What is the definition of culture?

 A set of institutions, rituals, values, world views, artifacts and rules of behaviors (including
language) used by a group of people for the purpose of relating to their environment.
Members of a given culture are often of the same race.
Members of the same race need not share the same culture.
What variations exist within a culture?
 Age roles
 Region of settlement
 Gender roles
 Social status
 Economic status
 Amount of formal education
What aspects play a role in the cultural pyramid?
 Abilities
 Age
 Class/SES
 Sexual Orientation
 Nationality
 Language Use
 Spirituality
 Regionality
 Ethnicity
 Sex/Gender
 Race
 Education

 Cultural Proficiency Continuum

 Continuum: can chance, doesn't always stay the same; can change based on environment.
What is Cultural Destructiveness?
 The elimination of other people's cultures.
 Represented by attitudes, policies and practices destructive to cultures and consequently to the
individuals within a culture.

 EX: Doctor's office being open 9am-5pm, but takes lunch from noon-1pm. That messes up your
day of 7:30am-8pm, with a lunch break from noon-1pm. They need to be open so you can get in.
Your grad school culture limits available time.
What is Cultural Incapacity?
 Belief in the superiority of one's own culture and behavior that disempowers another's culture.
 An organization or individual that shows extreme bias, believes in the superiority of the dominant
group, and assume a paternal posture towards so-called lesser groups.

 Talking different (use of different vocab) dependent on who you're speaking with.
What is Cultural Blindness?
 Acting as if the cultural differences one sees do not matter or not recognizing that there are
difference among and between cultures.
 The belied that color and culture make no difference and that all people are the same.
 All people are not the same; embrace the differences!
What is Cultural Precompetence?
 Awareness of the limitations of one's skills or an organization's practices when interacting with
other cultural groups.
 Awareness of limitations in cross-cultural communication and outreach.
What is Cultural Competence?

(Cultural Humility)
 Interacting with other cultural groups using the five essential elements of cultural proficiency as
the standard for individual behavior and school practices.

 Learn how to interact w/ certain cultures and store that experience away to recall on if need be.
What is Cultural Proficiency?
 Esteeming culture.
 Knowing how to learn about individual and organizational culture.
 Interacting effectively in a variety of cultural environments.

 Be able to be a chameleon to adapt and adjust to the situation at hand.

What are some cultural variations in families?
 Family structure
 Can no longer strictly talk about mom and dad.
 Mom/mom? Dad/dad? Grandparents?
 Childrearing practices
 Language and communication styles
 The role of women
 More dads are taking on the role of motherhood.
 View of disability
 View of time
 View of professionals
 If they haven't had good past experience with professionals, that might carry over to you.
What is race?
 A person's biological phenotype.
 EX: black, white, asian

What is ethnicity?
 Refers solely to your cultural identity, frequently defined by language, customs, or culture.
 Often associated with one's nationality.
 Ethnically speaking, one can be American
Diversity is more than ethnic & racial backgrounds.
 Diversity means understanding and valuing the characteristics and beliefs of those who
demonstrate a wide range of characteristics.
 While recognizing the different groups to which individuals may belong, it should also be
understood that each group is composed of persons who exhibit a broad range in values and
characteristics.
 We must refrain from making group stereotypes.
 EX:ScOLD test
 African-American individual walks in the door, automatically go to the AAE section.
What are some demographic changes?
 Non-traditional families
 Age of parents
 Aging population
 Lower income
 Higher costs for insurances
What are some other cultural factors?
 Food
 Fashion
 Television
 Music
ASHA Position
 No social dialect of English is a communication disorder, but a legitimate variety of English.
 All SLPs must possess competencies and be familiar with procedures for culturally unbiased
testing to make an accurate determination of difference versus disorder.
Implications of ASHA Position
 The SLP is professionally bound to become familiar with all cultural groups and dialectal
variations commonly encountered in his or her clinical work.
 The SLP must seek standardized test instruments that represent the cultural populations
indigenous to his or her environment or develop local "norms" that DO represent regional
cultures.
 If there is not a standardized test for a specific population, you must use a test
that can distinguish a disorder and difference.
Legal Requirements
 PL 94-142: The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975
  Mandates all test materials and procedures used to the evaluation of handicapped children be
selected and administered without racial or cultural bias.
Communication Disorders in Minority Population
 10% of general population has a communication disorder.
 If the prevalence is consistent within the minority groups.
 6.2 million culturally/linguistically diverse individuals have some type of communication
disorder.
Federal Stipulations
 Testing and evaluation materials and procedures must be selected and administered so that they
are not racially or culturally biased.
 Testing and evaluation materials and procedures must be provided and administered in the
language or other mode of communication in which the child is most proficient.
 The tests administered to a child with a motor, speech, hearing, visual or other communication
disability, or to a bilingual child, must accurately reflect the child's ability in the area tested,
rather than the child's impaired communication or limited English language skill.
 Tests and other materials must be properly and professionally evaluated for the specific purpose
for which they are used and administered by qualified personnel.
Difference vs. Disorder
 Is this a language difference or LLD?
 Are difficulties with the assessment due to cultural differences?
 Have questions been asked about student's environment and linguistic experience/exposure?
 Is the difficulty in both the primary language and SAE?
Review of Test Manuals
 Information on the demographic characteristics of the standardization sample.
 Information of the performance of the child's sub-group with the standardization sample.
 Evidence of possible linguistic, cultural, value and or/format bias.
Checklist of Potential Discrimination
 Specific purpose of the test
 Validation for this purpose
 Limitations of the test
 Specific information about standardized group
 Characteristics of students being tested as compared to standardized group
 Indications of differences in test performance across cultural groups
 Differences in values or adaptive behaviors
 Vocabulary of test
 Test demands
 Item by items analysis of features
Demonstration of Presence or Absence of Bias
 Include target demographic groups from most recent census.
 Provide separate reliability and validity information for the targeted groups.
 So that their test items are as appropriate from the targeted groups as for the mainstream
population.
 Avoid the inclusion of timed tests.
  Cultural parameters change depending on culture and their view of time.
Definition of a Biased Test
A test can be considered biased if it differentiates between members of various groups on bases other than
the characteristic being measured. That is, a test is biased if its content, procedures, or use result in a
systematic advantage or disadvantage to members of certain groups over other groups or if the basis of
the differentiation is irrelevant to the test purpose.
Reduction of Test Bias
 A test item is considered to be unbiased is all individuals having the same underlying intended-to-
be measured undimensional ability have an equal probability of answering the item correctly,
regardless of group membership.
Many currently-used, popular tests may have cultural bias
 Format bias
 Linguistic bias
 Value bias
 Situational bias
Format Bias
 CLD children may have differing life experiences and language socialization practices.
 Assessing some things the child might not have had experience with before.
 Evaluation of the topics and content of pictures and test items for possible vocabulary and/or
topics that may not be common to the experiences of the children being tested.
 Use of labels vs. descriptions.
Value Bias
 Cross-cultural differences in the types of responses CLD children give to questions.
 Differences in communication styles may affect responses.
 Family upbringing may provide variety in responses.
Situational Bias
 Pragmatic mismatch
 Rules of who may speak to whom
 Appropriate elicitation procedures
 Appropriate language behaviors
 Answer and respond to questions
 Rules of production and interpretation
Linguistic Bias
 Regionality not taken into consideration
 Different:
 syntax
 semantics
 vocabulary
 Various forms of English
 Appalachian English
 African-American English
 Spanish-Influenced English
Examples of Linguistic Bias
  TOLD-P:3 - Sentence Imitation Task - use of ain't for aren't is considered an error
 TOLD-P:3 - Relational Vocabulary - cleaver an ax or faucet and spigot
IDEIA Regulations
 Mandates no single criteria be used for making eligibility determinations.
 Emphasizes the importance of using multiple sources for determining a child's eligibility for
special education services.
 States that test and other evaluation materials must not be discriminatory.
IDEIA Regulations
 Specifies that any standardized test be validated for the specific purpose for which they are used,
tailored to assess specific areas of education need, if given under non-standardized conditions be
followed up with a description of how test administration varied.
Cultural Differences in Perceptions of Disability and Communication
 Not all cultural groups highly value effective verbal communication.
 Diverse belief systems of various cultural groups regarding disabilities and communication.
 e.g. Mexican mothers tend to attribute extrinsic factors (e.g. God's will, schools)
whereas Anglo American mothers tend to attribute intrinsic factors (e.g. medical
condition, family history, personality)
Minority Populations
 Minority children tend to be diagnosed with communication disorders more than children in the
mainstream culture.
Why?
 More children born at risk and more individuals with health problems due to limited access to
health services.
 SLPs lack of information about individual diversity (e.g. dialects, communication styles)
 Culture Free Testing
 "No such thing" - Carol Westby, 2000
 No valid tests for culturally different individuals.
 The act of testing itself is culturally biased.
 Testing involves presentation of tasks out of a usual context and structured interactions with
adults.

Culture Free Testing

 Nonverbal aspects of the "testing" cul
 Perceptions and use of time

How does one learn and display learning?

 Verbal? Tactile?
 Group versus individual orientation
 Verbal aspects of the "testing" culture
 Language function
 Language content: where is the meaning?
 Language organization structure
ASHA Recommendations
  Move away from the use of standardized IQ testing, language testing and cognitive referencing
for determining a child's eligibility.
 Place greater emphasis on use of criterion-reference, descriptive, dynamic assessment, parent
interview, observation and other alternative assessment procedures.
Assessment Tool Choices
 Clinicians may use formal (standardized, norm-referenced) tests to assess clients.
 Formal test results along should never be used to establish treatment foals or measure treatment
progress.
 Clinicians should analyze formal tests according to how reliable and valid the tests are.
Choices
 Reliability and validity are important especially for the specific populations the clinician serves.
 Clinicians need to use formal tests in conjunction with nonstandardized, informal tests in order to
obtain the most complete profile of clients' abilities and skills.
Principles of Nonstandardized Assessment
 Nonstandardized assessment can be used to supplement formal test results.
 These measures have the advantage of being flexible, adaptable to individual clients and valid as
a basis for planning treatment.
 Skills measure may be poorly defined and subject to examiner bias.
Identifying Potential Sources of Bias
Minimizing potential sources of evaluation bias
Prerequisites
 Become familiarity with the many aspects of the culture of the populations served.
 Examine own cultures with respect to individual expectations.
 Seek knowledge about a given cultural group.
 Ask questions.
Modifying Standardized Tests
 Allow students extra time to respond.
 Provide instructions in both English and the student's first language.
 Explain or rephrase confusing instructions.
 Give extra practice items, examples and demonstrations.
 Repeat items if necessary.
 Omit biased items that students are likely to miss.
 linguistic, biased, etc.
 Continue testing even after the ceiling has been reached.
 Devote ore than one session to the testing.
 Have a trusted, familiar adult administer the test under the clinician's supervision.
 REPORT ANY MODIFICATIONS MADE!