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Overview
Speech therapy should reflect the diversity of the children and families it serves. Every child carries a story shaped by family, culture, and lived experience. However, too often are those unique aspects of a child’s identity overlooked in traditional services. In a field where most practitioners are monolingual and non-minorities, families from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds can feel unseen—or worse, misdiagnosed.
Culturally affirming care isn’t optional. It’s essential for building trust, ensuring accurate assessments, and creating therapy plans that truly resonate with children and families.
When service providers honor a student’s culture and language, they can distinguish between a true speech disorder and a natural language difference. Just as importantly, they help children feel included, valued, and understood.
This is the approach of our partner in practice, Sabrina Shah, M.S. CCC-SLP, ASDCS, a Certified Autism Spectrum Disorder Clinical Specialist and speech-language pathologist. Her work offers a powerful example of how culturally affirming care transforms outcomes for children and families.
Introducing Sabrina Shah
From the very start of her career, Sabrina knew she wanted to work with children. While shadowing speech-language pathologists during her training, she noticed two things: the lack of diversity in the field and the weight cultural differences carried in therapy sessions. Only about 8 percent of SLPs are from minority backgrounds—a reality Sabrina both witnessed and lived.
Her early work in a rehab center underscored this need.Often stepping in as a translator, she saw how language shaped healing. One experience stood out: supporting a stroke patient who was relearning to speak so he could return to reading the Quran. That moment made clear how deeply culture, language, and care are intertwined.
Building Bridges in Therapy
Sabrina’s practice is rooted in a whole-person approach. She takes time to understand each child’s culture, home language, and family values. Parent interviews should go beyond clinical checklists, but create space for families to share who they are and what matters most.
She notes that children are sometimes misdiagnosed with speech disorders when they’re simply navigating language differences. For instance, a child learning English may struggle with sounds that don’t exist in their native language. Without a culturally attuned therapist, those differences are too easily mistaken for deficits.
This awareness is especially critical in diverse regions like Washington, D.C., where many students come from minority backgrounds. Shah sees her work as an opportunity to give back to the Muslim community, while navigating the cultural barriers and misconceptions that minority communities face.
She works to educate her families about autism, while also learning about their differences, cultural values, traditions and norms,finding ways to make their care more relatable.
For example, holidays such as Eid or Kwanzaa are rarely acknowledged alongside Christmas or Hanukkah. For Sabrina, this represents a missed opportunity.
“Making children feel seen and heard is just as important as teaching them how to pronounce a sound,” she explains.
Extending Care Beyond the Classroom
Culturally affirming care doesn’t stop at the school door. Sabrina partners with families to keep progress going, especially during the summer months when regression is common. She encourages parents to capture family activities through photos and bring them into therapy practice, grounding goals in real life.
She also stays connected by email and FaceTime, offering worksheets, video modeling, and strategies that empower parents to support their child’s growth year-round.
In one case, Sabrina used a therapy dog and puppets to help a child with selective mutism and autism. The child first spoke to the dog,then to peers, and later expanded from there. The therapy was tailored to the child’s comfort and cultural context.
Lessons from Sabrina Shah
Sabrina’s work highlights how culturally affirming care is not a trend—it’s a best practice. Here are key takeaways we can all apply:
- Representation matters. With so few SLPs from minority backgrounds, increasing diversity in the field is essential to meet the needs of our ever-changing, fluid and diverse world.
- Culture is not an add-on. Understanding a child’s home language, traditions, and values are essential to therapy success.
- Inclusion builds trust. Recognizing holidays, cultural practices, and community perspectives helps children feel valued.
- Therapy must be holistic. Collaboration with parents, teachers, and professionals ensures strategies carry over into daily life.
- Make therapy student-centered. Sabrina uses individualized activities—like Yoda Bingo or weaving in a student’s love of chess or Star Wars—to make sessions meaningful. She breaks down goals into simple, child-friendly language, invites feedback (“What didn’t you like about today’s session?”), and helps students understand why they’re in therapy. This builds both skill and confidence.
- Confidence is the ultimate goal Progress is not only about mastering sounds—it’s helping children believe in themselves and their ability to communicate in a way that honors who they are.
Every day, Sabrina’s work shows how culturally affirming care can transform therapy into a story of belonging and growth.