Catherine J. Crowley

Collaborations to address barriers for people with communication disabilities in Ghana: Considering the World Report on Disability

Abstract The World Health Organizations World Report on Disability underscores the need to identify and address barriers that limit people with disabilities from having access to services. Wylie, McAllister, Davidson, and Marshall (2013) consider the impact of that report on people with communication disabilities (PWCD). Over the past 5 years, the authors have worked together in Ghana to address the needs of PWCD. With only about 10 university-trained speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in Ghana, the barriers to PWCD receiving services are quite high. The authors are working together and with others to establish the first speech-language pathology program in Ghana. The authors also work to identify ways to share with PWCD and their families knowledge and skills on how to improve the communicative function of PWCD. In doing so, the authors have learned valuable lessons about the role of an SLP, especially when considering under-served PWCD, lessons that are applicable to both Majority and Minority World countries. This commentary describes the authors’ work over the past 5 years, and describes initiatives that have had some measure of success in reducing barriers to access to information and services needed by PWCD and their caregivers and communities.

Policies and Practices Regarding Students With Accents in Speech-Language Pathology Training Programs:

Speech-language pathology (SLP) training programs are the initial gateway for nonnative speakers of English to join the SLP profession. An anonymous web-based survey in New York State examined policies and practices implemented when SLP students have foreign accents in English or in other languages. Responses were elicited from 530 students and 28 clinic and program directors. Few policies delineated criteria for determining how native like or intelligible students’ speech needed to be for them to work effectively or for determining when accent modification was required. Students with foreign accents in English were asked more often to undergo accent modification than were students with foreign accents in Spanish or other languages. Strategies for practices regarding SLP students with accents are proposed.

Beliefs regarding the Impact of Accent within Speech-Language Pathology Practice Areas.

With the demographic shifts in the United States, it is increasingly the case that speech-language pathologists (SLPs) come from different language backgrounds from those of their clients and have nonnative accents in their languages of service. An anonymous web-based survey was completed by students and clinic directors in SLP training programs in New York State regarding their beliefs about the appropriate scope of practice of SLPs with accents in English and other languages. Responses were received from 28 directors and 530 students. Perceived appropriateness of service by accented clinicians depended on particular disorders serviced and degree of accent, with phonologically based services believed by the greatest number of respondents to require more native-like speech than other areas. Further efforts must be made to research effects of SLPs’ accents on service delivery and plan strategies, if needed, for successful service provision in SLPs’ diverse areas of practice when mismatches in language backgrounds occur.