Brief by Amici Curiae The Immigrant Legal Resource Center; The Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project; The Immigration Law Clinic, Rogers College of Law; Washington Legal Defender Association; and the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers' Guild in Support of Petitioner, Fernandez-Ruiz v. Gonzales, 466 F.3d 1121 (9th Cir. 2006) (28 Feb. 2006)

A study using 420 “lost letters” was designed to test the hypothesis that returned responses would be larger from small towns than from suburbs or cities unless the addressee was affiliated with a nonpolitical group. Percent returns to control, Pesticide Action Network, Immigration Law Enforcement Monitoring Project, Network for the Enforcement of Humane Immigrant and Refugee Rights, and the KlanWatch affiliates were 60.7%, 59.5%, 56.0%, 44.0%, and 36.9%, respectively. Responses from the city were generally fewer than those from suburbs except for Pesticide or Immigration Law affiliations. Urban responses were always fewer than those from small towns. Urgency and cost did not influence returns. The lost letter technique seems suitable as a research tool for inferring public opinion toward nonpolitical, emotionally subtle social issues.

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American Speech-Language Pathologists' Training and Legislative Knowledge When Working With Immigrant and Refugee Populations: A Qualitative Study

Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups ◽

10.1044/2019_pers-sig17-2019-0028 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 4 (5) ◽

pp. 1148-1161

Author(s):

Camilo Maldonado ◽

Alejandro Ashe ◽

Kerri Bubar ◽

Jessica Chapman

Keyword(s):

Qualitative Study ◽

Service Provision ◽

Limited English Proficiency ◽

Linguistic Diversity ◽

Speech Language Pathologists ◽

Federal Mandates ◽

Refugee Families ◽

Provision Of Services ◽

English Speaking ◽

Immigrant And Refugee

Background American educational legislation suggests culturally competent speech and language services should be provided in a child's native language, but the number of multilingual speech-language pathologists (SLPs) is negligible. Consequently, many monolingual English-speaking practitioners are being tasked with providing services to these populations. This requires that SLPs are educated about cultural and linguistic diversity as well as the legislation that concerns service provision to non-English or limited English proficiency speakers. Purpose This qualitative study explored the experiences of monolingual, American, English-speaking SLPs and clinical fellows who have worked with immigrant and refugee families within a preschool context. It investigated what training SLPs received to serve this population and what knowledge these SLPs possessed with regard to federal legislation governing the provision of services to culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) communities. Method Ten American clinicians with experience treating CLD children of refugee and immigrant families in the context of preschool service provision participated in the study. Semistructured interviews were utilized to better understand the type of training clinicians received prior to and during their service delivery for CLD populations. Additionally, questions were asked to explore the degree to which practitioners understood federal mandates for ethical and effective service provision. The data collected from these interviews were coded and analyzed using the principles of grounded theory. Findings The results of this study revealed that there was a general sense of unpreparedness when working with CLD clients. This lack of training also attributed to a deficiency of knowledge surrounding legislation governing service provision to CLD populations.

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