Few or no Black adults have been included in normative samples for tests of aphasia, nor have test and item bias with Black adults been evaluated for such popular tests as the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE; Goodglass & Kaplan, 1983), the Minnesota est for Differential Diagnosis of Aphasia (MTDDA; Schuell, 1965), and the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB; Kertesz, 1982). To address this, group differences were investigated in expressive language test performance on the BDAE, MTDDA, and WAB by 48 nonbrain-damaged Black (
n
=24) and White (
n
= 24) adults. Each test was administered by a White female examiner and audiotaped. The responses of subjects and subject foils with aphasia were scored by graduate speech-language pathology students who were blind to the purpose of the study. A comparison of the test scores on the expressive language subtests revealed that, with the exception of three subtests, there were no statistically significant differences in obtained scores for upper and middle SES subjects. Those differences that were found were not a function of age, gender, or social network status. Moreover, differences in subtest performance were not obviously due to grammatical or phonological features of African American English (AAE), but rather to task-related AAE style differences.
Global directions is one of seven societal trends identified by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA, 2010) as expected to influence the profession of speech-language pathology (SLP) worldwide. In the Caribbean country of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), only a small cohort of SLPs currently provide private service delivery. To increase the number of qualified practitioners, a graduate SLP program has been proposed. The program must reflect the values of the Trinbagonian people, while aligning competencies and standards of evidence-based practice with the World Health Organization's (WHO, 2011) 21st-century mandate. The 12 SLPs currently practicing in T&T were surveyed about their international graduate educational and clinical experiences and service delivery practices in T&T. They were invited to indicate which of the 2014 Standards and Implementation Procedures for the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Speech-Language Pathology (ASHA, 2012) would be necessary for graduate SLP program preparation in T&T and what additional content and/or clinical skill areas would be needed for competent culturally sensitive service delivery. The results indicated that all Trinbagonian practitioners support a graduate program modeled on the 2014 SLP Certification Standards, but they identified challenges to service delivery in T&T that need to be addressed in specific graduate program coursework and clinical education.
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