ACQ Vol 13 no 3 2011

Cultural diversity

Cultural and linguistic diversity in Australian 4- to 5-year-old children and their parents Sharynne McLeod

This paper describes the cultural and linguistic diversity of Australian preschool children and their parents in order to guide resourcing, assessment, and intervention practices. Data were analysed from a nationally representative sample of 4983 Australian preschool children. Over one-fifth (21.9%) of the children were regularly spoken to in a language other than English. The majority (86.0%) spoke English as their first language; and 12.2% of the children spoke one of 35 other languages. After English, the most common first languages were: Arabic (1.6%), Cantonese (1.3%), Vietnamese (1.0%), Greek (0.8%), and Mandarin (0.8%). Italian was the most common additional language, spoken by 2.9% of the children. Commonly spoken children’s languages differed by state/territory and showed different trends compared with Australian census data. Most of the children’s parents spoke English as the primary language at home (parent 1: 82.5%; parent 2: 69.8%); however, 42 other primary languages were also spoken. Significant accommodate the diverse cultural and linguistic heritage of children. Resourcing should be based on data about Australia’s children, rather than the publicly available Australian census data. A ustralia has wide cultural and linguistic diversity, with its population drawn from around the globe. Over 400 languages are spoken in Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS], 2010) and 21.5% of the population uses a language other than English at home (but may also use English) (ABS, 2006a). After English, the next most common spoken languages are Italian (1.6% of Australians use this language), Greek (1.3%), Cantonese (1.2%), Arabic (1.2%), Mandarin (1.1%), and Vietnamese resourcing of the Australian speech pathology, early years education, and interpreting sectors is required to

(1.0%) (ABS, 2006a). The most common ancestry reported by the Australian population is, in order: Australian, English, Irish, Scottish, Italian, German, Chinese, Greek, Dutch, and Indian (ABS, 2006b), demonstrating differences between ancestry and the most common languages spoken today. Language conveys traditions, culture, and identity; therefore, cultural and linguistic competence is particularly important for speech pathologists in order to work sensitively and holistically with their clients. Cultural and linguistic competence includes respectful consideration of the perspectives of children and families from diverse communities and is enhanced by speech pathologists’ self-assessment of their own cultural biases (ASHA, 2010). Additionally, knowledge of languages other than English enhances cultural and linguistic competence. In Australia, it was reported that 30.7% of speech pathologists spoke a language other than English (Speech Pathology Australia, 2001); however, there was a “weak correlation between the languages spoken by speech pathologists who responded to the survey and those most commonly spoken within the Australian community” (Speech Pathology Australia, 2001, p. 10). For example, one-third of these Australian speech pathologists reported they used signed English, yet signed English is spoken by less than 0.1% of the Australian population (ABS, 2006a). Winter (1999, 2001) found that children who speak languages other than English were both underrepresented (with too few children compared with the local community who spoke some languages) and overrepresented (with too many children who spoke other languages) on caseloads of speech and language therapists in the United Kingdom. Although similar research has not been undertaken using caseload data in Australia or the US, there have been two recent studies where speech pathologists have been asked to estimate the number of children who speak languages other than English on their caseloads. In a national study of Australian speech pathologists working with children with speech sound disorders, the participants reported that their caseloads included an average of 9.8% (median = 5, range = 0–90%) of children who speak English as a second or other language (ESL) (McLeod & Baker, 2011). This percentage is much lower than a similar study in the US where 48% of children on their caseloads were estimated to be “non-native” English-speaking (Skahan, Watson, & Lof, 2007). Understanding the language experience, language environment, and language background of Australian preschool children is important in order to differentially

This article has been peer- reviewed LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY LANGUAGES OTHER THAN ENGLISH MULTILINGUAL SPEECH AND LANGUAGE Keywords CHILDREN CULTURAL AND

Sharynne McLeod

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ACQ Volume 13, Number 3 2011

ACQ uiring Knowledge in Speech, Language and Hearing