Aural Habilitation from a Far Physical and Cultural Distance

On this lazy Saturday morning, I was delighted to read in the June 16th ASHA Leader about an impressive program that combines three of my loves: speech pathology, aural habilitation, and instructional technology (specifically, distance education). The article describes a cross-cultural, distance education aural habilitation program that is part of Columbia University's Teachers College (TC). TC students and supervisors traveled to La Paz, Bolivia to provide gratis aural habilitation services to students in Camino de Sordos, a school for the deaf. The Columbia program organizers also found a way to have hearing aids and computers donated. To director Cate Crowley's credit, the teaching/learning did not end with their month-long, on-site visit. Using Skype, speech pathology and audiology TC students, supervised by certified clinicians, continued intervention in real time at a far distance.

The ASHA Leader article is now online. A similar report of the work and an article about the program's history are available from Columbia's speech pathology program. What a wonderful opportunity for all people involved: students, clients, supervisors, professors. Oh, to be part of an adventure such as that!

Rethinking...why couldn't I be part of something like that? Certainly don't need to wait for the opportunity. We in the hearing impaired program at my elementary school have tried many ways to bridge the language gap between hearing parents and their deaf children. Surely, if non-native Spanish-speaking speech pathology and audiology students can use Internet video technology (Skype) to habilitate hearing in deaf children whose parents speak Spanish, we can figure some way to get this done at a much closer distance with less cultural barriers. Surely. Yeah.