can you be a speech therapist if you speak english with a foreign accent?

[hotmed]

my sister-in-law is thinking of studiyng to become one but speaks english with a strong spanish accent. can she do it?

We had an Aussie speech ther at work. The patients could understand her ok but she had trouble with their accents (Geordie).

I am an Aussie!, and know what you mean about not being able to understand some accents. When we first got here, nearly 9 years ago, DH almost got a job in Barnsley. We went up there to investigate, and went to a sandwich bar for lunch one day. We couldn't understand them, and they couldn't understand us!

A bit more seriously, I don't think you need to not have an accent to be a speech therapist. We took DS1 to one, and it wasn't just about the therapist's accent (she was also Australian but had spent a lot of time in Canada so had a very strong Canadian accent) but more about how we interact with him.

The accent didn't come into it all (well, not at his age anyway (3)).

So, I don't see why your SIL couldn't do it, if her accent is the only thing holding her back...

All the best to her,

We have a SA SALT , though her accent isn't that wonderful and occaisionally causes confusion

A lot of overseas students train to be SLTs in the uk, and many of them have quite strong accents. Speech therapy is often more about communication than speech, so as long as the accent isn't impossible for others to understand, it shouldn't be a problem.
I've worked with Greek, Malaysian, South African, Australian and New Zealand SLTs, and am Scottish myself. Everyone has an accent of some kind.
Best of luck to your sil - where is she hoping to train?

thankyou.

DS2 has a speech therapist who is Finnish, we are finding no problems at all, she does have an accent, but it's not appearing to have an effect on his pronounciation.