About this Webinar

The sociolinguistic context of a country makes the practice of speech-language pathology in that country unique from the rest of the world. With a body of knowledge dominated by information relevant to a few---usually monolingual---populations, SLPs in many mutlilingual countries face the challenge of finding appropriate ways to help their countrymen with language disorders. This is especially true for those working with multilingual children with language impairment. This talk attempts to discuss this issue in the context of the Philippines using the results of a preliminary survey (n = 62). A significant part of the talk is also dedicated to proposing interim strategies that can be adopted for use in the country while relevant local studies have yet to be done.

Speaker

Ellyn Cassey K. Chua, CSP-PASP

Graduate student, MA Linguistics

University of the Philippines Diliman

Ellyn Cassey Chua is a speech-language pathologist who graduated from the BS Speech Pathology program of the University of the Philippines Manila in 2013. She worked as an instructor at the same university for 5 years (2013-2018), teaching topics on pediatric language, normal cognitive and linguistic functioning, and augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), among others. As part of her work in the university, she also supervised interns in three affiliation centers, two of which serve individuals whose primary language is Tagalog. Her clinical experience includes 4 years of working with multilingual (Tagalog-English, English-Tagalog, English-Chinese-Tagalog) children and adolescents with hearing impairment, intellectual disability, and autism at Chatter Therapy Center (2013-2017); and 6 years of working with multilingual adults with complex communication needs in home health (2013-present). She is passionate about finding ways to give Filipinos access to culturally- and linguistically-appropriate speech and language services and communication aids. As such, she has taken up courses in the MA Linguistics program of the University of the Philippines Diliman, and conducted local research on AAC and early language development. Her current research interests lie in designing AAC systems in Tagalog and other Philippine languages, and improving the efficiency and social uses of existing AAC solutions for people with acquired cognitive and linguistic disorders. Her extension work includes serving as: the local coordinator of the TinigAAC project, a member of the Continuing Education and Research Committee of the PASP, and a members of the BUILD (emerging AAC nations) committee of the International Society for AAC (ISAAC).

Learning Objectives

At the end of the webinar, participants should be able to:

1. Discuss multilingualism in the Philippine context

2. Address common myths surrounding multilingual language development

3. Discuss some of the challenges faced by Filipino SLPs when assessing and providing intervention to multilingual children

4. Enumerate key multilingual language assessment and intervention practices that are currently supported by the literature and/or international SLP associations

5. Discuss a few of the seeming practice patterns of Filipino SLPs working with this population and their possible implications

6. List areas for future research on this subject

Target Participants:

This webinar is only open for speech language pathologists.

Course Difficulty: 

Intermediate

Fees:

PASP Members         - Php 700

Non-PASP Members - Php 900

SLP students   - Php 400