Keepin' It Real With Relationships: Cultural Humility and Therapeutic Relationships With Culturally/Linguistically Diverse Students

Purpose: There is a significant racial, ethnic, and linguistic gap in professional representation in the field of speech-language pathology as compared to the rapidly diversifying special education student population, and this incongruence could have implications for the therapeutic relationship. The purpose of this article is to explore how school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) describe and define facilitating and impeding factors for establishing therapeutic relationships with culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. Method: In this qualitative descriptive study, 17 school-based SLPs completed individual semistructured interviews. To enhance the trustworthiness of the study, six interview participants engaged in two member-checking focus groups, voting on the extent to which they agreed with the themes, and expanded on those themes with examples. A hybrid inductive–deductive thematic analysis was used to analyze the interview and focus group data. Results: Sixteen of the 17 school-based speech-language pathology participants represent racially/ethnically marginalized backgrounds; therefore, results are influenced by their lived experiences. Three themes emerged describing the nature of therapeutic relationships: critical components of therapeutic relationships, the strength of therapeutic relationships, and the therapeutic relationship as empowerment for CLD students. Four themes emerged to describe the factors facilitating and impeding therapeutic relationships: most valuable personality traits for SLPs, critical demand for speech-language pathology education, lacking cultural humility and rapport, and fostering relationships with cultural humility and rapport. Conclusions: School-based SLPs build and maintain therapeutic relationships with CLD students with cultural humility and rapport. Clinical and institutional implications are discussed. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.26824960