The “Development of Speech and Language Therapy Education in Vietnam” Project

Speech and language therapy is a profession devoted to assessment, diagnosis, habilitation, rehabilitation, counseling, and prevention services for individuals from birth through old age who have some type of speech, voice, language, fluency, cognitive-communicative, or swallowing problems due to delayed development or as a result of an injury, cancer, stroke or progressive neurological disease. Speech and language therapy aims to help all people to have an effective means of communication and of swallowing, to allow them to learn and engage in activities of daily living, thereby facilitating their educational attainment, employment and social inclusion, and to maintain and/or increase their quality of life.

Vietnam has more than 6.1 million people over the age of 5, or 7.8 percent of the population, have a disability (GSO. 2010) and there is a increase in the number of people in need of speech and language therapy. However, the needs are unmet due to the lack of professionally trained human resource  and inadequate awareness of meeting the needs of speech and language therapy in community.

In order to contribute to the well-being of people in need of speech and language therapy in particular and quality of health care in the rehabilitation sector in Vietnam in general, MCNV put effort to find for a grant for the Project of Development of Speech and Language Therapy Education in Vietnam to train speech and language therapist in a systematic way in some medical universities in Vietnam.

This 5-year project aims at establishing a solid foundation for development of an official education system of SALT profession in Vietnam.

The specific objectives of the Project are:

• Developed capacity of SALT trainers in four Medical Universities including the University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Ho Chi Minh City, Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Da Nang University of Medical Technology and Pharmacy and Hai Duong University of Medical Technology and partner organizations from the DISTINCT project sites and SALT related universities/institutions.
• Piloted Bachelor’s degree course in rehabilitation with specialization in SALT in Vietnam.
• Increased awareness of SALT among rehabilitation professionals.

For the period from 2017 to 2022, through the DISTINCT project by VietHealth, MCNV receives a fund from USAID to run a project of SALT education development in Vietnam. The project aims at establishing a solid foundation for development of an official education system of speech and language therapy (SALT) profession in Vietnam. The University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh city (UMP) and Da Nang University of Medical Technology and Pharmacy (DUMTP) participate in this project as implementing partners to MCNV.  Trinh Foundation Australia (TFA) participates in this Project as a technical consultation partner to MCNV.