Attitudes toward speech disorders: Sampling the views of Cantonese-speaking Americans

Possible Cross-Cultural Differences in the Perception of Impact of Voice Disorders

“…For example, counseling on how to respond or adjust to the impact of voice problems in different cultures in relation to social values would be important. Understanding the difference between individuals from different cultural backgrounds would foster better client-clinician relationship, 29 more effective management and treatment, and help improve the functioning of patients at all levels.…”

“…They found that the American subjects were significantly more satisfied with their lives than their Chinese counterparts. In another cross-cultural study conducted in the area of communication disorders, 29 Bebout and Arthur 29 compared the perception of speech impairment by Chinese and Americans. They found that more Chinese than American subjects agreed that the severity of disordered speech would be improved if the person tried harder.…”

Multicultural Issues in School Settings

“…attitudes, and backgrounds may be different from their own. 2 Multiculturalism should not be defined only by so-called minority groups. People who are deaf, people from various religious backgrounds, and people from different regions of the country, for example, are also part of a multicultural society.…”

Communication Disability in Fiji: Community Cultural Beliefs and Attitudes

“…In all studies, regardless of typology, negative beliefs and attitudes to people with communication disability prevail. The strength of this negativity may be influenced by: (1) the severity of the communication disability -e.g., mild versus severe stuttering (St Louis et al, 2013); (2) the perceived ability of the people with communication disability to control their communication disability -e.g., people with SSD are viewed more positively than those with weak speech (Saunders and End, 2013); and, (3) culture -e.g., Cantonese Americans held more negative beliefs about people with communication disability than European Americans (Bebout and Arthur, 1997).…”

“…communication disability have tended to focus on one type of communication disorder, for example, on people who: stutter (Bebout and Arthur, 1997;Pachigar et al, 2011;Abdalla and St Louis, 2012;Arnold et al, 2015); have dysphonia (Yiu et al, 2011;Amir and Levine-Yundof, 2013;Brannstrom et al, 2015); or, speech sound disorders (SSD: Burroughs and Small, 1991;Overby et al, 2007;McLeod et al, 2013). An exception is a Tanzanian study by Marshall (1997), though the closed-question responses that were provided for potential causes of a defined set of communication disabilities may have inadvertently limited participants' responses.…”