Speech pathologists at Bathurst Hospital have benefited from training aimed at improving their skills while working with children who suffer from speech disorders including cleft palate.
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Sydney-based speech pathologist David Fitzsimons provided training at Bathurst Hospital on Tuesday, which focused on managing speech and communication issues experienced by children he has treated at the Cleft Palate Clinic at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead.
“The speech disorder we looked at was velopharyngeal insufficiency, which is the primary speech disorder for kids who have cleft palate,” he said.
“There are other speech disorders that sound like velopharyngeal insufficiency that speech therapy can correct.
“Children that have velopharyngeal insufficiency need surgery but children who have speech issues that sound like that can be treated with speech therapy.
“The Western NSW local health district is very supportive of children who have cleft palate and when we ask them to do therapy they are very keen.
“The speech therapists that are based around the region are the ones who do the hard work and help the kids enormously.”
Mr Fitzsimons said about one in every 650 babies are born with some sort of cleft palate order.
“We get about 100 new babies born each year and another 100 patients born with suspected speech problems that are similar to cleft palate,” he said.
Children who can’t separate their mouth from their nose will required reconstructive plastic surgery and will then require speech therapy, as they learn to speak again.
Children who suffer from other speech problems which are not related to cleft palate, will only require speech therapy instead of surgery.
Mr Fitzsimons, who has worked as as speech pathologist for more than 20 years, said the Children’s Hospital’s Cleft Palate Clinic has a great relationship with the speech therapists in the Western NSW local health district.
Speech pathologists from Bathurst Community Health, based at the Bathurst Hospital, and from across the Western NSW local health district participated in the training.