The transcript for this video in Amharic is in the process of being created and will be posted as soon as possible.
Category: Professional Development
Professional Development (PD) refers to learning opportunities for educators and teachers to develop their skills and acquire strategies to implement in the workplace.
Healing the Children Mission to Neiva, Colombia
This year Catherine Crowley and her team accompanied Healing the Children surgical mission to Neiva, Columbia. Healing the children is not a typical cleft palate repair mission. Traditionally, a cleft palate team would travel to a developing country and do many dozens of cleft lip and palate repairs and then return to their home country. However, a child with a repaired cleft lip or palate actually requires onoing therapy, monitoring and often further surgery in order for the repair to be successful. Without this type of long-term support, many children do not learn to talk intelligibly, despite the repair and can even develop fistulas (holes) as they grow. Healing the Children instead conducts annual trips back to Neiva. This was their 21st trip and Cate’s 2nd trip back. They work with the same patients each year while providing therapy and further surgery, including later revisions, bone augmentation and orthodonture.
Cate’s team was there for the second year and offered a 5 day training course for fonoaudiologists (speech therapists). The fonoaudiologists learned the specific knowledge and skills they will need to provide quality services to children with repaired cleft palate.Classes were given in the morning and then the clinicians provided services, including language stimulation, in the afternoon to patients.
Vocational Training in Ghana- AAC Strategies
Mary Osei, Headmistress of the Oboom School for Special Needs in Cape Coast, Ghana, and her teaching staff developed effective vocational workshop training for their students with intellectual disabilities and autism. With the support of the teachers, the students create bags made from Ghanaian fabric which they then sell. This video describes the steps needed to create the bags from buying the needed materials; creating patterns; cutting, ironing, and sewing; stamping the bags to identify where the bags were made; and tagging the bags so the student who created the bag and the teacher who gave support are identified. When the bags are sold, the money goes back to pay for school expenses and a percentage of the sales goes directly to the students who created the bags.
AAC Ghana Pamphlet- Sample
This is a sample page from the AAC Ghana Pamphlet.
International Resources: Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Approaches Pamphlet
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
Ghana January 2014: Sunyani Professional Development Retreat part III
Today was the third and final day of our 3-day Professional Development Retreat. All teachers who attended the retreat received a certificate and a bag of materials/supplies donated by us TC students and our friends and families. From the teacher surveys, we were all excited to find that most teachers found all of our talks and activities over the weekend to be tremendously helpful and beneficial to their students! Many teachers were eager to make AAC market cards, name tags for students, communication passports, and community request cards, and all were even more eager to implement the materials in the classrooms. We were truly grateful to have had this wonderful learning and sharing experience with the brilliant teachers who care so deeply for their students.
After the retreat ended, we were invited by a Sunyani unit school teacher to visit two of his students and their families. Both students and their families had tremendous stories to share about the skills acquired at the unit school. The parents explained how both students experienced substantial growth; one father proudly told us about how his son can now independently perform activities of daily living and small errands.
Tomorrow morning we embark on a journey back to Accra, where we will be working with speech language pathologists and doctors at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in assessment and treatment of children and adults with speech and language difficulties.
Ghana January 2014: Sunyani Professional Development Retreat part II
As our Professional Development weekend continued, we later presented on various strategies such as how to incorporate the use of a daily schedule and calendar within the morning routine in the classroom. It was awesome to hear how teachers have been using these in their classrooms. Some added physical movements to their “Days of the Week” song and displayed their own hand drawn daily schedules!
“Make and Take” allowed us to work directly with the teachers in creating the actual approaches for them to take back to their classrooms. We worked side by side in brainstorming ideas and bringing them to life. We made sure all of our materials would be replicable and sustainable in Ghana. Each teacher also went home with an “AAC Approaches Booklet” that highlighted every approach to be covered throughout the weekend to reference once they leave.
Before dinner and the evening program, a few of us and one of the clinical supervisors completed an assessment and provided strategies for one of the teachers who stammered (stuttered). Earlier in the day, he asked a question during the presentation of “What is Speech Therapy” about treatment for those who stammer because he has had dysfluent speech since he was a child. We asked him assessment questions and developed strategies based on his responses. He started using these strategies and experienced more fluent and clearer speech almost immediately. In less than 30 minutes we had helped someone who had negative feelings about his speech. The smile on his face was unforgettable.
The evening program included African drumming and dancing by a local, professional troupe. The audience was encouraged to join in. We ended the night with students, teachers, professionals all on our feet. What a great way to end such an inspiring weekend!
Thanks to El’licia Price for the post
Ghana January 2014: A New Year, New People, New Experiences
After the 10 hour transatlantic flight and a 4 hour bus ride, we have arrived! Our first days in Ghana have already been filled with learning and a range of cultural experiences. We rang in the New Year in a country new to most of our group by attending a local church service where Dr. Crowley spoke about the purpose of our trip and our work. We also got to unexpectedly share in the celebration of a young man’s completion of his apprenticeship by participating with his family and friends in pouring baby powder on him, and joining in a drum and dance circle on the beach that we drove past.
