Vietnamese Speech and Language Considerations

Mentalfloss.com highlighted the most commonly spoken languages other than English and Spanish.  As a native speaker, I was surprised to see Vietnamese taking home the bronze medal for the state of Texas.  Due to need, we concentrate our efforts on English and Spanish.  However, after speaking to any speech-language pathologist, it is evident that many other languages impact our workload and brainload.

This upcoming fall, my daughter will be starting kindergarten at a dual-language Vietnamese elementary school.  Looking at the visual above, it makes sense that there are schools supporting our Vietnamese students.  In reality, this campus is one of few in the nation.  And, truth be told, there is little information for our SLPs when working with Vietnamese students.  I have also searched for fellow bilingual Vietnamese SLPs, and I have found a fellow SLP friend in Houston.  So, now, it’s a party of two!

Vietnamese Speech and Language Norms

With such need in the state of Texas, we have compiled an easy guide for all speech-language pathologists to quickly determine if their clients and students with second language needs exhibit a disorder.  The Difference versus Disorder:  Understanding Speech and Language Patterns in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students will be available this fall.  Based on the above chart, however, we would like to share our Vietnamese chapter with you, which includes Vietnamese speech and language norms.

Click here to Download:  Vietnamese

This e-book will provide you simple, straightforward information for assessment, goal-writing and therapy when working with students who speak Vietnamese.   As clinicians, we understand the importance of knowing Vietnamese speech and language norms; however, it is important to honor the people behind each language.  With that in mind, we are also especially proud of each chapter’s Home Corner.  You will get insight into the experiences and hearts of native speakers of the 11 languages highlighted:  English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Mandarin, French, Czech, African American English, Hebrew, Russian, German, Arabic. You can find all chapters in our Difference or Disorder resource book.

As a monolingual Speech-Language Pathologist, I often have to research languages that I need to assess or treat with an interpreter when there is no trained bilingual SLP available. This book has the phonemic systems, language patterns and cultural information all in one place for several languages we commonly encounter which will save me hours of research. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate having so much in one easy to read and easy to understand book. This will be a valuable tool for me as an SLP and I recommend it to other SLPs, especially those who are monolingual like me. I particularly enjoyed the personal narrative or “Home Corner” as you call it where individuals share their personal experiences. Thank you Ellen and the Bilinguistics team!

– Gina Glover, Fort Worth ISD