The department of Speech and Language Therapy has been functional since autumn 2006, aiming to Provide speech language therapy to the students enrolled at Hamza Foundation Academy for the Hearing Impaired. Presently, the staff comprises of a consultant, five speech language therapist, five assistant speech therapist and two auditory trainers. Specially purpose built sound treated cubicles are used for individual sessions while group sessions are taken in the group therapy room. (A group comprise of 12 students. Max). The cubicles are equipped with state of the art technologies including F.M. and Infrared systems, Speech Trainers and Visipitch IV etc.

A specialized plan for speech development has been chalked out by our professionals, keeping in mind the age of emergence of sound, the physical age of the child, the hearing thresholds, the respective frequency of a particular sound, and the class room syllabus. The language part of the plan entails content, form and use of Urdu language. The plan gives the therapists and parents a strong guideline to follow and practice speech skills with their clients and children. The plan has been in practice for the last two years and a separate study is in the pipeline which will comment on the efficacy of this plan.

The speech language therapy treatment as a principle relies heavily on practice, repetition, modeling, acceptance, counseling and reinforcement. Parental role in all of the above areas is crucial and we at Hamza Foundation ensure their contribution through trainings, seminars and workshops*, etc. One way vision technology has been used for quite sometime in order to facilitate the parents to see the proceedings as they happen during a session, without disturbing the child and the professional. Counseling, guidance, referrals and other clinical practices are well maintained in the agenda of speech language therapy department.