Cultural and Linguistic Diversity

What is culture?

Culture is the collection of knowledge, experience, meanings, beliefs, attitudes, religion, timing, roles, spatial relations, concepts of universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a large group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving

What are some factors that may impact assessment and intervention?

• Assessment materials lack context or do not match cultural background of client

• Treatment materials and activities may not be culturally relevant

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  Clinician needs to be knowledgeable of clients linguistic background in order to accurately assess and treat true articulation and language challenges, not those due to learning English or speaking a dialect of English

Strategies for improving Cross Cultural Communication

• Be informed about client and family’s culture; familiarize yourself with social language customs

• Be knowledgeable of any dialects/languages client and family use and are exposed to and how that will influence their production of American English phonemes

• Consider different perceptions of the clinical process (assessment and treatment)

• Create meaningful, culturally relevant and sensitive therapy materials

• Be adaptable and collaborative

• Be open-minded and flexible

Ambilingual

Speaks both languages with proficiency of a native speaker.

Equilingual

Communicates effectively in both languages.

Semilingual

Demonstrates poor mastery of both L1 and L2.