Bilingual Services
With only 8.2% of Speech Language Pathologists being bilingual in the United States (ASHA, 2021), finding someone to offer services for your child can be extremely difficult for most families. We are so grateful to have Miya Wilson at Creative Speech Therapy offering speech, language, and social skills therapy in both English and Japanese. Not only is Miya an accomplished and brilliant therapist, she also encourages bilingualism and using multiple languages at home. Miya has high respect and sensitivity to the culture of her clients’ families. She is equipped to help your child build confidence in their speech, connect with peers, follow directions, and express their needs.
The American Speech-Language Hearing Association website highlights some of the advantages of bilingualism:
- Being able to learn new words easily
- Being able to use information in new ways
- Putting words into categories efficiently
- Quickly coming up with solutions to problems
- Good listening skills
- Connecting with others easily
Miya strives to incorporate cultural responsiveness, cultural competence, and cultural humility into her therapy. She believes it is important to recognize that the unique influence of an individual’s cultural and linguistic background may change over time and according to circumstance. Such changes may require adjustments in clinical approaches.
Miya’s cultural responsiveness allows her to:
- respond to demographic diversity;
- understand and respond to social determinants of health and health disparities as they impact different populations;
- improve the quality of services and health outcomes; and
- meet legislative, regulatory, and accreditation mandates.
(American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.). Cultural responsiveness [Practice Portal]. https://www.asha.org/Practice-Portal/Professional-Issues/Cultural-Responsiveness/.)
