You have accessLanguage, Speech, and Hearing Services in SchoolsIntroduction8 Jun 2023Reflect, Reframe, and Re-imagine Theory and Practice in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences: Introduction to the Forum María Rosa Brea-Spahn, and Leah Fabiano-Smith María Rosa Brea-Spahn https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4226-850X Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, New York University Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, NY Google Scholar More articles by this author and Leah Fabiano-Smith https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2679-4684 Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, PA Google Scholar More articles by this author https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_LSHSS-23-00048 SectionsAboutAbstractPDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationTrack Citations ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”—Arundhati Roy The year 2020 is reserved in our memory recollections as a threshold moment, a type of frontier between two versions of ourselves. This time capsule demanded that we acknowledge the incompleteness of our learning journeys and engage in dialogic inquiry that accommodated doubt, curiosity, openness, and freedom, in order to reflect, restructure, and re-imagine our own conceptual and theoretical frameworks (Curzon-Hobson, 2003; Freire, 1987). That is, the crossing of this threshold challenged us to pause and recognize, as invoked by Arundhati Roy, that another world is possible and necessary, and that we are all responsible to co-evolve it into its perceived materiality. Yet, the field of speech, language, and hearing sciences (SLHS), as a whole, bypassed reflection, dedicating itself instead to rebranding terminology, borrowing labels such as “culturally responsive” practices, “intersectionality,” and “translanguaging,” with minimal understanding of the political and theoretical underpinnings that drove scholars in other disciplines to envision these stances and lenses in the first place (Crenshaw, 1989; García, 2009; Gay, 2002). New terminology appeared to circumvent the prerequisite critical analysis of the field's colonial and white supremacist ideological and historical bases, its past and current contributions to a thriving capitalist infrastructure, its erasure of power, and its deficit-centered methodologies. In effect, a pause was pivotal before traveling to the “fixing our practices” frontier, a hiatus in which to inquire whether familiarized and acceptable ideas, definitions, and frameworks about language, ability, and learning have been and are successful at capturing the full and varied landscape of individuals' embodied, dynamic, co-constructed, and hybrid communicative experiences in a humane way. This forum was conceived with the intent to provide the “pause” we failed to take. Grounded in criticality and hope, the forum is organized into three major themes: a call for reflection, invitations to reframing, and proposals of new applications. The perspectives, narratives, ways of knowing, and labor of minoritized scholars, providers of insider perspectives that are frequently marginalized even within their specific thematic areas, are centered. Articles in this Forum To begin, in their tutorial, Brea-Spahn and Bauler (2023) invite us to reflect upon and interrogate common dominant ideologies of language, grounded in settler colonialism, that have been naturalized in the field and that are the underlying theoretical bases of definitions, materials, and communicative expectations. Specifically, they model the implementation of a critical stance, encouraging us to name, disrupt, reframe, and engage in iterative reflection and action through coalescing, in order to challenge our long-held beliefs that only one way of languaging is acceptable through our perceptual speech-language pathologist (SLP) filters (Maturana, 1989). In the same vein, Nair et al. (2023) extend critical interrogation to clinical practice, specifically in the area of standardized testing of speech and language in children. As the authors examine how standardized assessments are anchored to eugenics and the racist logics of intelligence testing in which racialized populations were rendered as linguistically and biologically inferior, they engage us in problematizing the field's roots in the medical model of disability, its pathologizing of linguistic practices, and its manufacture of categories of normalcy and disorder. In turn, SLPs are urged to critically examine the relationship between standardized assessment, race, disability, and capitalism. Soto-Boykin et al. (2023) provide an additional space for reflection, eliciting our critical analysis of state-level policies related to special education and speech-language therapy services in U.S. schools and how these policies uphold systematic discrimination of racialized emergent bilinguals suspected or labeled as disabled. The authors emphasize the impact of the language we use when describing bilingual children and their language practices, and how these result in the double exclusion of racialized emergent bilinguals labeled as dis/abled. As Privette (2023) summons our examination of existing power structures through a critical theory approach, she proposes a reframing of clinical practice inviting clinicians to become theorists and to develop a critical praxis for activism, assessment, and intervention. In alignment with Privette (2023), Garivaldo and Fabiano-Smith (2023) also call for a reframing in our field, focusing on bilingual research published by all-white research teams. Many studies on bilingual speech and language acquisition have been performed without input from the communities they study, and these works provide the basis for clinical decision making in assessment and intervention. SLPs are called to critically evaluate research that is published without a community insider as a member of the team that is designing methods and interpreting findings. All-white research teams are invited to look back at whose perspectives are missing from their prior work, re-evaluate work lacking community-based perspectives, and look forward to new ways of integrating insider knowledge in approaches to bilingual research. With radical hope as our guide, we imagine futures that include new applications stemming from these visions. Allison-Burbank et al. (2023) invite us to employ culturally responsive teaching into our clinical practice, centering Indigenous knowledge systems. This transformative intervention approach requires SLPs to commit to a lifelong process of learning and reflection with the goal of decolonizing our clinical applications. Padía (2023) shows us how semi-structured parent interviews place family, and not clinicians, at the epicenter of languaging and learning in bilingual communities. The ways bilingual nonspeaking children co-construct multimodal communication strategies with their families can pave a path to redefining communication for all. A family-centered approach is the focus of Esquilín Nieves and Danzak (2023), guiding us in how to extend conversations between clinicians and caregivers, and how those exchanges can result in both advocacy for parents of autistic children and cultural understanding for SLPs. Centering the knowledge and needs of caregivers in minoritized communities, rather than relying on the sole knowledge of service providers, allows for mutual growth for the caregiver–clinician dyad and sustainable support for children. Finally, Saia (2023) centers our perspectives on disability from within the child to outside of the child. Disability is explained as a social construct shaped by power and oppression, not an individual medical or educational diagnosis. The author challenges us to transcend the limits of clinical service delivery and intentionally seek out ways to shift our beliefs, views, and responses to communication disabilities. A Focus on Minoritized Scholars The integration of lived experience with scholarly work is essential for liberation in our approaches to speech-language pathology and audiology. Dillard (2000) designates the difference between knowledge and wisdom in educational research. Knowledge originates with the researcher, whereas wisdom stems from the community. When minoritized scholars engage in theorizing and research within their home communities, knowledge and wisdom are integrated, and this integration can transform our understanding of reality. Hill Collins (1990) is quoted: “Knowledge without wisdom is adequate for the powerful, but wisdom is essential to the survival of the subordinate” (p. 208). This forum centered the labor and voices of minoritized researchers and clinicians, exploring different ways of knowing about pediatric speech and language—perspectives that are frequently marginalized in the epistemological base of the field. In some studies, the roles of expert and family are reversed (Esquilín Nieves & Danzak, 2023; Padía, 2023), while in others, the role reversal takes place between researcher and community (Garivaldo & Fabiano-Smith, 2023); clinician and client (Allison-Burbank et al., 2023; Nair et al., 2023; Saia, 2023); clinician, scholar, and the field (Brea-Spahn & Bauler, 2023; Privette, 2023); or scholar and state (Soto-Boykin et al., 2023). Dillard (2000) further explains, “One's epistemological basis for research must engage in relevant cultural understanding and ‘theorizing’ that is informed by the insights of those experiencing the world as the very phenomenon being explored” (p. 677). Only when the wisdom from minoritized communities is integrated with our clinical knowledge will we be able to accurately find the answers to our research questions and engage in clinical service delivery with depth and understanding. Conclusion In summary, this forum holds together an initial tapestry of individual and collective understandings borne out of our “pause,” which found us problem-posing, reflecting, and learning in community (Freire, 1987). We have continued our critical analysis and acting with mutual accountability, seeding growth in our converging paths toward liberatory consciousness (Love, 2018). In this context, we invite our readers to utilize our shared lessons in fostering their own critical pondering. Through holding ourselves and each other to the tasks of skeptical questioning, critiquing, and retheorizing new solutions, we may unveil “the grim inequities of current [power] arrangements and the threadbare nature of the social contract that supports them” (Stanistreet, 2021, p. 562). We can, in turn, heed the advice of the African proverb that Eduardo Galeano made well known and become a large group of tiny beings in small corners working in unison to change the world (Galeano, 1989). That is to say, the reframing of our research and clinical practices and the eventual re-imagination of our roles through a linguistically anti-oppressive lens is not an individual hero's journey; rather, it necessitates collaborative co-creation with critical practitioners and scholars within and across our disciplinary silos. Taken together, these works are a critique, an application of new frames, and a call to action. Or, as Roy (2020) poetically suggests, they reflect our decision not to walk through “the gateway between one world and the next…dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us.” Consider this assortment of works an invitation to relish in the portal of critical liminality a while longer, so “we can walk through [this gateway] lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it” (Roy, 2020). References Allison-Burbank, J. D., Conn, A., & Vandever, D. (2023). Interpreting Diné epistemologies and decolonization to improve language and literacy instruction for Diné children.Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_LSHSS-22-00147 ASHAWireGoogle Scholar Brea-Spahn, M. R., & Bauler, C. V. (2023). Where do you anchor your beliefs? An invitation to interrogate dominant ideologies of language and languaging in speech-language pathology.Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_LSHSS-22-00135 ASHAWireGoogle Scholar Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics.University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), 139–167. Google Scholar Curzon-Hobson, A. (2003). Higher learning and the critical stance.Studies in Higher Education, 28(2), 201–212. https://doi.org/10.1080/0307507032000058091 CrossrefGoogle Scholar Dillard, C. B. (2000). 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Reframing bilingual acquisition and theory: An insider perspective through a translanguaging lens.Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_LSHSS-22-00136 ASHAWireGoogle Scholar Gay, G. (2002). Culturally responsive teaching in special education for ethnically diverse students: Setting the stage.International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 15(6), 613–629. https://doi.org/10.1080/0951839022000014349 CrossrefGoogle Scholar Hill Collins, P. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Routledge. Google Scholar Love, B. (2018). Developing a liberatory consciousness.In M. AdamsW. BlumenfeldD. CastenedaK. DeJongH. HackmanL. HopkinsB. LoveM. PetersX. Zuñiga (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social justice, (4th ed., pp. 610–615). Routledge. Google Scholar Maturana, H. (1989). Lenguaje y realidad: El origen de lo humano.Archivos de Biología y Medicina Experimentales, 22(2), 77–81. MedlineGoogle Scholar Nair, V. K. K., Farah, W., & Cushing, I. (2023). A critical analysis of standardized testing in speech and language therapy.Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_LSHSS-22-00141 ASHAWireGoogle Scholar Padía, L. (2023). Toward a model of reciprocal carryover: Learning from communication systems of families of nonspeaking bilingual children.Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_LSHSS-22-00145 ASHAWireGoogle Scholar Privette, C. (2023). Embracing theory as liberatory practice: Journeying toward a critical praxis of speech, language, and hearing.Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_LSHSS-22-00134 ASHAWireGoogle Scholar Roy, A. (2020, April3). The pandemic is a portal.Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca Google Scholar Saia, T. (2023). Embracing disability culture in schools.Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_LSHSS-22-00142 ASHAWireGoogle Scholar Soto-Boykin, X., Brea-Spahn, M. R., Perez, S., & McKenna, M. (2023). A critical analysis of state-level policies impacting racialized emergent bilinguals suspected or labeled as dis/abled.Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2023_LSHSS-22-00137 ASHAWireGoogle Scholar Stanistreet, P. (2021). Revolution in the head: A conversation with Paulo Freire.International Review of Education, 67, 561–567. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-021-09922-w CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar Author Notes Disclosure: The authors have declared that no competing financial or nonfinancial interests existed at the time of publication. Correspondence to María Rosa Brea-Spahn: [email protected] Editor-in-Chief: Amanda J. Owen Van Horne Publisher Note: This article is part of the Forum: Reflect, Reframe, and Re-Imagine Theory and Practice in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. Additional Resources FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Newly PublishedePub Ahead of IssuePages: 1-4 HistoryReceived: Mar 15, 2023Accepted: Mar 27, 2023 Published online: Jun 8, 2023PubMed ID: 37290091 Get Permissions Add to your Mendeley library Metrics Topicsasha-article-typesCopyright & PermissionsCopyright © 2023 American Speech-Language-Hearing AssociationPDF downloadLoading ...