Foundational Skills for Facilitating Eating, Drinking, and Swallowing Skills in Children

Course Outline

Children with special needs, especially those with cerebral palsy, are prone to eating, drinking, and swallowing challenges. If unattended, these problems could lead to serious medical conditions such as aspiration pneumonia. This course seeks to educate parents and caregivers with basic strategies to ensure swallow safety at home. It will also cover the identification of the signs of swallowing problems (dysphagia), so that timely medical consultation can be sought. Common food and fluid modifications as well as feeding and drinking utensils that may be recommended by the Speech Therapist and their uses will also be introduced.
This course does not replace a swallowing assessment by a speech therapist but it is to equip caregivers and educators with knowledge and skills that will enable them to identify signs of a swallowing problem and ensure swallow safety at home and in school.

Course Instructor

Ms Jie Ean Loh is a Speech and Language Pathologist from Singapore. She completed her Master of Speech Pathology at Curtin University in Australia. She has previously received training within the paediatric and adult population in a multidisciplinary setting in Perth Australia. She is currently working with school aged clients in CPAS School. Jie Ean is certified in PECS, Hanen, PROMPT, and Tech Talkers Series. She has also attended various workshops on Feeding and Swallowing. She has conducted parent/teacher workshops on topics such as Communication Using AAC (Introduction and Advanced), and an intensive caregiver training series on equipping parents with basic skills in implementing AAC at home with their children. She is currently working on a project to equip teachers in classroom on using a classroom amplification system.

Ms Jessica Low is a Senior Speech and Language Pathologist with Cerebral Palsy Alliance Singapore (CPAS) School West. She completed her Masters in Speech and Language Pathology at the Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia. Jessica is trained in Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), DIR Floortime, Hanen It Takes Two to Talk, Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets (PROMPT), Talktools Oral Placement Therapy and has completed the Assistive Technology Applications Certificate Program offered at the California State University Northridge. She has worked with children aged 6 to 18 at CPAS. Her areas of practice include language delays and disorders, speech sound delays and disorders, Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), literacy, social communication, feeding and swallowing. She works closely with teachers and caregivers on implementing communication building and feeding/swallowing strategies in the classroom and home settings, for increased consistency and generalization of skills.

Ms Melanie Ding is a Speech and Language Pathologist with Cerebral Palsy Alliance Singapore (CPAS). She completed her Bachelor of Science (Speech Pathology) (Honours) at Curtin University in Australia. Melanie is trained in Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), Hanen More Than Words and Tech Talkers Series. Her main areas of practice include Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), literacy, feeding and swallowing. She is currently working with children aged 7 to 18 at CPAS.

Terms and Conditions
– Parents / Caregivers are required to fill in the CTG Application form, and provide the necessary documents stated in the form as required by AIC.
– Registration will be confirmed only upon receiving invoice or full payment.
– If the participant is absent without valid reason or without supporting document, full course fees will be charged with no refund