What is speech therapy and its role in healing?

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Speech therapy helps to overcome difficult problems for people with disabilities, including children with diseases such as: Autism, cerebral palsy, speech delay, or swallowing problems... Implement symptomatic therapies to enhance communication ability as well as language development to help patients improve quality of life and better integrate into community life.

1. What is speech therapy?

Speech therapy is a specialty area that includes assessment, diagnosis, rehabilitation, counseling, and prevention services for people with speech, language, and speech disorders. , communication fluency, cognitive or swallowing difficulties, swallowing disorders, either due to trauma, cancer, stroke, or progressive neurological diseases.
Speech therapy aims to help patients communicate and swallow more effectively so that they can participate in school and activities of daily living. Thereby creating conditions for exhibitors to improve their cultural qualifications and working capacity, and at the same time help them integrate into society, contributing to maintaining and improving the quality of life.
Possible causes of language disorders include: Hearing loss, neurological disorders such as Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, stroke, traumatic brain injury, intellectual disability, psychosis or dementia, substance abuse, cerebral palsy, cleft palate malformations such as cleft lip, cleft palate, head and neck cancer or abuse/improper use of the voice. However, the possible causes of language problems may not be clear.
In developed countries, speech therapy belongs to the group of applied health professions, to provide services to patients with communication or swallowing impairments with family members of the patient such as: Parents , caregivers or other professionals such as teachers, nurses, occupational therapists. These people can be directly involved in the patient's treatment.
Speech therapists are trained to treat patients with communication disorders, swallowing disorders, and provide training for healthcare professionals, teachers, and parents so that support can be provided. study at school, at home.

2. The need for speech therapy

According to the global report on disability, up to 15% of the world's population has some form of disability which includes communication impairment. Communication disorders account for a fairly high rate.
In the United States, 1 in 12 people have a communication disorder, accounting for about 7.7% and up to 5% of people living in Australia have a communication disorder.
As for Vietnam, about 4.5 million people need speech therapy. In particular, the group of children with language disorders affects up to 25% of children of pre-school age.
According to information gathered from many studies that have been reviewed, the need for speech therapy should be detected as soon as possible in order to significantly improve the patient's condition. At the same time, speech therapy services should be readily, readily available and equitable to help prevent communication barriers; as well as health problems in order to reduce the cost of treatment for patients.
In cases where people with speech disorders do not get help from a speech therapist, these disorders can lead to long-term consequences including: Difficulty learning to write and reading, difficulty concentrating and thinking, calculating, communicating, moving, self-care, relationships with friends, family, society. Communication disorders in children, if not treated in time, can last into adulthood, affecting work and life, and difficult to integrate into society.

3. Children's signs indicate that they are having problems with communication disorders

Children often have difficulties in eating and drinking at any age such as: Difficulty sucking, swallowing, slow chewing, drooling a lot.... Children may show signs of the disorder communication such as: Slurred speech or unclear speech, it stutters or stammers, the child cannot make eye contact at any age, the child is slow to speak or talks too much, the child has a hearing loss or is deaf and needs support Supported by hearing aids or cochlear implants, children with cerebral palsy, children with autism, children with cleft lip and palate, children with reading and writing difficulties, children with right hemisphere brain damage, traumatic brain injuries.... To recognize signs of communication disorders, pay attention to the developmental milestones of children through different stages of development such as: 6-month-old children do not know how to babble, mama or babbling, 9-month-old children do not know yet. Pointing, greeting, waving. A 12-month-old can't babble a string of sounds with a melody or a single word, an 18-month-old can't say a single word clearly, or can't understand simple commands. A 24-month-old baby can say less than 50 single words, can't put two single words together yet...

4. Speech therapy in Vietnam

With more than 20 years of implementing community development support, especially for people with disabilities, people who need speech therapy are still living a difficult life and have a rather low quality of life due to many difficulties. communication difficulties. At the same time, other barriers related to swallowing problems also develop. As a result of the limited awareness of speech therapy and the lack of services that meet the training needs in speech therapy.
In 2016 USAID conducted an assessment of the availability of speech therapy services as well as an analysis of the speech therapy situation in Vietnam, showing that: There are two groups of approaches to speech therapy including the health sector's perspective and the education sector's perspective.
From the medical industry's point of view, those who need speech therapy support include: People with cleft lips or cleft palate, patients with speech problems such as voice disorders, voice abuse say, head or neck cancer, other neurological diseases. From the perspective of educators, speech therapy needs to focus on children with disabilities.
With the goal of contributing to improving the quality of life of people with disabilities. At the same time, strengthening the capacity of the rehabilitation industry in Vietnam, powerful and easily accessible systematic speech therapy training programs give patients the opportunity to receive therapy to improve their condition. their pathology helps to improve the patient's quality of life as well as to help the patient integrate into community life.
Speech therapy specialist, at Vinmec International General Hospital is a specialized group of therapists with high qualifications and skills in supporting patients with language difficulties, helping diagnose and early intervention from childhood, treatment and skill improvement based on the real life of the patient.
Activities of the department include methods: Non-verbal language therapy (gestures, body postures, expressions), conversation skills, communication skills (difficulty in reciprocal communication skills). of a real-life conversation) and conceptual therapy (complex abstract language).
In addition, the hospital also has a Clinic for Regenerative Medicine and Educational Psychology, which is a pioneer in applying scientific and artistic methods to evaluate and treat children with autism effectively. high fruit.
Areas of intervention to educate children with autism at Vinmec:
Pediatric psychiatry Clinical psychology - educational psychology Special education Speech therapy Meditation - yoga therapy Music therapy Fine art therapy Doctors Doctors, therapists and teachers at the Center are trained at prestigious schools: University of Education, University of Social Sciences & Humanities – Hanoi National University, Academy of Educational Management ... and regularly learn to improve skills through short-term and long-term training courses at home and abroad with leading experts from the US, Australia, India, Italy.

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