Supporting Multilingual Children in EI Settings

During this 3-hour professional development presentation, Kelly Arellano, M.S., CCC-SLP, will explain how to implement best practices in assessing and treating multilingual children in early intervention (0-3 years) settings. Professionals who attend will learn about multilingual language and speech development, cultural and linguistic considerations when interviewing and coaching families from a variety of backgrounds, and a myriad of resources that can immediately be implemented in EI settings to support multilingual children with language and speech deficits. This training also focuses on cultural humility and cultural competence. Participants will learn about culture and how it relates to family values, as well as how culture impacts language socialization and language development in children from multilingual/multicultural families. Participants will learn that all fields with a basis in behavioral psychology research are skewed toward a Mainstream Middle Class Western bias, and learn to use a Skilled Dialogue Framework with families of all backgrounds in order to rectify these biases. Non-biased assessment will be covered. Ethnographic interviewing is explained, as well as authentic assessment measures, and information about biases in current EI assessments.