Smile Train Philippines, a cleft-focused organization, launched its first ever mobile speech therapy app in Filipino designed to help children who were born with a cleft and their parents in accessing speech therapy services online even during the pandemic.
It is estimated that there are about 5,000 Filipino babies who are born with a cleft lip or with cleft palate and 80% or 4,000 of these require therapy. However, not only cleft patients are in need of therapy, speech language pathologists (SLPs) also need to treat other patients who have had stroke, cancer, trauma, developmental disorders, and children with autism and special needs.
Because of this, the Smile Train speech therapy app has become a very valuable tool especially now where children are learning at home and speech clinics are closed because of the pandemic.
“Through the launch of the app, we are hoping that while access to services is limited, we were able to produce this tool that can help patients and their families to continue their learning even during the pandemic,” said Kimmy Flaviano, Smile Train Southeast Asia area director.
The app boasts kid-friendly features and lively graphics, with wide array of educational videos and speech therapy sessions, all in Filipino. The app also serves as a platform for more patients and families affected with cleft to connect with healthcare professionals to ensure that they can continue to receive comprehensive cleft care with minimal disruptions, including speech therapy, nutritional support programs, psycho-social counseling, sports, orthodontics, dental care, diagnostics and hearing services.
Since the start of the pandemic, Smile Train’s speech telehealth program in the Philippines, which started in April 2020, has treated over 200 patients, providing them with more than 1,000 cleftcare-related sessions. Smile Train envisions the app to be more than just a platform for learning, seeing it as a way to bring more smiles to cleft-affected families in the country.
The Smile Train app addresses a glaring gap in reaching kids with cleft. “With the app, distance is no longer a problem as kids may start their speech therapy sessions which they otherwise would not have started without the app. Furthermore, the app encourages more Speech Pathologists to partner with Smile Train,” said Veronica Yu, a speech pathologist and the lead content creator of the app. “Partnering with Smile Train is life-changing, and I know that the Smile Train app will give many speech pathologists the fulfillment of knowing that they are making a difference in people’s lives,” Yu concluded.
The app has four modules. There will be times that a patient may used to start with module 1 and need to complete up to the 4th module. There are times the patient needs only to work on the last module. The patient should register so he can save and track his progress throughout his speech journey.
The Smile Train speech therapy app is available for download on the App Store and Google Play in April.
