Culturally responsive methods of assessing and diagnosing speech sound disorder in Lithuanian-Icelandic multilingual children: A converging evidence approach
Background: The number of multilingual children in Iceland has been steadily increasing, placing greater demands on speech-language pathologists to provide reliable clinical diagnoses using appropriate assessment tools and methods. Lithuanian speakers are now the third-largest immigrant group in Iceland.
Aim: This study implemented culturally responsive methods to distinguish between Lithuanian-Icelandic children with speech sound disorder (SSD) and those with speech differences related to multilingualism who do not have SSD and can reach age-appropriate abilities without intervention.
Method/approach: The speech production of 22 Lithuanian-speaking adults living in Iceland and 22 Lithuanian-Icelandic speaking children were analysed. Concerns about speech and intelligibility in both languages were also collected from children’s parents and teachers. Traditional practices were followed and then a corrected analysis was performed, which did not consider mismatches due to crosslinguistic influences to be errors. A converging evidence approach was then used to make diagnostic decisions. Study approval was from Vísindasiðanefnd and Siðanefnd háskólanna um vísindarannsóknir.
Results/findings: Using traditional analysis methods, seven children meeting the criteria for SSD compared to four children when using a culturally responsive approach
Conclusion: The results of this study provide initial guidelines for clinicians on which processes and speech features used by Lithuanian-Icelandic speaking children may result from typical crosslinguistic influences rather than SSD. The use of culturally responsive methods impacted diagnostic decision-making. These findings have important clinical implications for speech-language pathologists and other professionals working with both Lithuanian-Icelandic speaking children and multilingual children in general.
Implications for children and families: You will learn about how cross-linguistic processes influence speech development in multilingual children and why different assessment methods are necessary.
Implications for practitioners: You will learn about procedures to reduce the cultural bias embedded in traditional assessment methods when assessing multilingual children.
Funding: Menntarannsóknasjóður [219261-051].
Keywords: multilingual, speech production, speech sound disorder, intelligibility, Icelandic, Lithuanian, speech-language pathology
This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: