Abstract
This study investigates current speech and language therapy services for multilingual children in three cities in the UK, and examines whether an equitable service is provided to multilingual children in these cities. Through a combination of questionnaires, Census data, and school population data, information was gathered about number and ratio of monolingual and multilingual children in the population, number and ratio of monolingual and multilingual children on therapy caseloads, languages spoken by the multilingual children and therapists, number and ratio of therapists working in languages other than English, availability of multilingual therapy assistants and interpreters, language(s) in which therapy is offered, training/education provided to therapists, and practising therapists' views on service provision to multilingual children. Results show that currently only one of the three cities is providing a fully equitable service for multilingual children and that there are varying levels of support which partly reflect the perceived need in each area. Conclusions drawn include the need for a change in how data on linguistic diversity in society is collected and disseminated so that informed decisions can influence the future of quality services to minority groups.
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Notes
1 This excludes data from Northern Ireland as ethnic group data were not collected in the Northern Ireland 1991 Census.
2 The need to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate services and the challenges involved in providing such services, equally applies to clients who speak two languages, as to those who speak three or more languages or language varieties. It is for this reason, that in this paper we do not distinguish between bilingualism and multilingualism, nor between biculturalism and multiculturalism (Müller, Citation2003). The term multilingual is therefore used here to refer to individuals who use two or more languages in any of its modalities, speaking, understanding, writing, and reading, regardless of their relative proficiency.
3 There are, of course, other ways in which inequity could be measured which are beyond the scope of this study, such as the duration of therapy, the severity of the disorder, or the age of therapy (cf. Winter, Citation2001).
4 The 72% refers to the return rate of the questionnaires sent out to 25 out of a total of 73 speech and language therapists in S1. This amounts to 25% of the total number of speech and language therapists working with children in S1. The 100% refers to the two service coordinators in S2 and E1, who are responsible for a total of 3 and 70 speech and language therapists working with children, respectively.
5 Note that in the publicly available Census data for ethnicity by age the different Mixed categories (such as White and Black Caribbean, White and Black African, White and Asian, and Any Other Mixed) were collapsed into just one category ‘Any Mixed’.
6 Panjabi (also spelled Punjabi) is the language spoken in the Punjab, a region covering parts of north-eastern India and western Pakistan. Although the names Panjabi and Punjabi are often used indiscriminately, sometimes Panjabi is used to refer to the Indian version which is written in the Gurmukhi alphabet (closely associated with the Sikh religion), whereas Punjabi is used to refer to the Pakistani version which has a Perso-Arabic script (just like Urdu, which is the official language of Pakistan).
7 Chinese/Hakka is spoken in many parts of mainland China and has the greatest concentration of speakers in eastern and northeastern Guangdong. Other regions in which it is spoken are specifically in Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Hunan, and Sichuan. Outside China it is spoken in Brunei, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Indonesia (Java and Bali), Malaysia (Peninsular), Mauritius, New Zealand, Panama, Singapore, South Africa, Suriname, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom, and USA (Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com; accessed 14.1.05).
8 Pashto (sometimes called Mahsudi, Pakhto, or Pushto) is a language mostly spoken in Pakistan, but also in Iran and the United Arab Emirates (Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com; accessed 14.1.05).
9 Kokni, also called Kanara, Kokna, or Kukna is an Indian language mostly spoken in the Gujarat (Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com; accessed 14.1.05).
10 Hindko is a Pakistani language spoken amongst others in the Punjab region (Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com; accessed 14.1.05).
11 Kutchie also referred to as Kachchi, Kachchhi, Kutchchi, Cuchi, Cutch, Kachi, Katch, Kautchy, Katchi, is a language spoken mostly in India, but also in Kenya, Malawi, Pakistan, and Tanzania (Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com; accessed 14.1.05).
12 Bengali (sometimes called Bangla) is the national language of Bangladesh. Sylhetti is another language mostly spoken in the Sylhet region of Bangladesh (Ethnologue, http://www.ethnologue.com accessed; 14.1.05).