Issues related to serving the Arabic-speaking population in diaspora space with a focus on North America

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to report on the state of both professional licensure and the practice of speech language therapy in the diaspora spaces of the United States and Canada. Additionally, this paper discusses best practices for collaborating with, providing care to, and facilitating professional growth among the Arab diaspora. We begin by examining the practical contexts of professional certification in speech-language therapy in the US and Canada, particularly for bilinguals and Arab clinicians followed by a discussion of the challenges in care provision unique to Arabs in the diaspora. The paper is framed around these substantial differences in providing care to Arabs living in the Arab world, as opposed to those living in the diaspora; this is in order to encourage clinicians to consider social factors in the provision of a culturally responsive practice. These discussions exemplify how different contexts require clinicians to expand their practice beyond the positivist, raciolinguistic based assessment and intervention approaches exemplified in biomedical fields. Such outlooks are primarily focused on the biological bases of communication disorders and therefore overlook and/or pathologize both their sociocultural backgrounds and their interaction with communication differences and disabilities. In reality, these reflections are critical to designing effective assessments and interventions in clinical care in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences.