Children with Communication Disorders are Successfully Rehabilitated

GUANTANAMO, Cuba, Mar 19 (ACN) The 16 de Abril Special School, only of its type in the city of Guantanamo successfully rehabilitates close to one hundred children between the ages of 3 to 6 with communication disorders of which 41 are ready to join regular education.

The children that enroll in this year's school year do so after overcoming the language, speech or voice disorders and are currently completing preschool education and others first grade and are prepared to advance in other educational levels in the municipality.

The center's Director, Karina Castro Llibre, told ACN the educational institution was founded in 1990 and has been offering specialized attention to children with language disorders provoked by congenital or acquired pathologies like stuttering, dyslalia and oral lateness among others.

The children receive careful and free education with children with speech alterations produced by brain lesions and others said the specialist.

There are currently five children benefited with the personalized treatment, she said, with specific severe delays in language learning associated to brain paralysis with the help of multi-disciplinary teachers, speech therapist and others.

Castro Llibre said that the institution is characterized as a transit site where students are assisted in an early age with the objective of achieving an adequate and rapid compensation that will facilitate them to the incorporation to general education.

The daily rehabilitation includes exercises in respiration, pronunciation, rhythm and intonation and for the visual and hearing feedback, the specialists use mirrors and musical instruments, games, software, videos and other didactic means that stimulate language and generate an attraction for children of that age.

The children arrive to the 16 de Abril school after an evaluation by the Diagnostic and Orientation Provincial Center where they define who needs the specific attention in the special school, especially the most severe cases because the policy is to correct the language in a normal environment.

As part of the program, families are offered advice on the psychological and socio-pedagogical characteristics with the objective of continuing the work at home, which is a practice that is done with the parents in the Educa tu Hijo Program (Educate your Child).