engleski

Cultural and linguistic competence of professionals working with children with DLD

BACKGROUND: Speech therapists often master a number of culturally competent practices to work with children and families from different cultural groups, but additional tools, diversifying the profession are needed to ensure equality for all children. OBJECTIVES: The study explores practitioners’ perceptions of cultural and linguistic differences in the work with children with DLD. A comparison was made of the results from different countries. METHODS: A Practitioner Survey Within COST Action IS1406 entitled: Enhancing Children’s Oral Language Skills across Europe and beyond was used. A total number of 1, 358 answers of respondents from 10 countries – Ireland, UK, Bulgaria, Poland, Croatia, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, Lebanon was used for the present analyses. RESULTS: The results show that participants from all the countries did not have enough knowledge in the field of cultural competence and most practitioners only worked in their country’s primary language. Professionals from Bulgaria, Poland and Croatia had similar responses to the questions about the cultural differences in the responsibility and behavior of parents related to the child’s language development. The professionals from Spain and Lebanon showed greater confidence in their cultural and language competence. The practitioners from Turkey and Lebanon had similar attitudes to parental behaviors typical of different cultural groups. CONCLUSIONS: The study points to the need for cultural and linguistic competence development and consideration by professional associations of the similarities and differences between countries. There is a need for gradual inclusion of more and more representatives of other cultures and speakers of other languages in the teams that work with children with DLD.

Cultural competence ; Linguistic competence ; Developmental language disorder ; Speech and Language Pathology

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