tool; however, individual differences suggested that use of planning features should be linked to student needs. Students who had less internal organizational ability benefited from the computer-presented story grammar prompts and wrote less mature stories when using the graphics-based tool. Students with relatively strong organizational skills wrote more mature stories with the graphics-based tool.

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Understanding the relationship of emotional competence and language impairment may provide a new perspective for speech-language pathologists who are serving children with language and socioemotional impairments.