Over the past two years, when I’m not busy posting stories to our blog and facebook, I’ve been working on completing my Master’s in Speech Language Pathology. This past week after an exciting graduation ceremony, I had the opportunity to travel with 9 other colleagues from the University of Washington to provide speech, language, swallowing and hearing services to adults and children in locations throughout the country of Guatemala. The mission trip was hosted by Hearts in Motion, whose goal is to provide care and medical treatment for children, families, and communities through programs and sponsorships in the U.S., Central and South America.
Over the 9 days we had the opportunity to visit and work at 5 facilities (above is our group at the rehabilitation center), make 7 home visits (below an image of two clinicians working with a one year old on eating solid foods at her home), and provide services to over 150 patients.
Below are some of the images from the numerous patients that touched our lives. It’s my hope that we were able to give them a bit of hope, education and support to understand their conditions and work toward their goals for speech, language, hearing and swallowing.
A young boy with Cerebral Palsy (CP) working on using vocalizations and eye gaze for requests.
Two little girls working on their speech sounds and rolling rrrr’s (a new sound I learned how to teach during this trip!)
A young boy with CP working on eye gaze for requests, his first form of intentional communication as stated by his mom.
Hearing screenings
Circle time sing-along for the children who live in the nutrition center, gaining weight and becoming healthy before returning back to their homes.
A 22 year old woman who we diagnosed as having a profound hearing loss, learning how to sign for the first time. She continued to tell us “gracias” as shown above.