Western Pacific Small Island Nations: Speech-language therapy services and children’s communication

This workshop will provide an opportunity for participants to learn about and reflect on speech-language therapy services in 20 western Pacific small island nations with a particular focus on services for children in this region.
Speech-language therapy services are recognised across western Pacific small island nations as important for supporting the participation of people with communication and swallowing difficulties. However, many of these nations are some of the poorest internationally and do not have the funds or the population to ensure a sustainable speech-language therapy workforce. In the first part of this workshop, we summarise the current state of play for speech-language therapy services in this region of the world. A desk-based review identified that in the absence of adequate ‘home-grown’ communication specialists these nations have historically relied on international volunteers to provide intermittent services and training to mid-tier health and education citizens who act in their place. More recently though there is a growing number of internationally trained SLTs returning to their home countries and doing their best to meet the needs of their citizens. In addition, there is also evidence that community organisations with funding are prepared to invest in expatriate SLTs and to leverage funding sources for the benefits of short-term in-person volunteering. Some nations with good information technology are also using teleconferencing to access volunteer-SLT assessment, intervention, staff education, and supervision.
Whether provided by a local or expatriate speech-language therapist, culturally responsive services for children with Pacific Island heritage rely on a thorough understanding of the cultural, linguistic, and historical social context of each child. Consequently, in the second part of this workshop we present a literature review that summarises research on the communication profiles of children living within Pacific small island nations and to those who have emigrated to somewhere in the diaspora.
In the final part of this workshop the presenters will open the floor for discussion and create a sharing space for dialogue about how to best support service development of culturally responsive speech pathology practices for people with communication and swallowing difficulties from western Pacific small island nations.