A team of 10 clinicians from the United States will arrive in the island this month to provide hands-on interventions for at least 20 children with speech and language delays in the St Ann area.

This is an expansion of a speech teletherapy service pilot launched last September between The Mico University College Child Assessment and Research in Education (CARE) Centre here in Jamaica and the Eastern Illinois University (EIU) in the United States.

Speech teletherapy service, which became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic, is when speech therapy treatment is administered virtually, for example, utilising Zoom video calling technology.

The delivery model allows therapists to treat people in places that would usually not be easily reached.

There are fewer than 10 speech pathologists serving adults and children alike in Jamaica with the Mico CARE Centre being the only public sector institution that offers speech language pathology. That is where most children who present with learning challenges go for assessment.

The centre’s director, Dr Sharon Anderson-Morgan, said the upcoming mission by EIU will see their speech language pathology graduate clinicians administering speech language assessments, literacy screeners, and providing treatment to children who present with speech language literacy delays.

According to Anderson-Morgan, “Families will be provided with practical guidance to further assist the progression of their children’s speech and language development.”

She said the initial speech teletherapy pilot launched last year has seen close to 20 families already benefiting from speech and language services which continue to be in short supply in Jamaica.

Anderson-Morgan said the upcoming mission represents the Mico CARE Centre’s “coordinated quest to provide more solutions to better serve the special needs children of Jamaica”.

The outreach, which will take place over one week, will see evaluations, screenings, and treatment taking place from Monday, May 13 to Thursday, May 16 at the Mico CARE Centre’s St Ann’s Bay branch.

The outreach team will be working with clinicians from the Mico CARE Centre to provide services to the students and their parents.

In the meantime, Anderson-Morgan said the partnership has borne other fruits, including two significant research projects and the exposure of a number of student teachers from the Mico University College who, in serving as proctors to children in the programme, have been “gaining important exposure to speech language therapy services”.

The Mico Care Centre was established in 1980 to meet the needs of children requiring special education in Jamaica and the English-speaking Caribbean. It offers child assessment, diagnostic and therapeutic intervention services for school-aged children with learning challenges. The centre resulted from collaboration between the governments of Jamaica and the Netherlands and is funded by the Jamaican Government.