The Challenge of Working with Minority Languages

Abstract

Wherever the speech therapist/teacher/psychologist chooses to work, she is faced with the challenge of finding out about the community in which she works. This is particularly so when that community uses languages other than English. Communication disorders can only be distinguished from problems in learning English if the speech therapist has a sound knowledge of the sociolinguistic, cultural and historical context of the bi/multilingual population she is working with, and has access to linguistic information of the language(s).