Dr Wiebke Scharff Rethfeldt is a speech and language therapist and full Professor of Speech and Language Therapy and director of the therapeutic sciences in logopedics study program in Bremen, Germany.
She was elected as Secretary and currently serves as Vice President for Communication of the International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders (IALP).
Wiebke is an advocate of multilingualism and cultural diversity. Her academic specializations are child language development and speech, language and communication difficulties in multilingual children with migration or refugee background.
Her recent research focuses on early clinical assessment of Developmental Language Disorder or DLD, which is quite common (around 7 % of the population) in both, monolingual and multilingual children. Also, her particular interest concerns access to Speech-Language Therapy service provision for the culturally and linguistic diverse population, aiming to consider the needs of diverse populations, reduce health inequalities regarding access to service provision as well as misdiagnoses and mistreatment. She is currently leading a regional study on access to service provision for multilingual children in Germany, and an international survey of SLTs about their assessment for DLD in multilingual children.
Wiebke is member of a number of relevant professional associations and academic societies. She represents the German national association of Speech-Language Therapists (Deutscher Bundesverband für Logopädie, dbl) as their officer of foreign affairs and currently serves on the Executive Committee of the International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders (IALP) as their Vice-President for Communication.
She was Chair of the IALP Multilingual-Multicultural Affairs Committee (MMAC) from 2019 to 2022, leading the work with excellent colleagues from across the world to improve the quality of life of individuals with communication disorders irrespective of their heritage and languages used.
She is strongly engaged in raising awareness of DLD and access to service for multilingual children and regularly posts in German on Instagram or English on LinkedIn to advocate for the SLT profession to improve services in the interest of those who may not be able speak up.
Find out more about Wiebke, her work, her publications, her expertise, activities and professional passion, embracing the diversity of children from different cultures, languages and socioeconomic backgrounds and levels of ability to create opportunities for all children to participate in life and reach their full potential.
I have come to realize that what distinguishes one child from another is not ability but access. Access to education, access to opportunity, access to love.
Lauryn Hill
Biography
(Short academic profile. The full CV can be downloaded here.)
Dr. Wiebke Scharff Rethfeldt is a full professor of Speech and Language Therapy with a focus on multilingualism, cultural diversity and clinical intercultural competence.
She completed her undergraduate degree in Speech and Language Therapy (Logopedics) at the Hanover Medical School and subsequently worked as a speech and language therapist in the former German capital, Bonn, where she also served bilingual clients.
She was awarded a Carl Duisberg scholarship to pursue postgraduate studies at the renowned University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, where she obtained her M.Sc. in Human Communication Sciences, specialising in bilingualism.
Dr. Scharff Rethfeldt worked as a lecturer and clinical tutor at the Euro-Medizinal-Kolleg Stuttgart, teaching on topics such as developmental language disorder, assessment and intervention, and bilingual speech and language development and disorders in multilingual children. She is an experienced supervisor of students‘ clinical practice and holds a qualification as Systemic Consultant.
She earned her docorate (Dr. phil.) from the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany. Her dissertation focused on language assessment and the potential for misdiagnosis in multilingual children aged 6-8 years.
From 2005 to 2017, she worked on behalf of the the LOGOCOM Institute, serving multilingual clients and contributing as a lecturer and researcher with a focus on the assessment and treatment of culturally and linguistically diverse children with speech and/or language disorders.
She represented the German partner in the European MULTI-SLI project, funded by the European Commission (2013-2015).
The European Association of Speech-Language Therapists (ESLA, formerly the Standing Liaison Committee of European Speech and Language Therapists and Logopedists, CPLOL), appointed her as working group leader in the EU-funded NetQues TUNING project, which aimed to align and improve speech and language therapy education across Europe (2011-2013).
In 2019, she was appointed Chair of the Multilingual-Multicultural Affairs Committee and Member-at-Large of the International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders (IALP). In 2022, she was elected Secretary of the IALP and currently serves as Vice-President for Communication.