- Title
- The assessment of aphasia in the context of cultural and linguistic diversity
- Creator
- Al-amawi, Samar
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2013
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- The present research aimed to explore the challenges that monolingual speech pathologists and interpreters face during aphasia assessment sessions for bilingual speakers. A review of the previous research in the area of speech pathology assessment of bilingual speakers highlighted that the search for valid standardised assessment tools was problematic given both the complexities of obtaining adequate linguistic translation to cope with cultural and dialectal diversity among language groups, and the challenges faced by health care interpreters given the need to adapt materials to enhance interpreters’ partnerships with speech pathologists to ensure the validity of individualised assessment processes. The research aimed to develop an assessment guide that would facilitate these complex processes through providing these professionals with culturally and linguistically appropriate guidance. In the first stage of the current research, the results of an online national survey (58 respondents) highlighted a lack in the availability of appropriate assessment materials for speech pathologists for use with bilingual speakers in Australia. It also revealed that speech pathologists’ lack of knowledge about other languages and cultural diversity is a main barrier towards improving the quality of the assessment sessions obtained for bilingual speakers. The findings highlighted that bilingual speech pathologists are often unavailable within the Australian context those who can work as consultants for monolingual English-speaking speech pathologists, to help in interpreting the assessment outcomes of bilingual speakers, including those with aphasia. Despite the reported difficulties faced by speech pathologists when assessing bilingual speakers with aphasia, as revealed from the survey findings, speech pathologists rated themselves as competent in doing the assessment and believed that the assessments they obtain for bilingual speakers are effective. In the second stage of the research, the analysis of transcripts from focus group discussions identified the difficulties that arise in the partnership and collaborative teamwork between interpreters and speech pathologists when they are working together to assess bilingual speakers within the Australian context. In particular, misunderstandings were reported as common between speech pathologists and interpreters in relation to each other’s expectations of their roles within the sessions. In the third stage, based on the findings revealed by the previous two stages of this research, an aphasia assessment guide was developed to providing interpreters and speech pathologists with an assistive guide to allow them to better identify and explain their role within aphasia assessment sessions for bilingual speakers. The guide developed for the present research narrowed the focus of the research to the pathology of aphasia and to the Arabic language, for the purpose of material development. The guide provides important knowledge needed by the English-speaking speech pathologists about the main Arabic language characteristics. The guide also provides health care interpreters with basic information about the meaning of the term ‘aphasia’ and about the expected language and speech behaviours and symptoms associated with the disorder. The guide provides some examples of more culturally and linguistically appropriate assessment materials that might be useful when obtaining language assessment for Arabic speakers with aphasia. The current research findings suggest the importance of the development of assessment materials that can readily be understood by health care interpreters and used flexibly in partnership with monolingual speech pathologists. While the present research develops such assessment material for Arabic adult speakers, it is suggested that the research offers a potential model for the development of similar assessment processes and materials for use with a range of other languages and cultures.
- Subject
- Arabic speakers with aphasia; bilingualism; aphasia assessment; Arabic aphasics
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/937479
- Identifier
- uon:12566
- Rights
- Copyright 2013 Samar Al-amawi
- Language
- eng
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Abstract | 407 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Thesis | 3 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |