Peggy Revell
FORT FRANCES—Local speech pathologist Ann Anderson soon will be on her way to the other side of the world after being selected by the Canadian Association of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists to be part of a delegation heading to China at the end of the month.
Anderson, who works as a speech pathologist with the Rainy River District School Board, will be joining dozens of others from across the country to meet with their Chinese counterparts as part of the People to People Ambassador Programs.
Delegates will be making stops at Tongren Hospital, the Deaf Children Rehabilitation Research Centre, and the Science of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, Department of Special Education, East China Normal University.
“We’re going to be getting into a kindergarten class, which I’m really excited about because not only am I the speech pathologist here but I’m also the kindergarten co-ordinator, and so I’m going to bring some gifts for the kids and the teachers,” said Anderson.
Roundtables, assessment, intervention, and school curriculum are some of the many things they will be discussing.
“People traditionally think speech pathologists just work with people if they have lisps, but we have many, many other things that we would do,” noted Anderson.
In Canada, speech pathologists cannot practise without a Master’s degree, she said, and from there, there are many different avenues for where they could go.
Before moving on to education, Anderson, who has been practising as a speech pathologist for a number of years, had a varied background, including in hospitals working with acute care patients and managing a department of both speech and physio occupational therapists, as well as home care.
In hospital situations, speech pathologists can help, for example, with people who have had a stroke or who have had their larynx removed.
Within the education system, part of their job description includes working with children who could have a language disorder, difficulties with articulation, and stuttering.
“We deal with swallowing disorders, we deal with any child that maybe cannot communicate verbally, so they might use an augmentative device, something else that would talk for them,” Anderson explained.
“Even in Hollywood, speech pathologists work to change actors’ accents so that they can portray a different role,” she added.
But presently in China, there only are 200 speech-language pathologists in a country of more than 1.3 billion people.
“It’s more of a going there and not just providing teaching from them, but also learning from the things that they do in China,” she remarked.
“There’s four basic areas that we’re going to be talking to them about,” continued Anderson, who is looking forward to mentoring and helping other speech pathologists.
These include working in remote areas and with poorer populations, different models of communication rehabilitation, assessment and treatment approaches, and prevention and management of disorders.
Anderson also is thankful the Rainy River District School Board has supported her with this experience.
“You know, it’s right in the middle of the busiest time of the school year, with school starting up, trying to get my caseload all set, and to be gone for a period of two weeks can be sometimes hard,” she conceded.
Anderson said she feels fortunate the board has allowed her to take the opportunity, and helped with some of the funding.
“I’ve never travelled abroad, so that’s one thing that I’m really looking forward too,” she said, adding her husband, Doug, also is joining her on the trip as a guest.
“I’m looking forward to the professional experience, but also the cultural,” Anderson enthused, noting it will be interesting to see Beijing following the Olympics. Stops on the trip include places such as the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, Tianamen Square, the Great Wall of China, and Shanghai Museum.
“We will be touring the places in China that you only just hear about,” she said.
