This academic year, Dr. Lidia Huerta, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD), has been setting up her research lab.
Huerta’s research centers on the cultivation of culturally and linguistically responsive care (CLRC), which refers to the understanding, appreciation, and respect for diverse cultural and linguistic attributes of all clients receiving clinical speech-language therapy services, especially those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
As a recent recipient of Illinois State’s New Faculty Initiative Grant (NFIG), Huerta will continue to focus on one area of her research which explores the feasibility and utility of the Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Care Competency Survey (CLRCCS), a measure she developed with the support of her doctoral advisor, Dr. Lauren M. Cycyk.
The CLRLCCS is a measure that assesses speech-language pathology graduate students’ self-perceived CLRC competence. The development of the CLRCCS fits a critical need in the field. Speech-language pathologists are increasingly providing services to individuals whose cultural and linguistic background differs from their own. Additionally, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s (ASHA) standards for accreditation require that speech-language pathology education programs include preservice training that supports CLRC.
To address ASHA standards, speech-language pathology programs have modified their instructional practices to teach CLRC (Stockman et al., 2008). Yet, the instructional models and practices for teaching CLRC competence in communication sciences and disorders courses vary. As such, it is unknown which instructional approaches are most effective in enhancing students’ competence in providing CLRC.
The CLRCCS is a promising measure that may inform speech-language pathology programs of students’ readiness to serve individuals from diverse communities and inform the extent to which speech-language pathology programs adhere to accreditation requirements, yielding curricular adjustments that further support students. Huerta will start her longitudinal study analyzing the utility and feasibility of the CLRCCS this summer.
