Browsing by Author "Salmi, Laura"

The aim of the study. Multilingualism is a growing phenomenon worldwide and also in Finland. It means that speech and language pathologists (SLPs) will also encounter more multilingual people in their occupation. Multilingual customers may induce challenges to typical speech and language therapy, since international research has already shown that for example assessment methods standardized with monolinguals cannot be used as such with multilinguals. Multilingual speech therapy may also require using an interpreter which may induce even more challenges. Since the topic has only begun to majorly surface during the 2000s, presumably there are no unified clinical procedures among SLPs. Hence, the aim of this study was to gather a comprehensive overview of the clinical speech and language therapy procedures used with multilinguals in Finland today. In addition, this study aimed to gather information of the amount of multilingual customers and how they are distributed geographically throughout the country. Methods. The data was collected using an electronic questionnaire, which was sent to SLPs belonging to the speech and language pathologists' trade union. The questionnaire received 141 answers. The questionnaire comprised of four sections and basic background information of the informants. The data was analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The quantitative analysis was carried out by using Word Excel -spreadsheet. The qualitative analysis was carried out by gathering information from the open questions under different themes arising from the answers. Results and conclusions. Multilingual customers in speech therapy are most common in the Helsinki metropolitan area and in Southern-Finland, but their amount is increasing throughout the country. According to this study, to date, there are no unified therapy procedures in multilingual speech and language therapy. For example, the limited amount of suitable assessment materials, inaccessibility to research and cultural differences caused challenges for SLPs. With an interpreter the challenges were connected to the roles of different agents in the situation. Despite the challenges brought upon by this group of customers, the SLPs felt like they also gained a lot from working with this group of customers. This study can potentially bring SLPs closer to unified therapy procedures in multilingual speech and language therapy and evoke more studies on the subject.