JCPSLP Vol 17 No 1 2015_lores

23 / 60

JCPSLP Volume 17, Number 1 2015 21
May 2013). This indicates that approximately 10% of the
potential target population was recruited for this study. The
average number of years spent working as a SLP was 6.70
( SD = 4.8) with 16.4% respondents indicating they have
worked for more than 15 years. Table 1 details the regions
in which the respondents provided services and how this
compares to the general Australian SLP population and to
the results from a recent survey into general aphasia
rehabilitation practices by Rose et al. (2014). Respondents
were sourced from mailing lists of the Centre for Clinical
Research Excellence in Aphasia Rehabilitation and the
Speech Pathology Australia Email Google Chat Group.
Recruitment advertisements were also placed in the
Speech Pathology Australia national and state branch
e-newsletters. Ethics approval for this study was granted by
the La Trobe University Faculty of Health Sciences Human
Ethics Committee (FHEC 12/193).
Questionnaire
A 30-item internet survey was piloted on a group of six
volunteer SLPs experienced in aphasia rehabilitation. The
final survey consisted of 31 items and was expected to take
30 minutes to complete. The survey was available to
respondents during March and April 2013. Results from
one section of the survey dedicated to interpreting services
will be reported in a future publication. The questionnaire is
provided in the Appendix.
Analysis
A content analysis was conducted on text responses to
open questions (Berg, 1998). Responses for each question
were given a thematic code by the first author. Similar
codes were grouped together to generate a “theme”. All
themes that were generated were then analysed to
determine if macro-level themes which encompassed
themes with related content were present. Using the
themes that were generated, the second author re-coded
10% of all the responses. Point-to-point inter-rater
agreement was achieved at 91.4%. Descriptive statistics
were used to analyse responses to closed questions.
Descriptive analyses are used to describe different
characteristics of a population, and commonly used in
survey research (Portney & Watkins, 2009). Frequency
counts of nominal and ordinal data were conducted and
expressed as numerical figures and percentages. Measures
of central tendency (mean) and dispersion (range and
standard deviation) were calculated for ratio data.
Results
This paper reports the survey findings with regards to the
knowledge, skills, and education of our profession, and
areas of clinical practice relevant to these topics. While the
However, a similar investigation of specific knowledge and
skill gaps in Australia has yet to be made.
The current body of research raises concerns about the
state of the knowledge, skills, and, consequently, the quality
of the services of SLPs working in aphasia management
with CALD communities in Australia. Yet, little is known
about what specific knowledge and skills gaps need to
be addressed. Importantly, there is also little information
regarding aphasia intervention practices. Large-scale
investigation into SLPs’ satisfaction and confidence levels
regarding the overall range of services provided to CALD
clients is absent. Such information along with the perceived
knowledge and skill needs of clinicians can inform
professional development (PD) and university programs of
potential improvements and move us closer to providing
quality culturally competent aphasia management services.
Aims
This research aimed to investigate current demographic
characteristics, perceived levels of knowledge, skills and
education, aphasia rehabilitation practices, and perceived
levels of confidence and satisfaction of SLPs working in
aphasia rehabilitation in Australia with CALD clients. For the
purpose of this paper, we use the term CALD as a broad
descriptor to refer to individuals other than the English-
speaking Anglo-Saxon majority. We acknowledge that in
common use the term CALD is often used to refer to individuals
born overseas (Sawrikar & Katz, 2009); however, we chose
not to focus on migrant status as a defining feature of the
term in our survey. We also note that the term CALD does
not generally include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
communities and we have not focused on the issues
specific to these people; however, we have included
occasional mention of these communities in our paper
where our participants have raised relevant issues. We also
investigated the challenges faced, and changes required,
as reported by SLPs when working with CALD populations.
Method
Participants
Members of the target population were SLPs with a
caseload including patients with aphasia (PWA) in Australia
at the time of the survey. The survey link was accessed 88
times; however, only 73 surveys were completed and
analysed. Fifteen incomplete surveys were excluded
because the respondents completed less than 40% of the
questions. At the time of data collection, there were
approximately 720 SLPs on a national database held by the
Speech Pathology Association of Australia who self-listed
adult language disorders (including aphasia) as a specialty
area in their profiles (M. Bradley, personal communication, 7
Table 1. Localities of service provision for Australian SLPs
Locations Current research Rose et al. (2013) Speech Pathology Association of
Australia (2003)
Capital cities/ metropolitan area 78.1% 58.5% 84%
Regional cities 16.4 % 41.5% (combined regional and
rural locations)
10.7%
Regional towns 6.8% 3.1%
Remote area 1.4% 0.8%
Very remote area 0 0