CDIS 3510 Topic 9

Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Clients

What is culture?

• Beliefs, behaviors, objects, and other characteristics common to the members of a particular group or society

• Language, customs, values, norms, rules, tools, technologies, products, organizations, and institutions (family, religion, work etc.)

Cultural groups have differing views on:

• disability and intervention

• individual achievement

• children’s behavior in the company of an adult

• use of eye contact in communication

• woman’s role in society

• familial authority

Implications of culture on practice:

Names and titles you will use during communicative exchanges may vary among different cultures

Certain cultural groups may be uncomfortable with:

• case history and interview questions that are often asked in some settings in the US

• some of the testing practices we traditionally use

Who are the families we work with?

• New immigrants

• First, second or third generation immigrants

• Refugees and those seeking asylum

• Adoptions

• From many different cultures, highly influenced by their own native cultures and the geographic characteristics of their homeland

What is culture shock?

The process people go through when their cultural values, beliefs, and routines are changed or challenged as a result of migration (Lynch & Hanson, 1998)

Acculturation w-shaped proccess

Happy spirits → happy to be here

Disatisfied → problem solving not working

Acculturated → more adapted

Disatissfied → disatissfied with own reverse culture shock

Bicultural → adapted to both cultures

Culture shock and conflict

Practitioners may find some family practices unacceptable, or that families are too withdrawn or angry to be helped

• Developing cultural competence is our goal – not learning the stereotypes of each culture

Language dominance

Language dominance is characterized by:

• Longer MLU / more advanced grammatical structures

• Larger number of different word or verb types used in discourse

• Fewer pauses / hesitations

• Greater Volubility (talkativeness)

* Dominance is relative to the other language. Dominance is linked to the amount of input in each language.

Influential factors on language dominance:

• Age of acquisition

• Socioeconomic status (SES)

• Input/output

• Experiences

• Time/amount of exposure

Major milestones for diverse languages:

Babbling (Oller, Eilers, Urbano & Cobo-Lewis, 1997; Maneva & Genesee, 2002)

• Canonical

• Variegated

First words / Word Combinations (Maneva & Genesee, 2002; Petitto, Katerelos, Levy, Gauna, Tetreault & Ferraro, 2001)

Errors decrease as children gradually get closer to adult targets

Same as english speaking children

Speech development for diverse languages:

Phonological Processes → children use substitution processes for more difficult sounds (irrespective of language)

Intelligibility  → increases with age

Lexical development for diverse languages:

Vocabulary (Conboy & Thal, 2006; Hammer et al., 2008; Páez et al., 2007; Pearson & Fernández, 1994; Uccelli & Páez, 2007; Uchikoshi, 2006; Umbel et al., 1992)

• Sequence / Rate  → same as English speakers                                    

• Standard scores → greater for English speakers

• Conceptual /Total Vocabulary  → same as English speakers                                    

• Number of Different Words & Total Number of Words → increase with age

Verb Use (Bloom, 1991; Ingram et al., 2008; Sanz-Torrent, et al., 2008; Silva-Corvalán & Montanari, 2008)

• Error rates tend to be low

• Verb acquisition occurs in stages

• Cross-linguistic influence in the acquisition of some verb forms in DLLs

• Number of Verb Types & Number of Verb Forms → increase with age

Grammatical development for diverse languages:

Language dominance is characterized by:

• Longer MLU / more advanced grammatical structures

• Larger number of different word or verb types used in discourse

• Fewer pauses / hesitations

• Greater Volubility (talkativeness)

* Dominance is relative to the other language. Dominance is linked to the amount of input in each language.

Components of assessment

• Case History

• Oral-Peripheral Exam

• Speech and Language Samples

• Norm-referenced tools

• Criterion-referenced tools

• Functional Assessments

• Observations (e.g. classroom / peers)

• Conversational samples

• Dynamic Assessment:  Test – Teach - Retest

• Parent/Family and Teacher Reports/Questionnaires

Case history

Language history

• Age of acquisition

• Language/ Dialect

• Length of exposure

• Age of immigration

• Educational experiences with each language

• Language use at home, school and with peers → Does the child use each language differently?

Oral-peripheral exam

Explain the purpose of the exam and tasks

Provide visual models if needed

Speech and language samples

1. Free-play (more talk but less complex language)

2. Interviews (more adv language than free play samples)

3. Conversations

4. Narratives (more expanded phrases and morphemes than conversation and also the longest utterances)

*Conversations and Narratives are most appropriate for school-age children since we want at least 50 utterances.

• Analysis yields information regarding functional skills in morphology, syntax, semantics, & phonology

Norm-references/standardized measures

Tool Selection

• Tools need to be non-biased (less-biased)

• nterpreting scores

• Accommodate (change the environment or mode of response) or Modify (change the material or content) if necessary

• Problems with translations (Goldstein, 2000) → Acquisition of targets varies by language & English targets may not exist in other language

• Test in native language and other languages

Functional assessment includes observations, what are some questions?

• How does student interact with classmates?

• How well is student able to follow directions?

• How well is student able to communicate needs and ideas?

• How quickly does student learn new skills compared to other

Dynamic assessment

Goal = to identify children’s skills AND learning potential

Framework:

• Pretest (baseline/current performance)

• Teach → Mediated Learning Experience (you create this experience for the child); Assist child to develop new strategies; Watch to see if/how the child changes

• Post test

Characteristics of DLLs with disorders

• Difficulties in BOTH languages

• Difficulties NOT related to cross-linguistic influence

• A language disorder is a disability that affects a child’s ability to learn language, any language