| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 特殊教育學系 === 107 === Nowadays, nearly 250,000 migrant care workers provided paid 24-hour home care services for people with disabilities in Taiwan. According to American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)’s Practices Regulations, speech language therapy services should include counseling and education with patients’ communication partners (e.g., caregivers, peers, or schoolteachers). This study investigated how speech language pathologists (SLPs) in Taiwan interacted and communicated with these migrant care workers (MCWs) of diverse races, languages, and beliefs. This was a qualitative study using semi-structured in-depth interviews to collect 11 SLPs’ experiences. A three-stage coding process with constant comparison was carried out when analyzing the interview data. The results of the study included the following three aspects: (1) the SLPs and the MCWs’ interaction were either therapy-oriented or social-oriented interactions; (2) the factors affecting the SLPs-MCWs interaction were associated with patient’s family, MCWs’ personal attributes, information quality, and health care system; and (3) the methods used by SLPs to communicate with the MCWs were using MCWs’ language, ‘International language (English)’, alternative communicators and non-verbal aides. Through the interaction mentioned above, researcher not only developed a better understanding of MCWs’ roles in the treatment session, but of the significance of ‘guanxi’ during therapy. Last but not least, SLPs’ showing a sense of superiority and prejudice revealed SLPs’ lack of cultural competence. Since research pointed out that caregivers played a key role in treatment efficacy, it was suggested that SLPs pay attention to the cultivation of cultural competence to cooperate effectively and appropriately with MCWs of different cultural backgrounds during the treatment sessions.
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