Speech camp and train-the-trainer sessions in Piña Blanca
in the lake region near San Pedro Sula

December 7-14 , 2007. One of the major goals for this program was to explore the ability to form an association with Friends of Barnabas (FOB, a U.S.-based non-profit organization in Richmond, Virginia). The December speech camp trained parents of patients identified by FOB.

Another major goal was to begin the EARTHSPEAK process that would train Mayra Jacome, a psychologist at La Lima Hospital in a suburb of San Pedro Sula, and to allow Kathi Hoffer, Ph.D., of Rotaplast International, to complete the third level of the four-part authorization process of EARTHSPEAK.

Twelve children came for possible inclusion in the camp. Several were referred for further surgery, and six were enrolled.

Two of the children being evaluated had been in previous EARTHSPEAK camps in Santa Rosa de Copan. It was wonderful to see these children, especially since EARTHSPEAK volunteers had been unable to locate them on two previous visits to the site. One had completed all but the /rr/ sound with success, and his speech was now within normal limits. His father had been his mentor, and the father's praise for the program and the CORRECTIVE BABBLING method was great. He told all the parents waiting for evaluation that this was the most important thing they could learn and do for their children.

Sady, another EARTHSPEAK camp graduate also stopped by to say hello. His speech is now within normal limits, and his life is moving forward. He graduated from high school two years ago and says he now has a confident and full life.

The speech camp produced well-trained parents, even though two are non-readers. Their husbands will do the reading needed at home. Another mentor was an elderly grandma who is a non-reader and has difficulty with multitasking. Her granddaughter reads and understands, and the two will work together.

It was extremely positive to observe that the training of others is now creating many hands to do the work. The camp took the usual form of lecture and practice, and Kathi and Mayra presented many of the lectures and directed the practice work.

However, as EARTHSPEAK become better known throughout the international community, the need for skilled trainers who can teach others the CORRECTIVE BABBLING method becomes more critical. Under current consideration are electronic instruction of the method paired with on-site work to run speech camps. Linking EARTHSPEAK visits to those of surgical groups is another possibility.

Fourth EARTHSPEAK Visit to Ecuador

Rural cleft program for Manabi province
and one-week speech camp in Portoviejo

February 21-March 2, 2007. This year's EARTHSPEAK team included three faculty members from the School of Human Communication Disorders, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia: Elizabeth (Mandy) Kay-Raining Bird, PhD, Cindy Dobbelsteyn, MSc (team leader), and Raylene Delorey, MSc. Two speech-language pathology (SLP) students from the School of Human Communication Disorders also accompanied the team: Kelly Root and Laura Boland. Edith Schlesinger came from California for her second year as translator.

Members of the team that developed a three-year plan to provide the first rural program for comprehensive cleft care in Manabi province met and consolidated the plan. The team includes Rotary International, the provincial departments of health and education, Rostros Felices/Interplast, the dental school at the University of San Gregorio in Portoviejo, Foundation Maria Claudia (otolaryngology) and EARTHSPEAK.

The EARTHSPEAK team then conducted the first of multistage trainings for selected teachers and health care workers in Manabi province to become the first line of contact and support for families of children born with cleft lip and palate. The health care workers received one day of training, and the teachers participated in an additional two-day workshop to train them to support parents and children in the process of rehabilitation.

The review of past speech camps revealed a great deal of progress by past participants. Of the ten reviewed, six have either reached normal speech or are making satisfactory progress, three had new mentors and were re-enrolled in the current speech camp, and one was referred for individual therapy to correct muscle tension dysphonia.

Twenty-seven new speech camp potentials were assessed for intake, and ten were accepted into the week-long camp. Of the remaining 17, one was normal, two were too young to benefit from the program, and the others needed either additional medical attention or an individual therapy program, to which they were referred.

The camp began with stories of the remarkable progress being made by past participants. Hector Valdez Ramirez, 29 years old, told how the camp he attended had changed his life, both improving his speech and making him more confident about himself. The mother of an 8-year-old prior participant shared her daughter's story to give new mentors the confidence to help their children. After attending two camps, the girl now has almost normal speech, with difficulty only with /r/ blends.

The camp closed with the presentation of certificates, lunch with cake, games, songs, and poems.

News Archives (2006)

Largest Team Assembled to Date Included Participants
from Los Angeles and Nova Scotia

February 15-26, 2006. The largest EARTHSPEAK team ever gathered in Ecuador assembled in Portoviejo, Ecuador, to conduct a new speech training camp for parents and mentors of cleft palate individuals, as well as to provide second-stage training for local and regional professionals, to continue developing a comprehensive cleft palate team center in the Manabi province, and to review speech clients from previous camps on the results achieved using the EARTHSPEAK-designed and -developed CORRECTIVE BABBLING method.

More information about the CORRECTIVE BABBLING method

In-country team member Maria Isabel Guerra joined the group in Quito. Denisse Zunino, Dr. Gorge Palacios of Rostros Falices Foundation, and Raquel Duenas and Carlos Vasquez, both Rotary Club members, made the local arrangements.

International team members from the U.S. included Judith Trost-Cardamone PhD, EARTHSPEAK co-founders Richard Jobe MD and Andi Jobe MA, and Edith Schlesinger, who acted as translator. In addition, the group was joined by several professionals from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. These were Elizabeth Kay Raining Bird PhD, Cindy Dobbelsteyn MSc, and Raylene Delorey MSc, as well as Joy Armson, PhD and Director of the Communicative Disorders department.

Twenty-one patients participated in the speech camp, and ten former speech camp participants returned for review. Over 90 nurses, special education teachers, therapists, university professions, and others attended the training seminars. These local and regional professionals help immensely to extend EARTHSPEAK's reach well beyond the EARTHSPEAK-conducted speech camps, which have now been operating for several years.

Team members met in Guayaquil and proceeded by van to the training center for professionals, parents and mentors, and students in Portoviejo.

A great deal of progress was made in all activities. One particularly fruitful area of endeavor has been work with older children and adults. An excellent example is Antonio, a 19-year-old who taught himself using the speech manual and a mirror. He returned to report that he is now teaching others in his town of Jipiyapa, where he has had a very positive effect on the progress of five others. He asked for four more manuals so he could work with additional speech students. Antonio also spent time during the week completing his 3-year program to become a tour guide. He hopes to earn enough money to pursue graduate studies.

Xavier, age 12, first came to an EARTHSPEAK camp in 2003. His mother had such difficulty reading that the speech professionals despaired that she would ever be able to help him learn to speak. When Xavier came for his first review he had made virtually no progress. His mother was determined to succeed, and she retook the entire speech camp. Others in the camp were also determined, and they gave her a great deal of help and encouragement.

At Xavier's second review during this camp his speech was within normal limits. He and his mother stayed at the camp during the week, and he helped by playing with the younger children so their mothers could focus on their mentoring work.

Maria, an 11-year-old, began her speech training two years ago. Last April at her review she had shown good progress, but now she had no teacher. Her mother had died and she was now living with her grandmother, who had not been trained.

Over the past ten months Maria has been training herself. She takes the manual to school and works both there and at home twice a day. Her speech is now almost within normal limits, and her grandmother participated in the February camp to try to help her granddaughter make more progress. Maria, a confident and beautiful young girl, addressed the assembled group of new mentors and students to motivate them on what can be done if they do the work required.

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Part of the EARTHSPEAK joint initiative
"From Cleft Palate to Clear Speech"

January 5-14, 2006. The speech camp was sponsored by EARTHSPEAK, the Indian Ministry of Health, and the Nizams Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS). Indian team members were from NIMS and the Ali Yavar Jung National Institute for Hearing Handicapped (NIHH). Team members from the U.S. were Andi and Richard Jobe (EARTHSPEAK co-founders) and Judith Trost-Cardamone, Professor of Speech Pathology at California State University Northridge (CSUN). Trost-Cardamone came as the first EARTHSPEAK visiting professor in India.

Key goals of the trip were to review patient progress from the September 2005 speech camp, to conduct a new camp for patients and parents, to train local and regional speech professionals, and to identify additional areas for research on the CORRECTIVE BABBLING method.

More information about the CORRECTIVE BABBLING method

The number of patients returning for follow-up review was higher than ever before in India, with 19 total returning for review (including 11 out of 17 participants from the September 2005 camp). Eighteen of the 19 patients were either nearing completion of the training or making good progress. Only one was not using the mentor methods as instructed.

EARTHSPEAK has already trained 11 interns in India, and the current six active interns will graduate from the program in June 2006.

In all, 28 parent-child teams (56 people) participated in the January camp.

EARTHSPEAK Calendar

Work was accomplished despite severe political unrest

April 2005. EARTHSPEAK just completed two successful weeks in Ecuador - a continuation of our work with the Club Rotario de Portoviejo and Dr. Jorge Palacios, head of Fundacation Rostros Felices. Our work is centered in Portoviejo, a town of 200,000 people that serves the surrounding villages of rural farm workers.

Workshops, seminars, and speech camps, despite the disturbances

Over 200 people attended workshops and seminars by the EARTHSPEAK team, including speech therapists, special education teachers, nurses, university professors, and university students from five universities in the Manta and Portoviejo areas.

In addition, we conducted a new speech training camp, and reviewed the progress of parents and their children from prior camps.

Ecuador is on the brink of an open political revolt, and transportation was very difficult. Some of the rural people who were registered for the camp were unable to come in to town, but the camp was still held for residents of the Portoviejo area.

EARTHSPEAK volunteers left the country by plane from Guayaquil only 25 minutes before the airport was shut down.

Testimonials shown on regional TV

A regional TV station did a three-part series on the EARTHSPEAK visit. Highlights included:

- A young man who traveled five hours by bus to show the EARTHSPEAK volunteers how much progress he had made through self-training. Since he had no one to help him, he spent time each day with his manual practicing in front of a mirror. Such miraculous success is possible through the CORRECTIVE BABBLING method, which moves in small, easy-to-understand steps. The young man is training to be a tour guide for English-speaking tourists visiting the Galapagos islands. Because he now has a remarkably optimistic vision of his future, he has taken on the training of a young woman, who needs, as he puts it, "help to develop the confidence that she can 'do it'."

- A mother who told the TV crew: "This is the medicine for speech. My daughter is now getting all A's in school and has friends. This could not have happened until her speech improved."

Story about Raquel Duenas, the children's "Madre Teresa"

More information about the CORRECTIVE BABBLING method

Additional work to be done in Ecuador

The EARTHSPEAK volunteers learned that combatting ignorance about cleft palate will require more time and effort. We heard the story of a baby living with his mother high in the mountains who was not able to suck properly because of his cleft palate. The child died of starvation at three months of age.

We also heard of a tradition followed by some people living in remote jungle areas. When a child is born with cleft lip or palate they cut the umbilical cord, place the infant in a sack, and throw it into the river to drown.

The training and publicity being undertaken by EARTHSPEAK is helping to combat the ignorance and superstition that makes stories like these all too common.

When the EARTHSPEAK volunteers return to Ecuador in seven months, we will continue our work in the Portoviejo area and will begin to bring hope, enlightenment, and positive results to people in the northern highlands province of Imbabura.

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