International perspectives and attitudes towards speech and language therapy and multilingualism

For decades, survey studies have shown that adequately assessing and treating multilingual children is a challenge for Speech & Language Therapists (SLTs), due to the scarcity of clinical tools and procedures that take into account the influence that atypical linguistic exposure and the L1 exert on L2 performance. However, the exact reasons why such tools and procedures are not available to SLTs were not fully clarified in previous studies. In a new online survey, 297 SLTs from 17 different countries were asked about their perspectives on SLT service provision for multilingual children with regard to their practical applicability and relevance. Participants were asked to rate their degree of agreement with 17 statements about multilingualism on a scale from 1 to 5. The results show that working with multilingual children is effortful for SLTs. SLTs indicated that assessment tools in languages beyond the societal language are not easily accessible, and that they are not content with the currently available tools. Similarly, SLTs find it difficult to access interpreters to help in the service provision for multilingual children. Participants also agreed that foreign language speakers should be recruited for the profession to increase the linguistic diversity among SLTs. Mandatory internships are considered useful to increase concrete experience in working with multilingual patients. Pointing to a lack of resources, SLTs consider easy access to useful materials and concrete experiences with multilingualism important to promote the development of multilingual and multicultural attitudes and appropriate approaches to linguistic diversity in clinical practice.