Intercultural Communication Between Forensic and Clinical Psychologists

While working in clinical and forensic psychology settings, a communication difficulty between the two professions became apparent. Forensic psychologists often appeared cold and callous from the clinical psychologist’s perspective, while clinical psychologists often appeared naïve or too client centered from the forensic psychologist’s perspective. I wondered if viewing each subfield of psychology as a culture could facilitate better communication through intercultural communication. Guided by Intercultural Communication in Contexts (Martin & Nakayama, 2010) in approaching intercultural communication between the two professions, I explored factors contributing to each profession’s cultural identities. Once this was established, I attempted to explore the different ways each culture could communicate more effectively. By recognizing and utilizing the strengths from each profession and understanding the possible pitfalls of one’s own, we may become competent in intercultural communication

The Need for Professional Translation and Interpretation in School Districts

The language barrier prevents Latino students from experiencing academic success, and prevents Latino parents from participating in their children's education. Through a review of journal articles, research projects, doctoral dissertations, legislation, and books, this project studies the benefits and dangers of various methods of translating and interpreting in the education system, including issues created by language barriers in schools, common methods of translating and interpreting, and legislation addressing language barriers and education. The project reveals that schools use various methods to translate and interpret, including relying on children, school staff and machine translation, although such methods are often problematic and inaccurate. The project also reveals that professional translation and interpretation are superior to the various non-professional methods.