Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-126). / The study aimed to describe the needs of Grade 1, 2 and 3 educators at government schools in the Cape Metropolitan area working with English-second (or other) language (ESOL) learners, in order to inform the practice of speech-language therapists in meeting these needs.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [157]-178). / The aims of this study were to (a) explore health literacy and information recall/memory of clients receiving Speech-Language Pathology treatment in Cape Town, and (b) to explore ways of maximising these factors in clients with dysphagia, voice disorders (including laryngectomies) and cleft lip and/or palate.

Bibliography : leaves 68-75.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-85). / This study aimed to investigate the conversational practices used by nursing staff interacting with patients with aphasia in a rehabilitation health care setting. Six dyads, each comprising of a qualified nurse and an adult with moderate to severe aphasia, were videotaped conversing in the hospital, yielding an hour of data. The conversations were transcribed in detail and subjected to conversation analysis (the ethnomethodological type), in order to identify the practices used by the partnership to negotiate meaning and achieve social satisfaction. An emphasis was placed during analysis on the strategies used by the nurses, in order to generate insights that could be applied to partner training. Analysis of the data revealed a pattern of nurses avoiding visible trouble in the conversations, which was accomplished by minimizing the interactive consequences of repair, glossing over potential sources of trouble, and managing the conversation in a manner that limited the potential for trouble to occur. The interactive advantages and disadvantages of this strategy of are discussed, along with theoretical and clinical implications.

Bibliography: leaves 144-158.

Includes bibliographical references. / There has been a global increase in survival rates of premature infants due to advances in medical technology. Premature infants are known to be at risk for developmental problems including communication delays and disorders. Speech- Language Pathologists have an important role to play in the assessment and management of premature infants, especially due to the high prevalence of premature births in South Africa. The bonding and attachment experiences of premature infants and their mothers are often challenged, further placing these infants at risk for communication difficulties. This study aimed to explore the communication between low-risk low birth weight premature infants and their mothers at three points in the first year of life. A longitudinal study was conducted where four mother-infant dyads were investigated.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 181-195). / This study investigated the current performance, values, present and further opportunities and barriers to written language in ordinary, linguistically diverse intermediate phase classrooms in the Western Cape. A single, within-site case study was conducted in one grade 5 and one grade 6 classroom in an urban school.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / Swahili is widely spoken in East African countries, but to date there are no culturally and linguistically appropriate materials available for speech language therapists working in the region. The challenges of assessing and managing Swahili speaking children with speech difficulties are further exacerbated by the limited research available on the typical acquisition of Swahili phonology. This exploratory study aimed to describe the phonological development of 24 typically-developing first language Swahili speaking children between the ages of 3;0 and 5;11 years in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. A cross-sectional design was used with six groups of four children in six month age bands.

Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 210-234).

Bibliography : leaves 177-190. / Transformation of the existing health care system to one relevant to the needs of all its people, is the vision to which South African health providers aspire. This move towards more culturally and linguistically appropriate services is in line with the worldwide trend away from the biomedical to a more biopsychosocial and patient-centered approach to health care. Within the field of Speech-Language and Hearing Therapy (SLHT), the provision of more culturally appropriate services has been emphasized and research has focused on the new field of Cultural Speech-Language Pathology, interpreter-mediated consultations, and the use of more appropriate assessment and rehabilitation procedures. Penn (2000) proposed the use of the cultural narrative as a more appropriate means of gathering information from patients in initial consultations. Research into the use of narratives has been conducted in a number of health related disciplines, however, to date, this area has been under-researched within the field of SLHT and in the South African context. In this study, the researcher explored and documented the cultural narrative within multilingual, multicultural consultations in the field of SLHT in South Africa. The cultural narrative was compared to traditional methods of obtaining case history information in initial consultations across interpreter-mediated consultations with a white, English-speaking clinician and a black Xhosa-speaking clinician with Xhosa-speaking patients. In addition, post-consultation interviews using semi-structured questionnaires were carried out. Both the initial consultations and the post-consultation interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The analysis of the initial consultation transcripts included an in-depth analysis of the interpreting practices. The post-consultation interview transcripts were thematically analyzed. The analysis included an analysis of interpreting and thematic analysis of the post-consultation interviews in which the participants also took part. The major finding of this study was that the cultural narrative method is more culturally appropriate, patient-centered and in line with a biopsychosocial approach to health care than the traditional case history method in both monolingual and multilingual, multicultural, interpreted consultations. This study has numerous theoretical, clinical and future research implications. It is hoped that these findings will be used to inform the training of clinicians and in practical application in clinical encounters. Although this study was conducted within the field of SLHT, the findings are believed to be applicable across all disciplines in health care.