Trinh Foundation Australia works to assist the Vietnamese people to establish Speech Therapy as a profession in their country.

We collaborate with our Vietnamese partners to create university-based training programs. We work to enable the Vietnamese people to acquire speech therapy capacity themselves, to be able to assist those in their population with communication and swallowing disorders.

In developed countries, communication and swallowing disorders occur in about 1 in 7 people at some point in the life span. With a population of over 90 million, and with the legacy of defoliants from the war, poor maternal and child health and nutrition, communication and swallowing disorders can be expected to affect about 13 million people in Vietnam.

Until 2010, when TFA collaborated with the University of Pham Ngoc Thach in HCMC, there were no Vietnamese speech therapists nor formal training courses in Speech Therapy in Vietnam.

What are communication disorders?

Communication disorders include problems with speech, using and understanding language, voice, fluency and hearing impairment. Reading and writing can also be affected by communication problems. Speech Language Therapists also work with people who have difficulty swallowing food and drink.

Communication and/or swallowing disorders can be associated with conditions such as cleft lip & palate, cerebral palsy, intellectual impairment, stroke, head injury, hearing loss, vocal fold dysfunction and autism spectrum disorder.