Communication Disorders in Multicultural Populations

Dolores E. Battle

• Publisher: Mosby
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780323087124
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Audiology & Speech Pathology

Written by some of the top researchers and clinicians in the field, Communication Disorders in Multicultural Populations, 4th Edition offers an in-depth look at the major cultural groups in the U.S. and the issues concerning their communication development, common disorders, and treatment options. This fourth edition features a wealth of updates and new features— including the latest research and added coverage of communication issues in countries such as Australia, China, Canada, and Brazil— to give speech-language pathology students and speech-language pathologists a balanced and global perspective on the most topical multicultural communication issues of today.

• Comprehensive coverage focuses on a wide variety of cultural and age populations.
• Cutting-edge research and data offer up-to-date discussions based on the latest studies in multiculturalism as it relates to the SLP and AuD professions.
• Diverse panel of expert authors include some of the top researchers and clinicians in the field.
• Additional resources provide a focused listing of print and electronic sources at the end of each chapter to support more in-depth study of a particular subject.

• Chapter on international perspectives tackles issues in countries such as Australia, Canada, China, and Brazil to give you a more global understanding of communication disorders.
• The latest statistics from the 2010 U.S. Census report offers the most current data available.
• Increased content on older adults covers the multicultural issues, voice disorders, and neurogenic disorders particular to this important demographic.
• Case studies give you practice solving realistic clinical problems.
• Chapter overview and conclusion outline the key information in each chapter and serve as a checklist for content mastery.

PART I

Cultural Diversity: Implications for Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists

Chapter 1 Communication disorders in a multicultural and global society

Dolores E. Battle

Introducing a multicultural and global society

The term culture originated from the Latin colere meaning to cultivate or improve. Although the term originally referred to agriculture, in the 18th century when the diversity of persons around the world became globally apparent through increased European and world exploration, the term culture evolved to refer to the study of the full range of learned human behavior patterns and experiences. Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917), considered the founder of modern anthropology and one of the first scholars to use the term culture in a universal or human sense, defined culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Tylor, 1871, p. 1). Culture is about the behavior, beliefs, and values of a group of people who are brought together by their commonality. More important, culture is the lens through which one perceives and interprets the world (Vecoli, 1995). It is the filter through which all that one does must pass before entering the collective conscience. Religion, language, customs, traditions, and values are but some of the components of culture. Anthropologists describe culture as a set of interacting systems that perpetuate certain practices and systems through generations. The practices may involve kinship systems, which may encompass mate choice, marriage customs, family relationships and obligations, and household composition, as well as nonkinship relations in various voluntary associations. Religions or belief systems, economic systems, and political systems extend relationships beyond the family and household.

A culture also includes language or communication systems. According to Durant (2010), language systems and speaking behaviors bind communities and shape social life and communication. They help form social identity and group membership and help to organize cultural beliefs and ideologies. All cultures have ways of communicating using a verbal language; classify people according to age and gender (e.g., woman, man, girl, boy) and descent relationships (e.g., wife, mother, uncle, cousin); raise children in some sort of family setting; and have leadership roles for the implementation of community and family decisions. Although all cultures have these and possibly many other universal traits, different cultures have developed their own specific ways of carrying out or expressing them. For instance, people in Deaf cultures frequently use their hands to communicate with sign language instead of verbal language. However, sign languages have grammatical rules just as verbal ones do.

Speech, language, and communication are embedded in culture. Edward T. Hall (1959) said, “Culture is communication. Communication is culture.” Culture can be viewed as a system of competencies shared in broad design and deeper principles and varying among individuals. Its specificities are what an individual knows, believes, and thinks about his or her world. Culture is a theory of what one believes his or her fellows know, believe, and mean. It is more than a collection of symbols fit together by the analyst. It is a system of knowledge sharpened and constrained by the way the human brain acquires, organizes, and creates internal models of reality (Keesling, 1974). Culture provides a system of knowledge that allows people of a cultural group to know how to communicate with one another.

The relationship between communication and culture is reciprocal: culture and communication influence each other (Keesling, 1974). Therefore, one cannot understand communication by a group of individuals without a thorough understanding of the ethnographic and cultural factors related to communication in that group. These factors are intricately embedded in the historical, geographic, social, and political histories, which bind a group, give it a sense of peoplehood, and give it ethnic identity.

Because the roots of communication are embedded in culture, it is logical to assume that one cannot study communication or communication disorders without reference to the cultural, historical, or societal basis for the communication style or language used by the members of the ethnic or cultural group. The social rules of discourse and narratives (e.g., topic selection, who selects the topic, who initiates the conversation, who ends the conversation, distancing, eye gaze, and sense making) are culturally determined. Who speaks to whom, when, where, and about what must be understood in the context of the culture of both partners in the communicative event if the clinician is to determine the presence or absence of a communication disorder.

Communication behavior and the perception of what constitutes a communication disorder within a particular group are the products of cultural values, perceptions, attitudes, and history. These factors must be considered when determining the communication competence of a particular person within a group. For example, reluctance to speak and failure to initiate a conversation or use a particular narrative style can be appropriate to one culture but inappropriate to another. The impact of a voice disorder can be different for speakers of tonal languages than for speakers of nontonal languages. Expectations of the benefits of rehabilitation for the effects of stroke or traumatic brain injury can also differ across cultural groups.

Terminology

The terms race and ethnicity are often used interchangeably; however, they have different meanings. Ethnicity refers to a shared culture that forms the basis for a sense of peoplehood based on the consciousness of a common past. For example, Black is considered a race, but Hispanic is considered an ethnicity. Hispanics can be of any race. Race, language, and ancestral customs constitute the major expressions of ethnicity in the United States. Ethnicity is not passed genetically from generation to generation. Rather, ethnicity is constructed and reconstructed in response to particular historical circumstances and changes. In its most intimate form, an ethnic group can be based on face-to-face relationships and political realities that mobilize its members into political self-determination. Joined by the aspirations for political self-determination, ethnicity is used to identify groups or communities that are differentiated by religious, racial, or cultural characteristics and that possess a sense of peoplehood.

An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage that is real or assumed, and share cultural characteristics. This shared heritage may be based on putative common ancestry, history, kinship, religion, language, shared territory, nationality, or physical appearance. Members of an ethnic group are conscious of belonging to an ethnic group; moreover, ethnic identity is further marked by the recognition from others of a group’s distinctiveness.

Ethnography refers to the fully developed sense of the meaning of a culture and the complex manner in which one comes to understand the intricacies of the culture. The ethnographic understanding of a culture implies a fully developed sense of the complex web of meanings, perceptions, actions, symbols, and adaptations that make a people who they are.

Race refers to the biologic and anatomic attributes and functions, such as skin color, facial features, and hair texture. Two people can be of the same race but differ widely in cultural identity, personal history, and their view of the world. For example, a Korean child reared in a Korean family will have Korean cultural values; however, a transracially adopted Korean child adopted at birth by an African American family has the biologic and genetic characteristics attributed to his or her genetic ancestors but has the cultural values imparted by the adoptive parents.

The 2010 U.S. Census employed categories representing a social-political construct for the race or races that generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country. The concept of race took into account social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry. The race categories included both racial and national-origin groups. The racial groups were identified as white, American Indian/Alaska Native, Af...