Context matters: speech-language pathologists’ perceptions of the impact of barriers and facilitators on culturally responsive professional practice

Purpose: The impact of known barriers and facilitators to culturally responsive practice in paediatric speech-language pathology services across different social, linguistic, and educational contexts is not well understood. An innovative data visualisation method was used to determine which barriers and facilitators most impacted different professional activities as reported by speech-language pathologists practising in Australia and Hong Kong. Method: A total of 111 speech-language pathologists in Australia and 76 in Hong Kong completed a survey with questions related to barriers and facilitators when working with families from diverse multilingual backgrounds. Descriptive statistics and correspondence analysis were used to explore relationships between professional activities and the barriers and facilitators in both contexts. Result: Correspondence analysis revealed that barriers impacted the two contexts more distinctively than the facilitators. Two activities most strongly impacted by barriers in both contexts included engagement in management and communication. Regarding facilitators, speech-language pathologists in both contexts indicated that cultural awareness most facilitated the development of rapport and knowledge of language most facilitated diagnosis. Conclusion: The impact of barriers was more varied between contexts which may be due to the different health and educational contexts that speech-language pathologists work in. In contrast, facilitative factors may be more robust and stable across these two cultural contexts.