Examining and Providing Access to Health Care Services to Official Language Minority Anglophone Caregivers and Their Minimally Verbal Children with Autism

For this proposal, I aim to; (1a) Examine access to English health services, in particular autism intervention and support services in Québec, as experienced by English-speaking (ES) caregivers and their minimally-verbal (MV) child with autism and (1b) Compare access to English autism health services between ES families residing in Québec versus the rest of Canada and (2) provide a free parent-coaching intervention aimed at increasing the child’s ability to communicate using non-spoken methods to ES caregivers and their MV child with autism. This proposal’s objectives 1 and 2 above will be completed within scope of my larger dissertation project that seeks to develop, test, and compare the effectiveness of a novel non spoken communication intervention for MV children with autism, delivered via telehealth, with that of a control intervention from the community. If effective, this model could broaden the options for service provision to this underserved group.

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Outputs:

• MacDonald. A. (February 2021). Potential Healthcare Access Barriers for English Speaking People with Autism in Québec [Virtual presentation]. Institute for Health and Social Policy’s Graduate Award Program

Practitioner Perspectives on Linguistic Barriers in Access to Health Care for English-Speaking Minorities in Quebec

I propose to conduct a qualitative systematic review examining barriers that healthcare providers experience in providing services to linguistic minorities. In particular, the present study is designed to determine what kind of support healthcare professionals need to provide service to Anglophones in French-speaking Quebec.

Language barriers are increasingly recognized as a serious concern that creates disparities in access to health and social services (Terui, 2017). These inequalities may be reflected in access to services and healthcare delivery (Woloshin et al., 1997), as well as in low “quality of care and provider-patient relationship” (Terui, 2017, p .215). In addition, recent evidence suggests that linguistic minorities may face communication anxiety while anticipating doctor’s appointments (Zhao et al., 2021) and experience tension during appointments and low confidence in received care during (De Moissac & Bowen, 2019). 

This research project will focus on the language barriers that occur during interactions between healthcare providers and Anglophones (English speakers) in Quebec. The goal of the project is to propose feasible solutions to enhance access to health and social services in Quebec for English minority language speakers.