Engaging in culturally responsive and globally sustainable practices.

Purpose: This article highlights critical issues facing speech, language and hearing educators, clinicians, and scholars that pertain to culturally and linguistically responsive and globally sustainable practices.Method: Points included in this article pertain to the usefulness of understanding causes and consequences of world changes; and the importance of critically examining and reconceptualizing practices in ways that eliminate the vestiges of ableism, racism, and colonialism embedded in those practices.Result: This article provides strategies for moving away from positivist science and a medical model to critical science and a social model of disability for critically analysing the impact that the changing social, political, and global landscapes have on our practices.Conclusion: These strategies will help members of the discipline to rethink policies and standards that can transform practices into those that continue to be culturally responsive, globally sustainable, and relevant in this new global context.

Gaps in Framing and Naming: Commentary to "A Viewpoint on Accent Services".

PURPOSE: In this commentary, we offer a critique of "A Viewpoint on Accent Services: Framing and Terminology Matter" (Grover et al., 2022). We argue that the authors' proposal to rename and reframe accent modification lacks criticality, which actually hinders-rather than advances-the movement toward equitable, culturally sustaining, and emancipatory practices. METHOD: We offer an analysis of the shortfall between the authors' calls for linguistic justice in "A Viewpoint on Accent Services" and the actual changes they proposed. We break down major gaps in criticality, reflexivity, practice, and vision and discuss their potential for undercutting meaningful progress as it relates to linguistic justice. RESULTS: We found that the frameworks for the pursuit of equity, cultural sustenance, and emancipatory practices were misrepresented in the article in such a way that suggests that these goals could be achieved through superficial changes in terminology and attitudes. "A Viewpoint on Accent Services" upholds a power-neutral frame of operation that does not address the deeper systemic forces that make accent modification problematic. The lack of criticality toward accent intervention fosters complacency toward real transformation. CONCLUSION: We advocate for a serious and critical interrogation of accent practices and commitment to an emancipatory practice that addresses linguistic discrimination above all else. We emphasize the need to decenter standardized languages and to co-envision linguistic liberation using critical methods in scholarship, pedagogy, clinical practice, and policy.

Making Race Visible in the Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences: A Critical Discourse Analysis.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this critical discourse analytic study is to identify how two key professional standards documents in the Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences field-the Standards for Certification document and the Essential Functions rubric-contribute to the discursive construction of the ideal speech-language pathologist and audiologist, and to examine whether the experiences and needs of people of color are taken into consideration in these documents. METHOD: Critical discourse analysis was used as both a conceptual and methodological lens for the systematic analysis of the targeted text. RESULTS: The findings show that considerations of race and racism were almost entirely absent from both documents and thus reflected a discourse of race neutrality that is ideologically consistent with color-blind racism. The enactment of racially coded expectations within a construct of race-neutral discourse maintains racial inequities in the speech, language, and hearing sciences professions. CONCLUSIONS: The findings highlight the need for the open acknowledgment of racism in our institutional policies and discourses and official and ongoing commitments to concrete and measurable antiracist actions to counteract systemic racism. Recommendations for and examples of antiracist measures are offered.

Social Communication and pragmatic skills of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Developmental Language Disorder.

PURPOSE: to assess the pragmatic and social communicative abilities of children with Typical Language Development (TLD), Autism Spectrum disorder (ASD) and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). METHODS: Participants were 40 parents and 29 teachers of 40 children ages between 3 and 6 years. Ten children had DLD, ten had ASD and 20 had typical development. All participants answered to the questionnaire of the "Assessment of Pragmatic Language and Social Communication - APLSC - parent and professional reports - beta research version. Data were submitted to statistical analysis. RESULTS: The assessment tool was useful in identifying the difference in performance of children with different social communicative profiles. CONCLUSION: Children with ASD presented social and pragmatic impairments that were more significant than those presented by children with DLD. However, both children with ASD and with DLD presented more social pragmatic difficulties than children with TLD.

International Survey of Speech-Language Pathologists' Practices in Working with Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

OBJECTIVE: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental impairment. To better understand the role of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in different countries in supporting children with ASD, the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics (IALP) Child Language Committee developed a survey for SLPs working with children or adolescents with ASD. Method and Participants: The survey comprised 58 questions about background information of respondents, characteristics of children with ASD, and the role of SLPs in diagnosis, assessment, and intervention practices. The survey was available in English, French, Russian, and Portuguese, and distributed online. RESULTS: This paper provides a descriptive summary of the main findings from the quantitative data from the 1,114 SLPs (representing 35 countries) who were supporting children with ASD. Most of the respondents (91%) were experienced in working with children with ASD, and the majority (75%) worked in schools or early childhood settings. SLPs reported that the children's typical age at diagnosis of ASD on their caseload was 3-4 years, completed mostly by a professional team. CONCLUSIONS: The results support positive global trends for SLPs using effective practices in assessment and intervention for children with ASD. Two areas where SLPs may need further support are involving parents in assessment practices, and supporting literacy development in children with ASD.

Differentiating Autism from Typical Development: Preliminary Findings of Greek Versions of a Pragmatic Language and Social Communication Questionnaire.

OBJECTIVE: A social pragmatic communication disorder is one of the primary characteristics of children with autism. Although several measures of pragmatics and social communication exist, many are not comprehensive, do not examine the quality of interactions across contexts and interlocutors, and cannot be easily administered and interpreted. The aim of this article is to report on preliminary data collected using the Greek version of comprehensive social communication and pragmatic language questionnaires completed by parents and teachers interacting with young children in different contexts. METHODS: A Greek translation of the social communication and pragmatic language questionnaires was administered to parents and teachers of 31 children diagnosed with autism and of 51 typically developing children aged 3.0-6.0 years. Analysis and Results: The performance on the Greek versions of the social communication and pragmatic language questionnaires of typically developing children was compared with the performance of the children with autism using a series of independent t tests. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize participant characteristics and performances on the measure. Preliminary results showed that significant differences with moderate effect sizes were found between groups on 63% of the 30 test items. CONCLUSIONS: The performance of children on questionnaires may lead to the development of easily administered and interpretable assessments for differentiating children with pragmatics and social communication impairments, such as children with autism, from typically developing children.

A grassroots prototype for trauma-informed child welfare system change.

The development of trauma-informed child welfare systems (TICWSs) that advance individual agency practice to target transformation of the system as a whole has been conceptualized but not documented. A grassroots effort to build a TICWS with key participants (e.g., Department of Human Services, Community Mental Health, Family Court, schools) in nine Michigan communities provides a field tested model for implementation. This article described what emerged as the core elements for a TICWS, which includes (1) development and support of a project champion, (2) trauma identification, (3) comprehensive assessment of traumatic impact, (4) evidence based trauma treatment, (5) establishing a common trauma language, and (6) trauma-informed decision-making. Several new instruments for assessing aTICWS are identified. Lessons learned are highlighted for consideration of communities seeking to develop TICWSs.

Prologue: understanding children who have been affected by maltreatment and prenatal alcohol exposure.

This prologue introduces an important topic for multiple disciplines involved with children and their families. This introduction includes a review of some of the current literature on the effects of maltreatment and prenatal alcohol exposure on child development, an explanation of why this topic is essential learning for communication professionals, prevalence figures for the occurrence of these effects, and a summarization of the articles that have been contributed by a cross section of researchers from various disciplines.

Epilogue: understanding children who have been affected by maltreatment and prenatal alcohol exposure: future directions.

This epilogue summarizes the six articles presented in the clinical forum focused on understanding children who have been affected by maltreatment and prenatal alcohol exposure. It presents common themes that emerged among the articles and future research directions.

A response to traumatized children: developing a best practices model.

SUMMARY This manuscript describes the key components for establishing collaborative partnerships in the delivery of services to children who have been traumatized by abuse, neglect, and prenatal exposure to alcohol. Specifically, the manuscript addresses: the national need for such collaborative partnerships; the effects of abuse, neglect, and prenatal exposure to alcohol on developmental and educational outcomes; the process used to develop the children's trauma assessment center (CTAC) including discussion on the family centered and transdisciplinary nature of the center; and the accomplishment and future goals of CTAC. The members of the CTAC team currently include the disciplines of counseling, occupational therapy, pediatric medicine, social work, and speech-language pathology. Future goals include expanding the core team to include the nursing and educational psychology disciplines.