Govt neglecting speech therapy

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33815, 11 April 1975, Page 13

Govt neglecting speech therapy

Main hundred* of \cw Zealander* tail to reach then lull potential hecau*e ol a long hi*tor\ ol < ki\ eminent neglect oxei the importance ot speech therapy.

lew hospitals in the country can provide adequate facilities or properly trained staff to treat those who suffer from speech impairment or speech loss as a result of accidents or surgical operations. Many patients have to face the likelihood of remaining mute after an operation because there are not enough facilities for training them to speak again. Where young children are concerned there is a shortage of speech climes to give assistance with speech and other language difficulties. If these remain untreated children are often termed emotionally unstable, or re-: luctant learners. They could be helped, however, if more and better trained speech therapists were available. TRAINING To merely inciease the number of speech therapists in the country would not, however, solve the problem, because New Zealand is the only country in the Englishspeaking world which does not have degree courses or under-graduate courses for speech therapy and communication disorders. Most overseas countries insist that such courses be designed to enable all those undertaking such work to have four years training. This is to enable speech therapy to develop as a profession with responsibility] for diagnosis and treatment. I In New Zealand there is! only one course, of 18 months at the Christchurch Teachers’ College, and this is “attached” to the end of an ordinary teachers’ training course. As such it has no recognition overseas because students have no time to be trained in the use of the full range of diagnostic skills and rehabilitative work accepted as commonplace in education and social welfare work overseas. The Speech Therapists’ Association, doctors who deal with operations concerning the power of speech, and successive people who ' have been in charge of the speech therapy course at the Christchurch Teachers' Colllege, have been urging the Education Department for more than 20 years to im- : prove the training offered to I those working in the field of communication disorders.

Ihc *peech Therapists Association believe* that the Education Department remains complacent tout tin problem, and appears unconcerned that the *erviee tor adults remains minima, m this country DESPI R \IION I hose working m the field of communication disorders now feel a sense of desperation that the head of the speech therapy course at the Christchurch Teachers College (Mrs K. Stratford) has resigned her post to accept a senior lecturer-in-charge position of the new Department of Human Communication Disorders at Sturt College for Advanced Education, in Adelaide. Mrs Stratford said on Wednesday that the Education Department seemed intent on turning its back on the suffering caused to people with communication problems. In a letter to the DirectorGeneral of Education (Mr A.N'.V. Dobbs) Mrs Stratford said that “in view of the apparent inability (in common again, with my predecessors) to make any impact on the parlous situation of speech therapy tn New Zealand I had no recourse but to resign. “Many people do not even live properly because of the absence of a properly trained and equipped speech therapy system in New Zealand. The true potential of children is often never realised and many adults are condemned to merely vegetate,” she said. “UNTOLD MISERY” Unless the Education Department and the Health Department could work together to ensure that an’ internationally recognised; course was established in New Zealand then “untold human misery” would result. “With regard to my overseas position, and the rea-j sons for my acceptance, I) wish to state unequivocally] that I accepted the position' because it offers a frame of, reference which has so far been impossible to imple- ■ ment in New Zealand,” Mrs ’Stratford said. ■ There should be a course | of training of at least three ] full years in the discipline I of speech and hearing science with full recognition of ' the autonomy of the profession. Guarantees should be instituted for direct representation of the Education Department in all matters related to the development of

’now uurstv Adequate eim. understands to the lull tie sional and the patient Mrs S ratfond «ho I < a hospita and education I qualifications has emphu sised to her professional iv' leagues that to set up a pro perly oriented »yslem of speech and hearing science training in New Zealand might cost more than $250,000. “But what is this cost when proper diagnosis and treatment can keep young people out of prisons and psychiatric and psychopedu Institutions. It costs about $6OOO to keep a child in a psychopedic hospita each year and $lO,OOO a year to confine a person to prison A lot of these people can bt saved because a properly qualified speech and hearing therapist i* in a unique po-i--tion to give an early diag nosis of communication problems, many of which arc th<- cause of othet disorders.” Mrs Stratford -aai that she felt a deep personal responsibility to make a pre test because she could not continue, as a responsible expert in the field of human communication disorder*, to "condone the release, under my tutelage of inadequately trained personnel, and personally. continue to be associated with a training programme which functions below international standards of professional competencies. “Those who work in the field now are doing their best but they need huge ■ public support to have their training system changed. Without it there will be hundreds of patients who will never be given help,” Mrs Stratford said.