|
Interpreters
as assistant in multilingual speech-language diagnostics. 19/05/2006 Paper for CPLOL – congress September
2006, |
Mirjam Blumenthal, Speech Language Pathologist, project
leader.
Audiologisch Centrum Den Haag
Kenniscentrum
Meertaligheid, kind en ontwikkeling
Postbus 848
2501 CV Den Haag
Tel:
00-31-70-3848300/14
Fax:
00-31-70-3805634
Teksttel:00-31-70-3848329
E-mail: M.Blumenthal@acdenhaag.nl
An interpreter (Papiamentu) is testing a Papiamentu-speaking child,
guided by the SLP
In this contribution I would like to address three
questions concerning the development and pilot of a course for interpreters who
(want to) work as assistants in speech-/language diagnostic work:
1.
Why do we need specialised
interpreters?
2.
What can be done to educate them?
3.
What is necessary to develop a
structural service of specialised interpreters?
Contents
1.
Context of
2.
Why do we need specialised
interpreters?
3.
Course development
4.
Development of ‘TAVAK’
5.
Didactic methods
6.
Pilot
7.
Evaluation, results
8.
New insights
9.
Difficulties experienced recently
10.
Future plans?
1.
Context of my work in the
The
In The
Netherlands both monolingual ánd multilingual children with a possible
speech-language delay / impairment are usually referred to Audiological Centres
for diagnostic purposes. In the audiological centre a multidisciplinary team
assesses if they suffer from either language delay or – impairment, or have
other problems like general developmental problems, or hearing problems. As
part of the multidisciplinary approach the speech-language development is
assessed.
This assessment has to be performed in all the
languages the children speak and / or understand. In most cases the assessor
does not speak the child’s home language(s). As a consequence, a mediator who
speaks the home language is needed (Langdon, 2002, Julien 2004, Julien /
Blumenthal, 2004).
The Dutch government provides free interpreters for
use in health care. An organisation named Tvcn (Tolk- en Vertaal Centrum
Nederland, which means Centre for Interpreters and Translators) controls a
database of interpreters. If a health care worker needs a free interpreter they
contact Tvcn, and make an appointment with one of the interpreters. The interpreter
can interpret by phone, come to the office, or even to the home of the patient
if the health care worker decides to do a home visit.
Tvnc works with freelance interpreters only. The
interpreters are not necessarily formally trained as an interpreter. The
minimum requirements are an MBO educational level (secondary school) in any
field. They are further tested in interpreter’s skills, general knowledge of
Dutch society and functioning of the health care system. In the past Tvcn organised extra training for
interested interpreters. In January 2006 the government sold the Tvcn to a
commercial party, an employment agency called Manpower. It is not clear yet
what new policies they will introduce. The cooperation with the ‘old‘ Tvcn, however, was a lot better
than that with the new one, as I will explain in the evaluation and future
plans.
2. Why do
we need specialised interpreters?
Ideally SLP’s (Speech Language Pathologists) would
share the languages of all their clients. From a practical point of view this
is not feasible. Therefore they need interpreters or assistants to help them. The
work that the SLP (speech-language pathologist) asks the interpreter to do, involves
much more than the usual interpreters’ work. For example, the interpreter is asked
to perform tests, to listen to the child’s utterances, and if possible, to give
an opinion about it’s intelligibility or grammaticality. These are tasks for
which special education is needed (Abudarham, 1983, Isaac 2002, Langdon 2002,
Langdon and Cheng, 2002). In our Audiological Centre in
3. Course development
For the development of the course a grant was asked
for, and given, by the FENAC, the Federation of Audiologicle Centre’s in The
Netherlands. In developing the course we were able to cooperate in a
multidisciplinary team of (clinical) linguists,
SLT’s, a psychologist, an interpreter, an expert in ‘Video-interactie-begeleiding’
(a method of instruction / coaching / behavioural modification through
observation of video-images), and a linguist specialised in
child-language-development. The last mentioned, Maaike Verrips, is also an
expert in the dissemination of linguistic knowledge on a commercial basis, and owns
her own ‘linguistic business’, www.taalstudio.nl .
Development of training-courses is a subject that
needs consideration. In Thijssen (1990) we found guidelines to decide about the
path to follow:
1. To
analyse the task you want the student to be able to do
2. To
define learning outcomes that follow from the task analysis
3. To
derive course content based upon the intended learning outcomes
The learning outcomes that were decided upon after the
analysis:
1.
The student has some knowledge of child
language development, concerning both language development of monolinguals and language
development of bi- or multilinguals
2.
The student has some knowledge of impairments and other problems that can arise
in speech-language development
3.
The student can give some
explanation of the reasons for, and
methods of different parts of the multidisciplinary diagnostic process
4.
The student is able to, in the
process, attune to the different parties (child, assessor, parents), following
the VIB-scheme of basic communication, using the BID-procedure: Briefing,
Interaction, Debriefing (Langdon, 2002).
5.
The student is able to use a number
of tests according to protocol, in the language they interpret in
6.
The student is able to write down in
their language (from audio or video) what a child is saying and is, if asked ,
able to explain to the assessor observations concerning the grammatical and
phonological aspects of what the child
says, and is able to explain which mistakes the child makes, using knowledge of
the grammatical and phonological features
of Dutch, and of their interpreter’s
language
The course obligations are:
- 3 days being present, attending lessons
- ½ a day of practical work in the Audiological
Centre.
- Homework: studying, making a report of the observations
in the practical work
- A multiple choice exam
The 3 days were spent as follows:
|
Day 1 -
Introduction to the course / ambiguity
in role-taking between interpreter and SLP -
Monolingual anguage development -
Bilingual Language development -
Introduction to ‘basiscommunicatie’
(the basics of communication as defined in ‘Video-interactie-begeleiding) |
|
Day
2 -
Speech-language impairments -
Language sample elicitation -
Language tests and testing -
Role play: Reynell test for
language understanding, videorecording, feedback |
|
Day 3 The 3rd day we combined teaching
the interpreters with teaching the SLP’s to work with the interpreters. 38
SLP’s participated. Theme: collaboration of interpreters and SLP’s
-
TAVAK / Transcribe and analyse a
language sample. A provisional protocol is presented. -
BID-procedure:
Briefing–Interaction-Debriefing; why and how? -
Cases role-taking -
Evaluation |
4.
Development of ‘TAVAK’
TAVAK is a provisional protocol to structure the
transcription and analysis of utterances in a language other than Dutch. TAVAK
consists of a number of forms, and a manual describing how to use these forms.
The interpreter and SLP collaborate in the transcription and analysis. TAVAK
was based on general linguistical methods of transcription, the work of Julien
(2004), and Pert & Stow (2003). At the moment it is too early to say more
about the protocol, as its usefulness is not yet clear.
5.
Didactic methods
The usual didactic methods were used: normal teaching,
discussions, observation of videos, role play, discussing cases. Added was the
use of ‘Video Interactie Begeleiding’ as a means to intensify the learning via
role play.
6.
Pilot
The project
started June 2004, and ended January 2005.The following activities were
performed:
June until
August: recruitment of students and teachers.
July until
September: last preparations: printing the course documents, construction of a
method of examination and evaluation, instruction of teachers, planning of
dates, and reservation of locations.
September
and October: execution of the course.
November until
February: examination, evaluation, writing the final report.
January
2005: travel to
The participation,
including course documentation and lunches, was free of charge. The
interpreters contributed their time, and paid their own travelling expenses.
30
interpreters applied for participation, 15 interpreters were selected to join
in, of which 13 interpreters actually participated. 2 others never showed up
without having sent apologies. 12 interpreters successfully did the exam. 1 did
not do the exam. The selection was performed by a representative of the Tvcn,
in collaboration with me. We used the following criteria:
- Languages,
with a preference for languages most needed, allowing some variety
- Reputation
- Level of
education, preferring higher education, allowing some variety to find out if it
matters
- Variety
in native speakers ánd originally Dutch interpreters (mostly with formal
education in the foreign language
spoken)
- There had
to be an adequate spreading of interpreters over the country, to make it
possible that as many audiological centre’s as possible would benefit from the
trained interpreters after the course.
The 3rd
day of the course 38 SLP’s participated.
The
interpreters also participated in practical work: they observed one or two
speech-language assessments of Dutch children in the audiological centre. They
made a report of their observations.
7.
Evaluation
The interpreters were more than satisfied with the
course. One of them said: ‘I have assisted in speech-language diagnostics for
years on a frequent basis, but only now I understand what is going on’
A month after the course, a number of SLP’s who worked
with the interpreters who did the course, were asked if they were satisfied
with their assistance. All SLP’s were enthusiastic about the help the
interpreters could give them. ‘They clearly understand what I am doing, and
that makes all the difference in our cooperation’.
8.
New insights
It is possible in a short course to achieve a
considerable improvement in the amount of preparation of interpreters to assist
in speech-language diagnostic work. Teachers and students agreed that, although
the 3 days of the original course were adequate, a little bit more time was
needed to allow the different subjects to be discussed more slowly and
thoroughly. As a consequence in the final course description the course takes 4
days.
The specially written reader was unanimously reviewed
positively as to readability and relevance.
The small period of practical work turned out to be
much more instructive than anticipated. Interpreters reported that their
understanding of the process was helped enormously by the observations they did.
This was at first surprising to us because many of them participated in the
process many times before, as interpreters. If you give it more thought this is
completely understandable. An interpreter is normally busy doing his or her
job: interpreting, and thus is not able to understand the process that is going
on, and learn from it.
9.
Difficulties experienced recently
The reason I want to share some of the difficulties I
experienced lately is that I think similar problems could arise in many
countries. In my opinion only if the need to diagnose children in all languages
they speak is recognised broadly, and as a consequence the use of trained
interpreters to assist in the process is also, problems like this can be overcome.
Only then the complex cooperation
between different parties that is needed can be realised.
After the successful development and pilot of the
course we wanted to put the course on the market. Starting January 2005 I tried
to contact Tvcn to make arrangements. During 2005 it turned out to be
impossible to communicate with Tvcn about any arrangements concerning the
course. The government invited tenders to buy Tvcn and take over the business.
Waiting for a new owner, all personnel not absolutely necessary for the daily
work was fired or transferred, including the managing director. Thus there was
no one to communicate with.
After the transfer of Tvcn to the new owner Manpower
there was no improvement in the communication.
I then tried to informally spread the news about the
course we offer via different channels. 8 interpreters showed serious interest.
Only 4 paid the enrolment fee, not enough to start the course.
2 interpreters wrote a letter explaining that they
considered the fee (€ 500,-) too high, because they found they already put
their time into the course which ought to be enough, considering the limited
advantage they expected to gain from the course with regard to extra employment possibilities.
How are we going to overcome these problems? I don’t
know yet.
Just recently (May 2006) I found out which civil
servant is responsible for the functioning of the Tvcn and policies around interpreters
working in health care. I approached this
civil servant to ask if what I had experienced agrees with present government
policies. She assured me that it did not. On the contrary, my course fits
extremely well in the direction of present policies, in which improvement of
quality and specialisation of interpreters in different health care fields is considered
very important. She is going to talk to Tvcn about what happened, and will come
back to me. At the moment I am waiting for her reply. Hopefully I will be able
to tell more about further plans for
10.
Future plans?
To end this paper I want to answer the last of the questions
I started out with:
What is
necessary to develop a structural service of specialised interpreters?
What is necessary is coherent policy to satisfy the
needs of all the stakeholders in the field: interpreters, SLP’s, managers,
government, parents, and children.
In the quality protocols of speech-language
diagnostics the approach to diagnose and give therapy in all languages the
child uses in daily life, needs to be incorporated.
Maybe during the first years subsidies are needed to reduce
the price of the course for interpreters. Interpreters should be certificated
after having followed the course successfully, and be put on a list of
preferred suppliers of these services. The same organisation that (co)organises
the courses ought to make sure the preferred suppliers are used for these
services, supported by government policies stating they should do so.
References
- Abudarham, S., (1983), The use of
interpreters in the assessment of children with Dual Language systems,
Proceedings of the XIX Congress of the International Association of Logopedics
and Phoniatrics, Edinburgh, Volume 1, 50-55.
-
Dekker, J. (red.), (2004), Video-interactiebegeleiding, Bohn Stafleu Van
Loghum, Houten.
- Extra,
G. , (2001), Meertaligheid in Den Haag, de status van allochtone talen thuis en
op school, European Cultural Foundation, Amsterdam.
- Julien, M.M.R. (2004), Kind
en onderzoeker spreken niet dezelfde taal, Logopedie en Foniatrie nr. 3, 2004.
- Julien, M. en M. Blumenthal,
(2004), Taalstoornissen bij meertalige kinderen, in: Stem, spraak en
taalpathologie Afl. 25 B8.1.5.
- Isaac, K., (2002), Speech pathology in
cultural & linguistic diversity, Whurr Publishers,
- Langdon, H.W., (2002) Interpreters and
translators in communication disorders, a practitioners handbook, Thinking
Publications,
- Langdon, H.W., en L.L. Cheng, (2002)
Collaboration with interpreters and translators, a guide for Communication
Disorders Professionals, Thinking Publications,
- Pert, S. &c.
-
Thijssen, J,G.L. (1990) Effectevaluatie binnen bedrijfsopleidingen, In: Gids
voor de opleidingspraktijk, afl. 7 , 7.50.
Publications
- Blumenthal, M., (1998) Een half woord is
meestal niet genoeg. Aanbevelingen voor het werken met een
tolk in gezondheidszorg en onderwijs, NCB,
-
Blumenthal, M. en M.M.R. Julien (2000), Diagnostiek van spraak- en taalproblemen
bij meertalige kinderen, Geen diagnose zonder anamnese meertaligheid, In:
Logopedie en Foniatrie nr. 1, 13-17.
-
Hoogsteder, M., M. Blumenthal en T. Yumusak (1999), Meertaligheid en
spraak-/taalmoeilijkheden bij kinderen, voorstellen voor beleid en praktijk,
NCB, Utrecht.