The following chapter has been accepted for publication and forms part of Kate Margetson's PhD:
Margetson, K., McLeod, S., & Verdon, S. (2023, in press). Diagnosing speech sound disorder in bilingual Vietnamese-English-speaking children: Are English-only assessments sufficient? In E. Babatsouli (Ed.). Multilingual acquisition and learning: Towards an eco-systemic view of diversity. John Benjamins Publishing.
Here is the abstract:
Multilingual children suspected of having speech sound disorders (SSD) are often only assessed in English due to challenges facing speech-language pathologists (SLPs) such as inadequate resources, lack of access to multilingual SLPs or interpreters, and limited SLP knowledge and skill in assessing unfamiliar languages. This tutorial describes the speech profiles and diagnostic decision-making for four bilingual Vietnamese-English speaking children aged 4-6 years. When using English-only assessment all children were diagnosed with SSD. When assessed in English and Vietnamese, only two children were diagnosed with SSD. Many mismatches could be explained by cross-linguistic transfer and ambient phonology. These different diagnostic outcomes demonstrate that direct speech assessment in home language(s) and English is essential for accurate diagnosis of SSD in multilingual children.
