Ho, Aug. 21, GNA – Ms Sandy Dorsey, the Founder, Smiles for Speech (SFS), a non-profit organisation, has asked parents of children with developmental disabilities to seek early intervention.
She said early intervention was paramount in identifying the challenges and providing the necessary measures to address them.
Ms Dorsey, a speech- language pathologist, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA), during a training for mothers of children with developmental disabilities, that communication was a very important part of being included in society and essential to one’s emotional wellbeing.
The training was organised by the SFS in collaboration with Kekeli Foundation in Ho.
It was to build the capacity and confidence of the mothers in caring for their children and equip them with the requisite knowledge and skills on how to help their non-speaking children to communicate and feed.
She said in Ghana and some other developing countries, children with communication disorders lacked access to the resources they needed due to the unavailability of speech-language therapists to assist them to communicate as well as finances to afford those services.
Ms Dorsey said the SFS was a grassroots/parent centered organisation that partnered organisers of local programmes to provide consultations, training and resources for caregivers, mentorship for speech-language therapy (SLT) students as well as offering SLT support in specific areas of the field.
The collaboration, she said, allowed them to create awareness on communication disorders to prevent stigma, which was a big challenge to children receiving treatment, who were often associated with evil spirits.
“Many families consider speech and language disorders to be a curse by the ancestors ….so they will hide the child and pretend he or she does not exist,” she said.
Ms Dorsey said families could be trained on how to enhance functional communication skills for children and language rich daily activities at home that would have a meaningful impact on their lives.
“Imagine a world where all children can receive access to the resources they need to reach their full potential and not to be bound by colour, gender, socio-economic status or location.”
“With a holistic and inclusive education, together we can create a sense of belonging for children in every corner of the world.”
Madam Carrie Colleen Brown, the Director of Kekeli Foundation, who emphasised the need for early intervention, said the Foundation was ready to provide the necessary support to parents.
She said society had to be more supportive of families of children with disability and urged all to unite to deal with the stigma against PWDs adding: “Everybody is important in society and disability is just an adversity.”
Some participants who spoke to the GNA were grateful to the SFS and Kekeli Foundation for the training, saying the knowledge and skills acquired would help them in taking care of their children.
Madam Comfort Nuwordu, one of the beneficiaries, said her child could not walk but due to the physiotherapy services provided by the Foundation, the child had now started walking.
The SFS had, since its inception, served more than 300 children in Ghana, Kenya, Peru, and Jamaica, provided over 10,000 hours of speech and occupational therapy services, and trained more than 1,200 caregivers and teachers, in 17 countries.
Source: Ghana News Agency
