internaAAC Pamphlet Ghana.pdf
This pamphlet was created for a professional development retreat in Ghana, West Africa, by Dr. Cate Crowley, Lindsay Milgram, El’licia Price and the TC SLP Ghana team. It offers several augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) strategies that have been adapted for people with communication disabilities in Ghana, and have been implemented successfully there and in other countries in Africa to facilitate their participation at home, in school and in the community. Read More
Our day started dark and early at around 4am. We headed to the airport at Accra to catch our flight to Tamale. When we arrived we were all pleasantly surprised that we had escaped the humidity that we had been growing accustomed to in Accra. Unlike other regions we have visited on the trip so far, Tamale is more like what we expected Ghana to be like. We saw dry desert lands with scarce vegetation. According to George, it is common to see wild life in this more northern region of Ghana.
Today we got to choose what we wanted to do for the morning at Korle Bu. Some of our group headed to the Children’s Ward where we played, read, colored, and just tried to have fun with the children who had bandages on different parts of their bodies due to burns and other complications. A 3-year old child named Janice was coloring a picture with her bandaged hand and identified each color of crayon she used. We noticed that she produced /s/ as /θ/ so we had an opportunity to work on her articulation. We practiced producing /s/ by telling her to “trap the snake in the cage,” meaning keep her tongue behind her teeth to produce the sound. The patient from yesterday’s cleft palate operation was also there. She seemed to be doing well; she had an IV but her parents were giving her water orally, which was a good sign that she was recovering well.
Today we visited our first Unit School. It is at the Effiduasi Methodist School where Belinda Bukari, with whom Dr. Crowley has been working for six years, teaches students with intellectual disabilities and autism. Through her hard work in establishing educational services for children with intellectual disabilities in Ghana, Belinda has helped to reduce the social stigma against people with disabilities. Dr. Crowley has supported this effort by providing classroom supplies and professional development sessions. We were all excited to see the school grounds for the first time, which we had seen before only in pictures and videos.
