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Enhanced speech therapy services for pupils
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    The Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB) today (May 19) launched the first-ever local assessment tool to assist both teachers and speech therapists in identifying and diagnosing the speech and language problems of pupils. The bureau also announced its plan to provide primary schools with extra grants to enhance school-based speech therapy services starting from the next school year.

     The Principal Assistant Secretary (School Administration and Support) for Education and Manpower, Mrs Betty Ip, said, "In view of a lack of local language assessment tools in the past, we specially developed the Cantonese Expressive Language Scales (CELS) for our Primary One to Primary Six pupils. It enables us to set accurate therapy goals for pupils with communication, language or speech impairments and formulate appropriate strategies to enhance their communication skills and learning effectiveness."

     The Senior Specialist (Speech Therapy), Miss Daisy Li, said, "The assessment tool consists of a full version for speech therapists and a simplified version for teachers, catering to their respective needs.

     "Pupils diagnosed with speech and language impairments are provided with follow-up services. The bureau's Speech Therapy Services Section will team up with schools and teachers to come up with tailor-made school-based programmes. Through strategic teaching and learning activities in school as well as parental guidance at home, teachers and parents can enhance pupils' learning and communication skills effectively."

     To empower teachers to follow up and help pupils with speech and language impairments, over the past few years the EMB has organised a variety of training courses and developed a wide range of e-resource packages.

     Mrs Ip said that starting from the 2006/07 school year, the EMB would phase in the Enhanced Speech Therapy Scheme for government and aided primary schools. "A grant will be provided for schools to employ speech therapists or to purchase school-based speech therapy services.

     "These services include assessments for pupils; intensive individual, group or classroom-based speech therapy services; training for parents; courses for teachers on ways to identify pupils with speech and language impairments, workshops and seminars; and collaboration with teachers in developing remedial resources and enrichment programmes that enhance pupils' language skills."

     The CELS launched today is the product of research by the EMB in consultation with local and overseas academics since 2001. With more than 1,500 pupils from 42 primary schools participating in the standardisation procedures and five years of in-depth study, all the norm scores have passed stringent validity and reliability tests and can serve as a professional reference for speech therapists.

     The CELS consists of two parts, "Sentence Structures" and "Narration Skills". Through assessments of pupils' abilities in forming utterances and narrating events, their overall oral expressive language skills can be better understood.

     The teachers' version of the CELS can help teachers identify pupils with speech and language impairments through simplified procedures. It will allow teachers to provide pupils in need with support and to make timely referrals to the EMB for further assessment and follow-up services.

Ends/Friday, May 19, 2006
Issued at HKT 16:20

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