College of Rehabilitation Sciences Assistant Dean Ma. Georgina D. Mojica delivered a lecture on the “Status of Speech Language Pathology (SLP) in the Philippines” on November 16, 2017 to the students of the Masters in Communication Science and Disorders program of the Teachers College-Columbia University (TC-CU) in New York, USA.
This was upon the invitation of Dr. Catherine Crowley, Professor of Practice
and Director of the Bilingual Extension Institute at the Teachers College-Columbia University in New York, USA.
As one of the early graduates and practitioners of SLP in the Philippines, Mojica provided the participants with a brief history of SLP in the country, highlighting the establishment of the Bachelor of Science in Speech Language Pathology academic program at the University of Santo Tomas in 2009. She emphasized the ratio of practitioners to the Filipino people with disability needing SLP services, and how in 2014, after UST produced its
first graduates and thereafter, the Thomasian SLPs have been steadily providing language pathology services in various work settings locally.
In the facilitated discussion, the students of Columbia University were able to see another perspective of how SLP services are provided considering sociocultural and economic differences between the US and
the Philippines.
Mojica and Crowley first met in March 2017 in Manila when Crowley, a renowned educator, conducted a trainors’ training for cleft lip and palate patients. Since then, both have been planning for possible collaboration
in this area
