Influence of social inclusion and institutional culture on students' interactions in clinical settings.
Katijah Khoza-Shangase, Margo Kalenga
PMID 37916687WHAT IT FOUND
Half of English-as-additional-language speech therapy students reported feeling slowed down by language barriers during clinical tasks.
However, they also described a multilingual advantage in building patient rapport and avoiding the need for interpreters.
Key findings
01Fifty percent of participants felt their English proficiency slowed them down during clinical practicums, particularly in record-keeping and completing tasks.
02Participants reported that their ability to speak indigenous languages allowed them to build better rapport with patients and provide explanations without needing an interpreter.
03Ninety-one point seven percent of participants agreed that it is possible to feel excluded from the speech-language pathology programme due to English proficiency levels.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample was very small (24 participants) and limited to female students in a single university programme, so findings may not represent all EAL students in South Africa. Data relied on self-report, which can be influenced by social desirability bias. The cross-sectional design captures experiences at one point in time and cannot show how these challenges evolve over the course of training.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was conducted with ethical clearance from the University of the Witwatersrand.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the students' reported difficulty with expression or slower task completion as a lack of clinical competence. The study indicates these are linguistic processing challenges that can be supported by supervisors, not evidence of poor clinical skill.