As you can tell from the column name, this section of the website will be my opportunity to write about issues that affect our clients and how I perceive the literature, research, legislation, education, and ASHA's position on these convoluted problems. Other issues may address those questions that I frequently get asked from public school and early intervention clinicians working with Hispanic families and children. My thanks to John Consalvi who has given us this opportunity of communication and made it possible for bilingual clinicians to network.
But first, I feel like I need to introduce myself so that you, the audience will know who is speaking and also get an idea of how I developed my perspective on the coming issues of this forum. My given name is Hortencia Garcia Kayser, nicknamed Hart. I was born in Houston, Texas and was the sixth child of migrant workers who moved to Houston before I was born. Although, I was the sixth generation to be born in Texas (my mother's side), my siblings and I were the first generation to learn English. I learned Texas history in school, but also heard the oral Mexican version of Texas history at home from my mother.
My siblings had a tremendous influence on me. They were 10 to 20 years older than I, so I had the opportunity to observe their struggles with bilingualism. Math was the common language for all of us, so two sisters became bookkeepers and a brother became an electrical engineer. One brother was an artist. He was the one who had the most trouble with education, even though I thought he was gifted. My engineer brother graduated from Texas A & M but told me that he always had to translate his studies from English to Spanish to understand. He still feels that he doesn't speak English well. One sister married a Mexican national and over the years I was blessed to see the connection between Mexico and my family.
I received my B. S. and M. S. in Speech and Hearing Sciences from the University of Arizona and began my career in the border town of Nogales, Arizona. The best part of that beginning was the rude awakening that I wasn't prepared to serve Spanish speaking children. Seven years and many frustrations and questions later, I decided to return to school and complete the doctorate at New Mexico State University. I had my first female Hispanic professors, Guadalupe Valdes and Rosalinda Barrera, who played a tremendous role in shaping my views about bilingual education, literacy, bilingualism, and the difficulties that speech language pathologists have in differentiating Hispanic children who are typical second language learners from children with language impairments. Dr. Valdes is now at Stanford and Dr. Barrera is at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
I taught at Texas Christian University and completed a Post Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Arizona before returning to New Mexico State University where I now act as the Program Director of the Communication Disorders Program and Coordinate the Bilingual program in speech language pathology. I've focussed my career on the needs of Hispanic children who are speech and language-impaired and also have done my best to educate clinicians across the country about those specific needs.
Now that you have an idea of where I'm from, where I've been, and what I'm doing now, you can imagine how I may address issues. All that I request, is that you provide me feedback in our chat room or write me at Hkayser@nmsu.edu. I'll especially like to hear about special issues in your state that may affect other states in the future.
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