Off-campus UMass Amherst users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your UMass Amherst user name and password.

Non-UMass Amherst users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.

Dissertations that have an embargo placed on them will not be available to anyone until the embargo expires.

ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2786-1615

Access Type

Open Access Thesis

Document Type

thesis

Degree Program

Communication Disorders

Degree Type

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Year Degree Awarded

2022

Month Degree Awarded

May

Abstract

This thesis investigates best practices for teaching and supporting bilingual augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) users as they develop their communication skills. Although there are guidelines that inform best practices for teaching and supporting bilingual AAC users, there is very little information on what these practices look like. This thesis investigates the techniques and strategies that bilingual speech-language pathologists (SLPs) who practice in Catalunya, a bilingual community in northeastern Spain, use to evaluate, teach, and support people who use pictogram-based AAC modalities to communicate.

To do this, six SLPs who practice in Catalunya participated in interviews regarding their practices when teaching bilingual AAC users. These interviews were analyzed thematically, based on an iterative, inductive coding process. Analysis revealed that most bilingual AAC users have access to an AAC system in only one language of the community. This may reflect a monolingual mindset (Tonsing & Soto, 2020), and limits the opportunities for engagement with both the larger community, and the individuals’ home communities. This is particularly true for those who speak a language other than those of the community with their families. Despite this, AAC users seem to understand both languages, develop bilingual identities, and “feel bilingual.” Additionally, despite the lack of access to multilingual AAC systems, professionals employ practices that show respect for the home language, whether it is Castilian Spanish, Catalan, or another language. The results suggest that the monolingual mindset is a deeply-ingrained part of educational and therapeutic systems in both monolingual and bilingual communities, even when individual practitioners respect and value their clients’ home language(s) and bilingual identities.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.7275/28621063

First Advisor

Megan Gross

Second Advisor

Yu-Kyong Choe

Third Advisor

Gloria Soto

Download

Share

COinS