When I found out that an 8 year-old little boy here at the orphanage in Mindanao has a cleft lip and palate, my first thought was: “Really Lord?”…it couldn’t be just a plain articulation disorder or autism…it has to be a craniofacial issue…? My sarcasm is due to the fact that treating this disorder area was where I felt the least equipped as a practicing speech-language pathologist. But, the Lord reminded me once again that he works through and despite my weaknesses and inadequacies. Yesterday, I mustered up everything I could recall about working with kiddos with cleft lip and palate, remembered more than I thought I would, and had the opportunity to teach 22 year-old Joshua (the little boy’s house parent) how to work with him on his speech! IT WAS SO FUN! Thank you to Lisa, Michelle, Barbara and Mary for teaching me how to work with these kids…because of you, I am able to help this 8 year old boy who is largely unintelligible to most people. I got to teach Joshua about mouth versus nose air and fun games for teaching those concepts. I also taught him about tongue placement for certain sounds, “big speech”, and I’m in the process of making picture flash cards out of old coloring book pictures for him to use since the little boy is losing interest in his “word lists”. I’m going to work with the boy and Joshua every Monday through Friday at 5:15am…his speech time…I know…crazy!…good thing I’m a morning person!!! I can’t tell you how fulfilling it is to be able to use my training to help this little boy. He is such a cute, spunky, gregarious, and sweet boy…if I can help lessen the frustration he experiences from not be understood…that’s such a blessing. Joshua is so eager to learn new strategies to help. I was also told that the kids here love to learn sign language so I hope to also be able to teach them some of the basics that I know. The Lord is so good!
With love, Ate Charlene
