Speech pathologists coming from The University of New Mexico are going to be able to help even more patients now, thanks to a new offering from UNM Speech & Hearing Sciences. The Department’s Master of Science in Speech-Language Pathology now offers a bilingual concentration. This huge step towards equitable treatment has been in the works since 2019, the same year assistant professor Carlos Irizarry Pérez joined UNM.
“This will help support the needs of our community by training clinical practitioners with specific training in working in a multicultural /multilingual community. Dr. Irizarry Pérez was the main force behind this concentration,” Speech & Hearing Sciences professor and department chair Phyllis Palmer said.
Irizarry Pérez knows firsthand how important it is to recruit speech-language pathologists (SLPs) into the field and how much more important it is to get SLPs competent to work with bilingual populations.
“We’ve been talking about it ever since I came here about how it is a much-needed demand in our field,” he said. “It will be great for those students that are wanting to take specialized coursework and working towards being a bilingual speech-language pathologist in particular. These are students that see themselves working with a client population that consists of bilingual individuals. They can take these extra courses now to prepare themselves for that work, so that’s pretty important to us and our community.”
While many students enrolled are either learning the Spanish language or are already bilingual, this concentration offers specialized coursework for anyone.
The use for a bilingual concentration extends far beyond the Land of Enchantment. In a 2021 survey conducted by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), only 8.2% of speech-language pathologists identified as multilingual. UNM is setting the path for other universities in this field. While concentrations like this are increasing, Speech and Hearing Sciences also intends to stay ahead by eventually adding a certificate.
There’s also the potential for students to engage in a future certificate in a language other than Spanish, as long as the proper clinical hours are available. What’s most important is that hands-on, bilingual learning is happening early on in a speech-language pathologist’s career.
https://shs.unm.edu/programs/master-of-science/shs-concentrations/index1.html
