Department of Speech & Language Pathology
INTRODUCTION
The Department is one of the core technical departments of this Institute which was established on 9th August 1983, the day on which the Institute was established and has been functioning efficiently since then. The department is one of the core technical departments of the Institute and has contributed in a myriad of ways enhancing the progress of the Institute during the past 30 years. Contributions and activities of the department comprise of clinic and consultancy services, manpower development, in house and extra mural research, community awareness programs, short term training programs and material development.
-
Contact : 022 – 69102102; 022 – 69102100 Ext. 102E-mail: speech-nihh[at]nic[dot]in, speech1path[at]yahoo[dot]com
In addition to providing assessment and (re)habilitation services to the one of the most recent and advanced unit of the Institute viz. Cochlear Implant Unit (Dept. of Audiology), the Clinic of the Department has two Specialized Unitsviz. Voice Unit for Individuals with Voice disorders and Unit for individuals with Cleft lip and/or palate. Recently, i.e. in January 2012, an important unit was added viz. Unit for assessment and rehabilitation of individuals having swallowing disorders. The most outstanding feature of these Specialized Units of the Clinic is that they are well equipped with instruments which are recent, advanced and have the state-of-art technologies.
In addition to the aforementioned Specialized Units, the various sub-sections of the Department of Speech and Language Pathology include Diagnostics, Therapeutics, Group Therapy Unit (especially for children with hearing impairment), Speech Science Laboratory, Recording room and Speech Therapy Park.
The major objectives of the department go hand in hand with the objectives of the Institute and are as follows
- Clinical Services
- Manpower development
- Research
- Material development
- Consultancy services
- Community awareness
Clinical Services
Being equipped with the state of art technology the Department of Speech and Language Pathology provides advanced clinical services to all patients visiting the Institute from various parts of the country.Clinical services are provided toboth Pediatric and Geriatric patients and are provided under two broad sections viz. diagnostic and therapeutic/rehabilitative.
The clinical services provided by the Department of Speech and Language Pathology can be divided into A.) Services provided to Persons with Speech and/ or Language problems due to Hearing Impairment and B.) Services provided to Persons with Speech and/or Language problems, but for those who may not have hearing impairment. C.) Services provided to Persons having problems in Swallowing
Services provided to Persons with Speech and/or Language problems due to Hearing Impairment: The clinical services provided include
- Preliminary Speech and Language evaluation – Speech evaluation includes evaluation of all four processes of speech viz. respiration, phonation, articulation semantics, syntax and pragmatics
- Extended speech and language evaluation using special validated tests (both standardized Indian tests and those from the West)
- Objective speech and language evaluation using state of art equipments /instruments both from the West and indigenous
Therapeutic/ Rehabilitative
- Individual speech-language therapy with proper planning and focused goals
- Auditory training and speech reading
- Group therapy
- Counseling for parents
Clinical services to Cochlear Implantees
- Pre cochlear implant assessment of speech perception, language and speech using specialized tests and instruments.
- Counseling to parents
- Post cochlear implant assessment of speech perception, language and speech. . The Department has a trained in service candidate, Mrs Sindhu Nambiar, Clinical Supervisor, for the aforementioned services.
- Rehabilitative services –in the form of therapy for improving speech perception, speech and language skills.
Services provided to Persons with Speech and/or Language problems but those who may not have hearing impairment
The disorders included are as follows
- Delayed speech and language development due to mental retardation, cerebral palsy, autism spectrum disorders, learning disability, etc
- Voice disorders—hyperfunctional voice disorders (eg. hoarseness due to vocal nodules, polyps, cysts, etc); hypofuctional voice disorders (eg. breathiness due to vocal cord palsy, etc); laryngectomee, psychogenic and neurogenic voice disorders.
- Fluency disorders-viz. Stuttering and Cluttering.
- Articulation disorders –viz. misarticulations due to cleft lip/palate or other causes, phonological disorders/delay, apraxia, developmental and acquired dysarthria following Parkinson’s disease, Gullian Barre’s syndrome, Wilson’s disease, Huntington’s chorea, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Multiple sclerosis and other such Neurogenic disorders.
- Resonance disorders-hyper or hyponasality due to cleft lip/ palate and due to dysarthria
- Language disorders- viz. developmental dysphasia, aphasia post stroke, etc.
Both diagnostic and rehabilitative are provided for the aforementioned disorders. A number of latest and advanced instruments are used for the assessment and therapy for these disorders, which are as follows
- Computerized Speech Lab and VisiPitch IV (KayPentax, Pentax Medical, USA) for Multidimensional voice profile, oro-motor program
- Drs Tiger’s speech ( China and USA)– for same purposes as are for VisiPitch IV
- Vaghmi (Bangalore)—an indigenous product for same purposes as VIsiPitch IV
- PRAAT soft ware for spectrographic analysis of disordered speech
- Nasometer II 6400 (KayPentax, Pentax Medical, USA)- for monitoring nasalance of individuals with cleft lip/palate
- Phonatory Aerodynamic system (PAS, KayPentax, Pentax, Medical, USA) for aerodynamic voice parameters.
- Rigid and flexible fiberoptic Pharyngo-laryngo-nasoendoscope (XION, Germany) for assessing the status of vocal folds and velopharyngeal mechanism
Services provided to Persons having problems in Swallowing: Both Diagnostic and intervention of swallowing disorders following stroke, Parkinson’s disease and /or any aforementioned neurogenic motor speech disorders. The objective assessment and intervention is done with the help of the instrument Digital Accelerometry for Swallow Imaging (DASI, Elixir Research, USA)
Manpower development
Trained skilled manpower is essential for conducting diagnosis and for providing rehabilitative services. In the country there is a paucity of trained professionals to deal with the above.Hence, to fulfill such needs the Institute provides various under graduate and post graduate courses in the area of speech, hearing and education of hearing impaired and other speech-language disorders. These include BASLP, MASLP, B.Ed(HI), M.Ed (HI). Department contributes immensely in preparing this manpower by providing in-depth training both theoretical and practical to the students enrolled.
Similarly, the Department also conducts short term RCI recognized CRE programs / workshops within Mumbai and in any part of the country, for DHLS, BEd(HI) professionals. The duration of the program/workshop is between 3 to 5 days. One short term training program focuses on speech problems of hearing impaired, whereas, the other program focuses on any other speech/language disorders and is designed for Master trainers.
Research and Publications
The Faculty of the Deptartment have a number of publications in peer reviewed National and International Journals.
It is in the form of dissertations of MASLP students (9 per year) and also in the form of Research projects.
Department has conducted and successfully completed a number of Research projects in various areas of Speech and Language Pathology. The projects which have been successfully completed are as follows
- UNICEF funded project, U2B— titled, ‘Development of Material for Anganwadi workers, Multi-purpose workers for Early Identification and Intervention of Hearing, Speech and Language Problems’.
- UNICEF funded project U8—titled, ‘Development and Standardization of Linguistic Profile Test (LPT)’ and ‘Photo Articulation Test’, both in seven Indian languages.
- Science and Technology, Mission in Mode, DDRC Scheme, MSJ E, GOI, funded project, titled, ‘Hindi Learning Package (HLP)’ for improving language skills in Hindi for hearing impaired children.
- Science and Technology, Mission in Mode, DDRC Scheme, MSJ E, GOI, funded project, titled, ‘Home Auditory training Program (HAP)’, for providing easily understandable material for auditory training, in the form of worksheets and CD ROMs i.e. digital teaching and learning material, in order to enable parents to teach auditory skills to their children, at home. The digital teaching and learning material in Hindi is available on the Institute’s website ayjnihh-mum[at]nic[dot]in.
- One project which has been completed is funded by Dept. of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, GOI. The title of the project is, ‘Mobile Phone Assisted Remote Speech Therapy’, for providing therapy through mobile phones for children with articulation disorders. This project is in collaboration with TATA Consultancy Services, Mumbai. The prototype of the mobile phone application is ready and has to be field tested.
Faculty of the Department has also guided more than 100 students for completion of their dissertation work as a part of their Master’s program, in various areas of Speech and Language Pathology including clinical and diagnostic areas. Outcome of some of these projects and dissertations is available in the form of various tests and tools for assessment and rehabilitation of individuals with speech and / or language disorders.
Further, the Department has also conducted small scale research, in the form of short studies and each year has presented the same in the form of articles/ studies at various National and International conferences. One of the papers, titled, ‘Comparison of voice parameters of cochlear implantees with those of children with hearing impairment using hearing aids and normal hearing children’, presented at the First Annual Conference of Laryngology and Voice Association (India), held in February 2012, received the best paper award.
Another paper, titled, ‘Quality of Life of Individuals with Cleft Lip/Palate’ received the first prize at the Asia Pacific Conference on Cleft Lip/Palate, held at Hyderabad in 2006. At the Cutting Edge Laryngology Conference held at Royal College of Surgeons, England, London, in June 2013, where ASLPs and ENT doctors from 30 countries participated, two papers of the Department were selected as poster presentations. Their titles are as follows: 1. ‘Use of International Classification of Functioning (ICF) for Assessment and Intervention of Voice Disorders’, and 2. ‘Use of Digital Accelerometry for Swallow Imaging (DASI) for Assessment of Swallowing Problems due to Neurogenic Disorders’.
Papers from the Department has been accepted for the Asia Pacific Conference on Cochlear Implants held Internationally-
- At the Asia Pacific Conference on Cochlear Implants held at Seoul,South Korea in October 2011, paper titled, ‘Acoustic Analysis of Speech of Cochlear Implantees and Its Implications’, was accepted and presented in absentia.
- A Descriptive Study of Speech Perception Performance of Early and Late Cochlear Implantees’, was accepted as poster presentation for the 13th Pediatric Symposium on Cochlear Implants, held at Children’s Hospital Chicago, USA, in July’2011.
- ‘Qualitative Analysis of Speech Perception Performance in Cochlear Implantees having malformed cochleas’, which was presented in absentia at Asia-Pacific Conference on Cochlear Implants held at Singapore in Dec’2010.
Development of material
Faculty of the Department and the Clinical staff have been actively involved in the development of material for early identification, assessment and (re)habilitation of individuals with hearing and speech impairment. Some of the material in the form of pamphlets, booklets and books include
- Training module for Primary Health workers and Anganwadi workers—under the UNICEF funded project U2B.
- More about listening and Speaking- under the UNICEF funded project U2B.
- Know him better- under the UNICEF funded project U2B.
- Someone new in the classroom- under the UNICEF funded project U2B.
- Your new friend- under the UNICEF funded project U2B.
- Steps in preparing hearing aid harness- under the UNICEF funded project U2B.
- Speech and Language Stimulation series-3 booklets- under the UNICEF funded project U2B.
- Development of Speech Reading material; in Marathi-under a non funded summer project
- Development of a Kit for Communicative Competence- under a non funded summer project
- “Hindi Learning Package”, comprises of 12 books for improving Hindi language skills in children with hearing impairment under Science and Technology, Mission in Mode Project, MSJ E, GOI
- CD-ROM i. e. Digital teaching and learning material for level 1 of Auditory training viz. Auditory Awareness,in Hindi and Marathi under Science and Technology Mission in Mode Project, MSJ E, GOI
- Course book MMDE075 (New Delhi: IGNOU ) for MEd SE DE course under IGNOU. Aural Rehabilitation of Children with Hearing Impairment. Contributed towards 2 blocks each consisting of 4-5 units/ chapters each. These are as follows
- Unit 4—Speech Process and Components of Speech. The following are the chapters—a.)Characteristics of good speech. b.) Production of Speech Sounds. c.)Process of Speech Production and its Relevance in Understanding Dynamics of Voice and Articulation. d. Identification and Analysis of Speech Errors in Individuals with Hearing Impairment.
- Unit 5 –Speech Teaching –Chapters—
- Objectives and Planning
- Selection of Appropriate Sensory Channels and material and Equipment
- Recent Advances in technology in Teaching Speech.
- Speech Teaching Goals for pre-primary, primary and secondary school level.
- Practicuum in Specific disability Area Hearing Impairment- Manual MMDE077(New Delhi: IGNOU0 for Med HI (SE DE) course under IGNOU.
- Course book for BEd HI (SE DE) course under Tamil Nadu Open University School of Education –SEHI02 New Delhi RCI TNOU Chennai.
Consultancy Services
Consultancy services are provided for construction of therapy rooms.
Community Awareness
Department actively participates in various community awareness programs and camps conducted by other departments of the Institute, in semi-urban and rural areas of Maharashtra and other states.
Faculty of the Department is involved in inspection of NGO organizations as per instructions of MSJ E, GOI. Further, faculty is also invited as Resource persons for workshops and conferences held Nationally and Internationally.
| Sl. No. | NAME | Designation | Qualification | Experience | Area of interest | Photo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Smt. Ravali P. Mathur, e-mail id : ravali[dot]p[at]ayjnihh[dot]nic[dot]in | I/c Speech & Language Pathology Deptt. and Lecturer | MASLP | 12 years 10 months | Speech language pathology.
|
– |
| 2 | Shri Joyanta Chandra Mandal | Lecturer(Audio/Speech Pathology) and I/c North East Region | MASLP | 10 years above |
|
 |
| Sr.No. | Name | Designation |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Smt. Seema Singh | ASLP |
| 2 | Ms. Gayatri Haryan | ASLP |
| 3 | Ms. Shruti Kamble | ASLP |
| 4 | Smt. Shubhangi S. Sawant | Nurse cum Hostel Asst. |