All someone needs to access these free resources is a computer
BOSTON, US: I am in an e-mail group with some people who share my interest in speech therapy and I was energised when someone brought to my attention an article published in this paper, titled ‘ZU’s college launches MS Speech Language Pathology’, and the great news about The College of Speech Language and Hearing Sciences launching this master’s programme at Ziauddin University. I applaud this first master’s programme in Pakistan, as well as creating the first undergraduate BS Speech Language Therapy programme.
These programmes — the undergraduate and master’s — will serve to produce more speech therapists who will address the speech deficits of so many people, especially children. Pakistan should be proud of these two programmes. Children face a number of speech problems and early intervention by a speech therapist can be helpful.
For children, the most prevalent speech problem is stammering. Pakistan is like every other country in that 1% of adults and 5% of children stammer; the Pakistani population of 201 million means there are many stammerers. There are also free resources for stammerers of all ages available on the website of The Stuttering Foundation (www.stammeringhelp.org) such as downloadable books, streaming videos, and brochures. All someone needs to access these free resources is a computer.
I hope that the new master’s programme in MS speech language therapy is successful so that more speech therapists can help more children with speech handicaps.
Mary Burke
Published in The Express Tribune, January 14th, 2019.
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