Speech-Language Pathologists’ Collaboration with Interpreters: How to Reach Successful Outcomes

Conducting a speech and language assessment with the mediation of an interpreter is one of the greater challenges facing speech-language pathologists (SLPs)1 both in the United States and worldwide when needing to assess linguistically and culturally different clients (McLeod & Verdon, 2017; Santhanam & Parveen, 2018). The process requires the collaboration of three parties: the service provider, in this case, the speech-language pathologist, the consumer (the client and/or parent, relative or spouse) and the interpreter. This paper provides an overview of the literature on perspectives of educational and medical speech-language pathologists and process and presents an outline of a program to train both the interpreter and the speech-pathologist simultaneously to reach a successful collaborative outcome.