International Night - Speech Pathology Efforts in Guyana

7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Old Town Library
Large Meeting Room Combo

Event Details

Please join Erin Mercer for a presentation on her work as part of American Speech Language Hearing Association’s (ASHA) efforts to develop speech-language and audiology preparation in developing nations—with the goal of producing trained providers of appropriate speech-language and hearing ser-vices. Guyana, with a population of 770,000, has no resident audiologist or speech-language pathologist. At the request of Guyana’s Ministry of Health and the Pan American Health Organization, an ASHA committee developed a curriculum for speech-language and audiology bachelor’s degree programs at the University of Guyana. Five students will graduate by 2018. Erin supported this project in the country for just over a year as a Peace Corps response volunteer and helped build a sustainable, beginning-level communication sciences and disorders (CSD) program. Her experience involved developing a sustainable Bachelor’s degree Speech-Language Therapy and Audiology (SLT-A) program for the University of Guyana as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer. She had also supported the local hospitals, schools and other health centers by assessing and treating clients with speech-language, cognitive-communication, or swallowing deficits as well as increasing public awareness of such issues. In addition, she has provided multiple workshops in cognitive-communication and swallowing disorders to rehabilitation assistants, nursing staff and other volunteers in country. Erin M. Mercer, M.A. CCC-SLP has been a practicing Speech Language Pathologist for 9 years in several States (California, Georgia, and Colorado). She has recently joined a private practice in Loveland, CO working with pri-marily children with a variety of speech and language disorders.
Event Type(s): Programs
Age Group(s): Adults
Amy Holzworth
(970) 221-6740