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92 JCPSLP Volume 15, Number 2 2013 Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology
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Summary and future directions
Our goal in writing this paper was not to provide a definitive
protocol for assessing clients speaking multiple languages.
Rather, our intent was to provide a narrative review of the
pertinent literature, provide a general framework for
assessing CALD children using LSA, and describe the
technological advances that have been made to assist
SLPs. When using any assessment technique, SLPs must
use the evidence based practice framework by
simultaneously considering the available empirical evidence,
their own clinical expertise, and the values of the client and
family (Dollaghan, 2004). For many of our CALD clients,
there will be a limited empirical evidence base available
specific to their language and culture. However, we can
look to the existing literature on LSA for guidance in eliciting
samples, transcription, and analysis. To fill the remaining
gaps, SLPs can draw on their own experience of assessing
children’s language skills. Finally, it is critical to carefully
consider the client’s and family’s cultural and linguistic
background. Not only is this best practice, but it will also
provide crucial information to allow the SLP to individualise
the assessment and reduce potential biases, such as
familiarity with the sampling procedure and language
proficiency. SLPs can expedite the assessment process by
utilising the available LSA tools, including digital recording
systems, software to transcribe samples, and automated
analyses. Using LSA data within the comprehensive
assessment will assist with the accurate identification of
children with language impairment and can provide rich
descriptive data to assist with planning culturally and
linguistically sensitive intervention.
Ultimately we must strive to gather more systematic
information about the languages of our clients. From
a research perspective this could include small-scale
studies, eliciting spontaneous language skills in a group
of participants, and describing the main features of that
language. One such study investigating the oral language
skills of 4-year-old bilingual Samoan children has just been
completed by the second author and work is underway to
determine how to code and analyse these samples, using
SALT. This study will allow us to systematically document
these bilingual children’s expressive language skills across
languages and help us understand cross-linguistic transfer
in areas such as grammar and semantics. We would like to
reiterate Williams’ (2011) viewpoint about the importance
of practitioner input in this process. Clinicians can assist
by collecting language samples from their CALD clients
following the procedures outlined in this article. It may be
possible to collate these data and build on the resources
we currently have available to aid our assessment of the
language skills of children from culturally and linguistically
diverse backgrounds in Australia.
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