Speech Language Therapy in Malaysia

Speech-Language Therapy in Malaysia

According to the Malaysian Association of Speech-Language & Hearing (MASH) (2016), audiology and speech-language therapy services in Malaysia were introduced by the American Peace Corps. and British Voluntary Service in the 1960s. The records of speech-language therapy service in Malaysia remained patchy until the 1970s. In November 1974, the speech-language therapy service was first available in a government-funded hospital in the city, which was the Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL) (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 1976). The speech-language therapy unit was affiliated in the Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) department in the HKL. There were 240 cases were referred to the speech-language therapy unit between November 1974 and August 1976.

Establishment of Malaysian Association of Speech-Language & Hearing (MASH)

The initial interest in establishing an association for the audiologists and SLTs blossomed in 1985 (Malaysian Association of Speech-Language &Hearing (MASH), 2016). Two local and four expatriate audiologists and SLTs pioneered the initial meeting. Only in the year of 1994, a preterm committee was officially formed. The committee officially registered the association as a professional body representing both the audiologists and SLTs in Malaysia, with the Registrar of Societies on 26 December 1995. The association was named as the Malaysian Association of Speech-Language and Hearing (MASH) that was represented by only six members.

Speech-Language Therapy Programme in Malaysia

Around the same timeline, as MASH was formed, speech-language therapy programme was first approved to be implemented in a local university, University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in the year of 1994 (Ahmad et al., 2013). The first cohort of nine students was registered for the programme, namely Bachelor of Speech Sciences in 1995. Subsequence to the embankment of the speech-language therapy programme in the UKM, documentation requesting of creating a position for SLTs in governments was composed and submitted. The request was approved before the first cohort of students graduated in 1999 (Van Dort, 2005). Many years later, another university in Malaysia, University Sains Malaysia (USM) has started offering an undergraduate speech-language therapy programme. In 2009, the USM first cohort of speech-language therapy students was graduated.

Number of Speech-Language Therapists in Malaysia

The number of speech-language therapists (SLTs) was reported increasing to less than 10 around the mid-1980s (Ahmad, Ibrahim, Othman, & Vong, 2013). The SLTs were local and expatriate, who have received higher education overseas. Most of these SLTs provided their services in the private setting in the urban areas. Over the years, the number of practising SLTs in Malaysia grew steadily subsequent to the graduation of SLTs from the UKM in 1999. There were a total of 81 local trained SLTs graduated from the UKM by the year 2005 (Van Dort, 2005) and the number increased to a total of 176 by 2012 (Ahmad et al., 2013).

Despite documentation showed that the number of SLTs is increasing. The official number of practising SLTs in Malaysia has not been undertaken to date. This is because the practising SLTs are not required to register themselves in a related professional body in Malaysia, such as MASH. However, based on a research article as reported by Sokmum, Joginder Singh, and Vandort (2017), there were an estimated 250 SLTs providing speech-language therapy services to more than 30 million of Malaysian. The phenomenon has clearly shown a severe shortage of SLTs in Malaysia (Venker, McDuffie, Ellis Weismer, & Abbeduto, 2012) and the SLTs would not able to meet an increased demand of the services to the general public.

Provision of Speech-Language Therapy Services in Malaysia

Majority of the SLTs work in government hospitals and private practices. Only a small number of them are employed in special schools, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) (Van Dort, 2005) or in university. Based on the MASH’s directory, there is a trend of growing SLTs work as freelancer or self-employed. They conduct their services full time and or part timely at private centres/hospitals, early intervention centres or NGOs. Limited numbers of the SLTs provide home-visit therapy due to time, cost, and energy consuming.

The availability of speech-language therapy services in urban and rural areas is drastically different. The services can be found in private hospitals/centres in the city and the majority of government hospitals in the city of every state in Malaysia. In government hospitals, speech-language units are often affiliated in its hospitals’ ENT or rehabilitation departments.

Shortage of Speech-Language Therapy Services in Malaysia

The speech-language therapy services in Malaysia are in high demand. The first reason is the scarcity of SLTs (Joginder Singh, Iacono, & Gray, 2011) available to serve 32.3 million population in Malaysia (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2018). The second reason is the extension of speech-language intervention time and follow-up by an SLT. Most often, a child or an adult who has speech, language, communication, or feeding/swallowing challenges requires extensive time in receiving his/her intervention by an SLT. The intervention period might take a few months, a few years, and/or life long.

Malaysian parents frequently face challenges in getting intervention for their child at a government hospital due to the long waiting list (Ilias, Liaw, Cornish, Park, & Golden, 2017). Up-to-date, there is no published report on the speech-language therapy waiting for time and frequency of therapy a child or an adult receive in Malaysia. Personal communication with a few SLTs and parents with special needs, waiting time to receive an initial speech-language assessment at a government hospital might take up to six months or more than a year. The frequency of speech-language therapy a child receiving is varied from once in a month to once every six months.

Pertinent to the scarcity of speech-language therapy services in Malaysia, there is an urgent need for the government and related body to look into the issue and find a solution to at least reduce the waiting time and increase the frequency of therapy provided in the government hospitals. However, the shortage of speech-language therapy in Malaysia would never be resolved at least in years.

Endnote

Every human has the right to critic and makes a complaint, this behaviour can help to release the negative emotion to a certain extent but would not able to resolve the problem.

"A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it." — Albert Einstein 

Let’s become more resilient and proactive in resourcing intervention for your loved one instead of waiting and complaining…

Reference

Ahmad, K., Ibrahim, H., Othman, B. F., & Vong, E. (2013). Addressing education of speech-language pathologists in the World Report on Disability: Development of a speech-language pathology program in Malaysia. InternationalJournal of Speech-Language Pathology, 15(1), 37–41.http://doi.org/10.3109/17549507.2012.757709

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (1976). Malaysian Speech Unit Establishment by ASHA Member. A Journal of the American Speech and Hearing Association, 18, 520.

Department of Statistics Malaysia. (2018). Demographic statistics fourth quarter (Q4) 2017, Malaysia.

Ilias, K., Liaw, J. H. J., Cornish, K., Park, M. S.-A., & Golden, K. J. (2017). Wellbeing of mothers of children with “a-u-t-i-s-m” in Malaysia: An interpretative phenomenological analysis study. Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability, 42(1),74–89. http://doi.org/10.3109/13668250.2016.1196657

Joginder Singh, S., Iacono, T., & Gray, K. M. (2011). A comparison of Malaysian and Australian speech-language pathologists’ practices with children with developmental disabilities who are pre-symbolic. International Journal of Speech-language pathology, 13(5), 389–398.http://doi.org/10.3109/17549507.2011.603429

Malaysian Association ofSpeech-Language & Hearing (MASH). (2016). History. Retrieved fromwww.mash.org.my

Sokmum, S., Joginder Singh, S., & Vandort, S. (2017). The impact of Hanen More Than Words Programme on parents of children with ASD in Malaysia. Jurnal Sains Kesihatan Malaysia,15(2), 43–51. http://doi.org/10.17576/JSKM-2017-1502-06

Van Dort, S. (2005). Issues and innovations in clinical education: A perspective from Malaysia. InternationalJournal of Speech-Language Pathology, 7, 170–172.

Venker, C. E., McDuffie, A., Ellis Weismer, S., & Abbeduto, L. (2012). Increasing verbal responsiveness parents of children with autism: A pilot study. Autism : The InternationalJournal of Research and Practice, 16(6), 568–85.http://doi.org/10.1177/1362361311413396