This episode of These Vibes was all about language.
In the first part, Stevie spoke with Dr. Kate Riestenberg, linguist and postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Institution and visiting scholar at Truman State University in Missouri, about the varied and far-reaching work of linguists. Then, they took a deep dive in to the topic of endangered languages — how they’re defined, how a language becomes endangered, and why we should care.
In the second portion, Kristin Guest, Bilingual Speech Language Pathologist (SLP), discussed her work in SLP and working with kids in (primarily New York City) public schools. She described the differences between learning, language, and speech disabilities, as well as how you determine if a student has a disability in one of these three categories. Next Kristin gets in to the linguistically and culturally biased assessment practices in schools, and how they should change.
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, National Ethnobotanical Herbarium Online that Dr. Riestenberg mentioned in her interview can be found at neho.si.edu
- Bilingual Speech Language Pathology critical questions and the Leaders Project that Kristin Guest mentioned during the show can be found here: http://www.leadersproject.org/2016/08/26/the-critical-questions-early-intervention/