Bilingual Supports for Clinicians: Where Do We Go From Here?

Purpose The purpose of this study was to identify and define the support needs of bilingual speech-language pathologists working in one urban school district and to investigate the experiences of the clinicians engaged in a professional learning community (PLC) format within their public school system. Method Twenty-three bilingual speech-language pathologists met in a PLC over the course of 5 months, with a total of four sessions that were a mix of in person and virtual. The participants engaged in group discussions and activities alongside their peers to address self-identified areas of support and need. Additionally, initial and final focus group and exit slip data following the PLC were collected to inform the discussion topics of the PLC and gather final impressions. Constant comparative analysis was utilized to analyze focus group and exit slip data. Results When looking across the experiences of the clinicians in the district, the three themes that emerged from the data were systemic obstacles, professional obstacles, and supports. The three themes that emerged from the speech-language pathologists' experiences in the PLC included their positive experiences, the challenges with participation, and the positive outcomes from exposure to new techniques and earning platforms. Conclusion The findings of this study suggest that bilingual clinicians benefit from a PLC model when addressing specific areas of need.

Establishing Diagnostic Skills in Novice Bilingual Clinicians: A Scaffolded Approach

This study sought to scaffold administration performance of a standardized bilingual screener to sufficient levels of accuracy for data collection using principles of Cognitive Load Theory by managing task complexity when training pre-service clinicians. Before training administration skills, two students were given copies of the manual for the Bilingual English Spanish Oral Screener (BESOS) and asked to administer the protocol independently. During the intervention phase, students were scaffolded through administration tasks of increasing complexity and given explicit instruction, which included tailored goals, modeling and feedback. Performance for four skills was assessed using a fidelity rubric and analyzed using visual analysis. Performance varied per skill but overall scores were higher during the intervention phases than during the baseline phase for both students. In addition, accuracy of performance maintained across client participants showing patterns of generalization. Although the data are limited, scaffolding training skills for pre-service clinicians appears supportive in training administration skills for bilingual tasks. The level of support may vary per skill and per language. Future research may seek to investigate other clinical skills and tasks.

Refugee Telemental Health in Denmark

For asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants in Denmark access to mental healthcare is a problem due to lack of clinicians who understand their language, culture, and special needs. It is well known that patients who do not speak the language of respective care providers report feeling discriminated against in clinical settings, whereas communicating with health professionals in a common language is associated with increased trust and confidence. That is probably why “ethnic matching” appears to be the most desirable model used in addressing language barriers and cultural disparities in mental healthcare provision. Since early 2000, a telepsychiatry-based ethnic-matching model has been developed and established in outskirt areas of Denmark through various pilot projects. The aim of this approach was to improve access to scarce, culturally appropriate care providers (i.e., culturally competent, bilingual clinicians) by the use of videoconferencing.

Addressing Less Common Languages via Telepractice: A Case Example With Vietnamese

The number of children in the United States who need two languages to communicate in home and school settings is rapidly growing. The challenge to support home and school languages can be daunting considering the shortage of bilingual clinicians and the multitude of home languages in the United States. Telepractice is one approach to address this challenge, namely by connecting bilingual service providers with language-matched children and families. This article describes a case example of telepractice between a bilingual speech-language pathologist and a Vietnamese-speaking mother–child dyad. This case consisted of a speech-language evaluation and weekly training sessions via web conferencing. The author discusses advantages and limitations to telepractice, and introduces web-based resources for professionals working with Vietnamese-speaking families.

Language, Culture and Psychiatric Services: A Survey of Victorian Clinical Staff

In planning psychiatric services for non-English speaking immigrant communities it is essential to know what resources are available for the implementation of service plans. A survey of 991 professionals from a variety of disciplines working in Victorian state operated inpatient and community psychiatric services demonstrates that, although there is a substantial number of bilingual clinicians working in the system, there is a poor match between languages spoken by patient groups and clinicians, infrequent contact between bilingual clinicians and patients speaking the same language, and inadequate availability of interpreting services. Clinicians' knowledge of cultural issues relevant to assessment and treatment is inadequate, and there is some enthusiasm among clinical staff for remedying this deficiency. Clinicians express the opinions that services to non-English speaking patients are inferior, and clinical outcome is worse than for the Australian-born. There appears to be general support for changes which would seek to more adequately meet the psychiatric service needs of immigrants.