Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Care: An Exploration of Speech-Language Pathology Students' Training and Competence

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association standards for accreditation require that speech-language pathology (SLP) graduate programs support students’ development of culturally and linguistically responsive care (CLRC) skills. Preprofessional CLRC training should prepare SLP graduate students to serve all individuals, particularly those from growing culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Currently, there is a dearth of research on how students develop CLRC during their preprofessional training and the factors that impact this development. Therefore, this study aimed to explore students’ self-perceived competence in CLRC and the association of individual social structural factors (race/ethnicity, multilingual status, and frequency of cross-cultural experiences) with their CLRC competence at the end of their preprofessional studies. The current study also explored students’ perceptions of their CLRC training and the association of their training with CLRC competence.A cross-sectional exploratory study using a convergent parallel mixed method design was used. A Qualtrics questionnaire elicited anonymous responses from 40 second-year SLP graduate students across three Northwest universities. Of these students, 10 completed semi-structured interviews. Findings from this study indicate variance in students’ CLRC competence that is, in part, attributed to the frequency of their cross-cultural experiences but not their race/ethnicity or multilingual status. Furthermore, this study revealed that CLRC training is evident in the curriculum of the three participating universities. Students shared their perceptions of which elements of their CLRC training impacted their development. While the current study did not confirm an association between SLP students’ CLRC competence and the CLRC training, the results of this study may yield insightful information for how SLP programs may address current gaps, meet accreditation regulations by ASHA, and provide CLRC training to ensure that students enter the workforce prepared to provide equitable and inclusive services to mitigate health and educational disparities