Know What Your Asian Pacific Islander Caucus Can Do For You

The API Caucus annual meeting this past November at ASHA’s 2017 National Convention in Los Angeles. A young mother and new immigrant to the United States was alarmed. Her 2-year-old son was not yet speaking. Luckily, her pediatrician referred her to early intervention services, which connected her with a bilingual Mandarin/English-speaking speech-language pathologist. This SLP also belonged to ASHA’s Asian Pacific Islander Speech-Language-Hearing Caucus (API Caucus). The SLP worked with this child for a year, taking care to integrate and adapt treatment activities to the routines and language practices of the family. As the child made gains, the SLP also interpreted, translated and facilitated on behalf of the client’s family and educational team during the boy’s transition to preschool. Later, our colleague volunteered to advocate for this family during a housing crisis. Volunteering to serve clients above and beyond professional duties is often the norm for members of the API Caucus. What exactly is the API Caucus? The term Asian and Pacific Islanders includes all people of Asian (East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian), Asian American, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander heritage. The field of speech-language pathology was once unknown to most people in the API communities. In 1985, Lilly Li-Rong Cheng led a small group of ASHA-certified API professionals to hold the first meeting of the API caucus at the ASHA National Office, and we have been meeting eve...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Authors: Tags: Audiology Speech-Language Pathology Bilingual assessment bilingual service delivery cultural competence Cultural Diversity multicultural constituencies Source Type: blogs