By specialist Speech and Language therapist Frankie Paterson
Remember Beatrice and Ugandan speech therapist Duncan Musasizi? When Beatrice and her guardian came along for a second therapy session it was great to hear that Bea’s fluency had improved significantly in the week since the last session.
It’s a joy to watch Duncan in action as a therapist. He has such a warm and engaging therapeutic manner with children. His face, as you can see in the photo, is incredibly expressive and animated, this is a great quality to have as children are drawn to animated faces and they are most likely to join in play activities if they can see that the therapist is excited about the activity.
Duncan makes impressive use of a limited array of therapy resources. There are no big cupboards full of toys here, so this is essential. He has a set of colourful building blocks that he shows great ingenuity at using in lots of different ways. He used them in a fluency shaping technique aimed at helping Beatrice reduce the rate of her speech by saying a word each time she put a new block onto a tower.
At our last session Duncan had demonstrated a very simple activity aimed at slowing Beatrice down; her speech and everything else. Bea is inclined to want to get everything done in a rush, speaking and moving very quickly, always worrying about being late.
Duncan got Beatrice up and moving for this, a signature feature of his therapy style. They took steps along the tiled floor, stepping from tile to tile with a pause in between each step. As they’re taking steps they count from one to ten, saying a number per step. The first time Bea tried this she was characteristically rushing, taking much quicker steps than Duncan and seeming to be so intent on doing this perfectly she was hardly pausing to breathe. Over the session he managed to get her to slow right down to his slow pace of walking and counting and to copy his relaxed walking style.
Beatrice’s guardian reported that her fluency had improved significantly since our previous session. She had told the people at Beatrice’s Sunday school that they must let her talk and always let her finish what she is trying to say. She ordered the local children Bea plays with to be kind to her, to always let her talk at her own pace and never to laugh at her. I have a strong suspicion these people will do what she asks; I would certainly not mess with this woman! I was very struck by how fiercely protective of Beatrice this lady is. A real force of nature. I felt happy for Beatrice that after her difficult start in life she now has this kind and strong woman to look after her.
