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Cultural and linguistic diversity in speech-language pathology

Embracing cultural and linguistic diversity in speech-language pathology is a necessity of an increasingly globalized world. Currently, the research evidence upon which speech-language pathology practice is based is still largely drawn from western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) societies; and assumptions are made that these data are generalizable to all human populations without consideration of the vast diversity that exists between societies (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). Across the world, professional bodies are recognizing the need for increased research regarding culturally and linguistically diverse populations to ensure that recommendations for practice are based upon the best available evidence (Goldstein, 2012; International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children’s Speech, 2012; RCSLT Specific Interest Group in Bilingualism, 2007; Speech Pathology Australia, 2009). This special issue of the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology responds to the need for embracing cultural and linguistic diversity by providing data to support practice with diverse populations. Indeed, the impetus for the special issue was the number of manuscripts received by the editor-in-chief that addressed this need. Three key topics are covered in this special issue. These are: (1) the acquisition of speech and language in diverse languages; (2) the impact of the communicative environment and interlocutors upon multilingual children’s language use; and (3) enhancing the identification of speech and language difficulties in multilingual speakers. Speech and language acquisition is influenced by conversational context. As a result, patterns of speech and language acquisition vary depending on language exposure, proficiency and use. Understanding these patterns in diverse languages is essential for SLPs’ clinical decision-making, as highlighted in four papers in this special issue. Másdóttir and Stokes (2016) and PhAm and McLeod (2016) make critical advances in the understanding of speech acquisition and phonemic inventories in two languages for which these data have rarely been published in English: Icelandic and Vietnamese. The study of children’s consonant acquisition in Icelandic (Másdóttir & Stokes, 2016) importantly adds further evidence to support studies in other languages (e.g., English: Dinnsen, Chin, Elbert, & Powell, 1990) that have found phonological acquisition in children is influenced by an implicational hierarchy of phonetic features. PhAm and McLeod (2016) acknowledge the rich diversity in one of the world’s most commonly spoken native languages through a detailed description of the differences between the consonants, semivowels, vowels, diphthongs and tones for four main dialects of Vietnamese: Standard, Northern, Central and Southern. Whilst Han, Brebner, and McAllister (2016) and Klintö, Salameh, and Lohmander (2016) consider languages previously reported, the populations on which they focus are under-reported. Specifically, Han et al. (2016) discuss the complexities of speech and language acquisition in bidialectal and bilingual Chinese speakers and Klintö et al. (2016) describe the speech acquisition patterns of Swedish-speaking children with unilateral cleft lip and palate. All four papers enrich our understanding of speech and language acquisition and reinforce the need for careful consideration of every language in a speaker’s repertoire when making clinical decisions. The impact of the communicative environment and interlocutors upon multilingual children’s language use are described in two papers. Dennaoui, Nicholls, O’Connor, Tarasuik, Kvalsvig, and Goldfeld (2016) and Rojas, Iglesias, Bunta, Goldstein, Goldenberg, and Reese (2016) support