Communication Disorders in Spanish Speakers: Theoretical, Research and Clinical Aspects

Spanish speakers, whether in monolingual or bilingual situations, or in majority or minority contexts, represent a considerable population worldwide. Spanish speakers in the U.S. constitute an illustrative context of the challenges faced by speech-language practitioners to provide realistic services to an increasing and diverse Spanish-speaking caseload. There is still considerable paucity in the amount of literature on Hispanic individuals with clinical relevance in speech-language pathology. Particularly lacking are works that link both empirical and theoretical bases to evidence-based procedures for child and adult Spanish users with communication disorders. Further, because communication skills depend on multiple phenomena beyond strictly linguistic factors, speech-language students and practitioners require multidisciplinary bases to realistically understand Spanish clients’ communication performance. This volume attempts to address those gaps. This publication takes a multidisciplinary approach that integrates both theoretical and empirical grounds from Speech-Language Pathology, Neurolinguistics, Neuropsychology, Education, and Clinical Psychology to develop evidence-based clinical procedures for monolingual Spanish and bilingual Spanish-English children and adults with communication disorders.