Current Practices of Speech-Language Pathologists Serving Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Adults with Communication Disorders in Alberta

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Church, Torie
  • Manuel, Abigail
  • Nguyen, Nguyen
  • Kim, Esther
  • Tomlinson, Heather

• Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) provide language-based services which makes working with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) clients uniquely challenging. Alberta is becoming increasingly diverse, but little is known about the ways in which Albertan SLPs are currently serving their CALD adult clients. SLPs working with adult clients in Alberta were invited to complete a survey exploring their experiences with CALD service delivery. A mixture of qualitative and quantitative data was gathered. Results indicate that graduate and professional development/continuing education training inadequately prepares SLPs to work with CALD clients. Formal interpreters are rarely used, possibly because they can be difficult to access. Informal interpreters are used more frequently. Participants reported lacking the knowledge, confidence, and resources to effectively serve their CALD clients. More than 70% of participants support increased education and advocacy surrounding CALD service delivery. Future research may expand upon the findings from this study by surveying SLPs across the country.

• Date created

  2017-05-27

• Subjects / Keywords

  • speech-language pathology
  • adult
  • culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD)

• Type of Item

  Report

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3CC0V800

• License

  Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International