With the goal of increasing our linguistic and cultural competencies in speech-language pathology in a Spanish speaking country, 4 graduate students from the Speech Language Pathology program at the George Washington University (GW), traveled to the beautiful city of Santiago de Querétaro, Querétaro, México. This trip will provide the graduate students with an experience that would expose them to not only speech-language pathology practices, but to the cultural and linguistic influences that impact therapy approaches. For three weeks, all 4 students will work alongside Mexican “terapeutas de lenguaje” (speech therapists) in two community centers with their own focus on providing a high quality of service to specific populations in Spanish. During these three weeks, we will be working at Gigi’s Playhouse in Querétaro, a community center that provides specific services to persons with Down Syndrome and their families 3 days a week.
We’ll also be collaborating and providing services at Ándale Para Oír, Padres de Niños Sordos, a center focused on supporting children who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing and their families. Dr. Cynthia Core and Professor Kari Comer established a relationship with Gigi’s Playhouse and Ándale Para Oír, Padres de Niños Sordos, in previous trips to Querétaro and are accompanying us on this trip. In addition to collaborating and working alongside the speech-therapists in the two clinics, we will be taking courses at the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro taught by two exceptional Spanish linguists and teachers who have curated course material to increase our knowledge of useful clinical terminology in Spanish, as well as dialectal differences related to our profession. The importance of the knowledge and experience that we will obtain during these three weeks will directly impact the quality of service we will be able to provide to the clients and families in the United States as more families reflect a growing linguistic and cultural diversity.
Sunday Jan 12, 2020
Our first day in Querétaro! We spent this time exploring the city . We visited El Centro de Querétaro, known as “el centro historico” (historic city). To learn more about the rich history of Querétaro, we went on a trolley tour that took us through the city, where the tour guide explained the rich history of how Querétaro came to be, their history with Spain, and how this history still influences their culture.
Something that struck us was the origin of Querétaro’s architecture. Our tour guide explained how you can identify areas where Chichimecas (the indigenous population of Querétaro) lived and where the Spaniards lived. Chichimecas built curved streets based on the rainflow of Querétaro, which prevented damage from flooding. Spaniards, however, built their streets in straight lines and failed to adapt the local terrain and climate, often finding their homes flooded. As the tour guide explained, perhaps if the Spaniards had learned from the Chichimecas, they would have learned that the curved streets were more beneficial. As we prepare for our experience collaborating and providing therapy, we want to make sure we learn from the speech therapists in Queretaro, allowing for them to lead. They know their clients and their community the best. Our goal is to work alongside the speech therapists, sharing knowledge and ideas, valuing their specific approaches that have been designed for this community and their specific needs.
On Monday we met with our two Spanish language teachers who created an engaging and thoughtful course that will introduce us to important dialectal differences that will directly impact our ability to provide quality and appropriate services to spanish speaking families in the United States. The four of us bring unique Spanish language profiles, experiences and language variations.
Our first course was an introduction to phrases, words and expressions that are commonly used in this region that our teachers knew would be helpful for us to use here as well as in our treatment. For homework, we were assigned videos from Colombia, Spain and Argentina to expand our knowledge of colloquial influences on the Spanish language.
