In The News:

Members of the Hispanic Caucus are continually busy within our community.  Please take a moment to read about what some of our members are doing!

Professor Cate Crowley and Columbia University Students Work on Sustainable Services for Communication Disorders in Bolivia 

For the past three years graduate students at Teachers College Columbia University in New York City travel to La Paz, Bolivia for one month to provide speech and language services to children with disabilities. Under the director of Hispanic Caucus member Cate Crowley, and supervised by three ASHA-certified SLPs, including Miriam Baigorri clinical director of the Bolivia program, these SLP students work in the national pediatric hospital; a school for the deaf; and a school for children and young adults with developmental disabilities, cerebral palsy, and autism. As part of the experience the students receive intensive Spanish lessons and give presentations in Spanish to parents, teachers, and medical professionals on disability issues. The ultimate goals-borrowed from the Peace Corps philosophy-are to "be respectful of our hosts' culture and make the program self-sustaining for them," says Crowley. Past participants maintain that their experiences in Bolivia have provided them with knowledge and skills that infuse their practice and allows them to provide high quality SLP services to bilingual and multicultural populations in the U.S.

With the Bolivia project's focus on sustainability, Crowley has established a year-round aural habilitation telepractice  for the students in the school for the deaf. With funding from the Downey Family Foundation, Melissa Inniss, an audiologist and SLP and Ray Diaz a technology expert, traveled to La Paz in August 2008. While Melissa fit donated hearing aids on a number of the students at the school for the deaf, Ray set up computers in the school computer lab and made sure they were equipped for Skype internet connections. In September, seven Teachers College SLP students with native Spanish skills began providing aural habilitation therapy in real time from the Teachers College SLP clinic in New York City to the school for the deaf in La Paz. This program continues and is a viable option as a clinical experience as part of the Teachers College SLP program.

Find more information about this program online at: Columbia University Bolivia Project

To submit a news item to "In The News"  please contact Nate Cornish at: nate.cornish@ashahispaniccaucus.com