Professor Seeks to Address Speech Therapy Needs in China

Amy Meredith, assistant professor of speech and hearing sciences, has a new goal-one that is particularly close to her heart.

Professor Meredith and her husband, Todd, are the adoptive parents of 2 children with cleft lip and palate. Alisher Meredith, who turns 5 in May, was adopted in October 2003 from Kazakhstan. Jasmine, who turns 4 in May, was adopted last year from China.

"When we went to China to adopt Jasmine, I saw the need and knew I wanted to help," said Meredith.

"The orphanage itself was wonderful, not at all like what you read about," Meredith wrote in her blog to friends and family while they were in China for the adoption. "The Xining orphanage is co-run by the government and a Christian organization out of Hong Kong. The majority of children there have disabilities. We saw many boys and girls with severe cleft palates."

According to Meredith, the caregivers were only trained in how to work on fine and gross motor skills. They did not receive any training on how to work on speech and language skills.

The thought of returning to help stayed with her and grew stronger.

This spring, Meredith went back to China to attend the first China International Conference on Speech Therapy (CICST), a biannual professional conference. It was made very clear at this conference that China's need for speech-language pathology services is great. The profession did not get a start there until the 1980s, and there is still a tremendous shortage of speech-language pathologists.

Meredith returned with more contacts made at the conference, and she decided to move forward. With the help of a research T.A., she is now in the process of evaluating the number of orphanages to determine the extent of the need. She believes the need may exist at all state-run orphanages in China.

Speech and hearing sciences students as well as fellow faculty members at WSU are expressing interest. Some students are already talking about fund-raising ideas to offset the costs of a possible trip next spring.

"Our goal is to make a preliminary trip next spring to teach the caregivers," said Meredith. "We would like to return the following spring to report on our work and our findings at the second annual CICST."

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About Amy Meredith

Research Interest
Childhood apraxia of speech

Joined WSU Faculty
2006/2007 academic year

Education

• B.S., University of New Hampshire, 1989

• M.S., University of Arizona, 1992

• Ph.D., University of Washington, 2000
  Dissertation: "The Relationship of Prosodic and Articulatory Errors Produced by Children with Developmental Apraxia of Speech"

To contact Professor Meredith: mereditha@wsu.edu