Keeping the ‘Science’ in CSD: Using Converging Evidence to Assess Cultural and Linguistic Influences

SLPs are pretty dynamic people. We perform evaluations in languages we don’t speak, identify and bridge cultural barriers, and change lesson plans on a dime to follow our English-language learner (ELL) students’ teachable moments. SLPs who work with clients from various cultural and linguistic backgrounds need a collection of soft skills that make our profession an art form. We should also remember what we do is a science. We apply scientific principles when we make, rule out and confirm hypotheses to assess clients’ needs. To do that we collect objective data and analyze and interpret it. It’s tough to feel like a scientist in a room of preschoolers, but keeping that role in mind makes us stronger practitioners. One scientific principle discussed in the area of psychology, “converging evidence,” particularly helps in assessing cultural and linguistic influences. Let’s explore this with a few key terms and examples: Converging evidence means we should make clinical judgments based on the majority of evidence. In other words, we look at all the evidence together, examine how data interact and determine what the “big picture” tells us. Connectivity says a theory qualifies as an “advance” only if it explains old information and identifies new information. For SLPs, it’s not enough to use one good test score as an indicator that our client no longer needs services. We must also account for why the client performed poorly on other tests, what cha...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - Category: Speech Therapy Authors: Tags: Speech-Language Pathology Bilingual assessment bilingual service delivery Cultural Diversity Language Disorders Source Type: blogs