What is it about?
The article advances a holistic, ecosystemic, and dynamic assessment protocol for phonological disorders (PD) in culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) populations who speak a less common language or dialect, offering specific recommendations for speech-language pathologists (SLPs), especially those who are neither experts nor speakers of the language(s)/dialect(s) used by their clients. Recommendations are formulated with an Action Plan and exemplified by a Child Case Scenario. The Action Plan comprises ten knowledge vantage points (Know…) as strategic clinical orientations that are considered binding, but are subject to the availability of resources, clinical relevance, and SLP expertise. The procedures also include specific reference points under each Know point that are conditional, though not exhaustive, navigation steps. This tutorial for clinical assessment of phonological disorder in speakers of less common languages/dialects in monolingual, multilingual, and bidialectal speech contexts, addresses the need for nonlinear, multi-level assessment of variable language exposure and use, being sensitive to individual speaker specificities, the sociolinguistic environment, and employing people-first, culturally sensitive, and dynamic strategies in clinical assessment. The stance also simplifies disambiguation tasks regarding the difference disorder dichotomy, enhancing existing clinical procedures. Greek-dominant speech is used as an example focusing on specific language variants: the main dialects, the adult Greek-English speaker interlanguage blueprint, and child bilingual Greek-English protolanguage (child developmental language). While Greek serves to exemplify the proposed protocol (Action Plan), the present paper enhances the clinical assessment of PD in culturally and linguistically diverse speaker contexts where combinations of other languages and/or dialects may be involved.
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Why is it important?
Diversity considerations are of paramount significance in the clinical assessment and treatment of speech disorders in bilingual children and adults who speak a less common language (and/or its dialects). While comprehensive assessment is essential for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) populations, this is clinically challenging due to the indeterminacy entailed in the process and incumbrances in access to resources. This clinical tutorial outlines key considerations necessary for holistic, ecological, and dynamic assessments of speech sound disorders internationally in linguistic diversity contexts, focusing on Greek as an example.
Perspectives
This write-up is an amalgam of knowledge and experience gained through exposure to different but related applied language fields of study and research, such as child phonological/language development, bilingualism/multilingualism, second language acquisition (SLA), sociolinguistic variation (dialects and bidialectalism), psycholinguistics, speech sound disorders (SSDs), speech-language pathology, and the longitudinal case-study methodology design. It has also been driven by an international perspective, and love for language in all its shapes and forms. The ultimate hope is to help serve children, students, SLPs, educators, and related stakeholders.
Elena Babatsouli
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Ecosystemic Clinical Assessment of Linguistic Diversity: Greek-Dominant Speech, Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, December 2023, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA),
DOI: 10.1044/2023_persp-23-00088.
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