traveling day thirteen - in which we visit another village

Today was another village visiting day.  We were going to see some children with cerebral palsy and some other children with disabilities.  It was a pretty interesting day, and I saw kids ranging from severe cerebral palsy to moderate stutterers to mild speech problems to repaired cleft palate children to two year old late talkers to blind children.  Our translator is getting better at listening to what we are looking for in a child's speech, and I am starting to hear in Krygyz if a child has significant speech problems.

It is difficult only doing one consultative visit, and knowing that if I had more time that I would be able to work with these kids more.  Hopefully some of the parents and kids are able to take on the ideas and suggestions that we gave, and I will leave some resources for follow up.  One little fellow with a cleft palate tried so hard for correct sound production, and his mum was one of the rare parents who let him continue to try without interrupting too much.



some of the people waiting to see us

consulting with this boy through our translator about his stuttering problem

introducing picture symbols to a little person

 

working on some speech sounds with this boy with a (mostly) repaired cleft palate

this boy and his mum were so lovely!

Granny working hard consulting about positioning

the apple orchard and mountains behind the school

these boys were cleaning up the orchard for the old lady who owns it - they did a wonderful job then got to light a fire

On the shores of Lake Issy-Kol on the way back form the village.  You can see the high mountains on the other side of the lake faintly behind my head.

Tomorrow we have one more day of seeing children and finalising some resources.  We have started making a video sign dictionary of Russian signs to hand out to parents and carers using one of the teachers here in Karakol who was happy to be videoed doing sign language.  Hopefully this will be useful to use with children with disabilities.

I am thankful that our two weeks here has been fruitful and has had a small impact, and we have been able to be used.  I think it is because we are willing to do what the locals want, and there was a specific job description for us.  I think also because we are working within our professions and doing much the same work as we would do in Australia.  All the resources I had planned have not been used, but I am glad I planned so much as you never know what is going to turn up.  I have ideas for many more projects that could happen here with speech pathology.  Working across languages has been fine with a good translator as many of the principles are the same.

Onwards.