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In SLT, the interpreter's
role is quite different,
as they must convey
exact word usage
rather than meaning
How can monolingual therapists deliver speech therapy in
mother tongue? Bilingual assistant Zahida Warriach explains
I
joined the Speech and Language Therapy
(SLT) Department at Heywood, Middleton
and Rochdale Community Healthcare
Trust 25 years ago as a bilingual co-worker.
My main role has been to work alongside
SLT therapists with the bilingual South Asian
community to assess children and carry out
therapy in their mother tongue. Located in
Greater Manchester in the north of England,
Rochdale has an Asian – predominantly
Pakistani heritage – population of around 30%,
and I work in the three main Pakistani heritage
languages: Urdu, Punjabi and Mirpuri (a dialect
of Punjabi, also referred to as Mirpur Punjabi).
In the last five years, my role has changed
dramatically. First my bilingual colleagues
and I became SLT assistants, removing the
language element from our official role; the
department was advised to book interpreters
instead of using bilingual co-workers in most
cases, as there is a separate pot of money for
interpreter bookings. More recently, the SLT,
occupational therapy, physiotherapy and
community nursing assistant roles were
amalgamated and we became generic
assistants. For the moment, we continue to
work in our separate departments, but new
staff will be expected to have competency in
No barrier to therapy
all four areas and work in any department
that needs help. Despite these changes, I
still assist with assessments and therapy in
mother tongue.
With children from bilingual families, we
usually assess in both languages; the only
time we will not do this is when the child uses
English at home and at school, and is only
spoken to in English at home. We keep the
languages separate because a child may have
issues in English but not in mother tongue,
or vice versa. We are not here to teach a
language, but to help the child improve their
strongest language, so if we find errors in
