In this article, we interview Reine Bou Issa Ghafary, CEO, Speech Therapist, and Neuropsychologist at Talking Brains Center FZE. Reine Bou Issa Ghafary has over 19 years of experience in speech therapy and neuropsychology, and she has extensive clinical experience as a Trilingual Speech Therapist (Arabic, French and English).
What is the ethos of your clinic?
The vision of the clinic is to have a transdisciplinary approaches and to treat the child, to inform and train his or her parents and teachers or the adult patient and his or her caregiver. It’s by working on these systems that the patient will improve and their quality of life will be better.
The vision is to better serve the community with the latest evidence-based approaches related to the field.
What conditions, treatments do you specialize in?
- Early intervention: autism, speech and language delay, social communication delay or disorder using Hanen strategies, Natural approaches where we train parents to better interact with their children.
- School-age students: learning problems related to dyslexia-dysorthographia, dyscalculia, Attention Deficit Disorder, cognitive delays or impairments due.
- Adults and seniors: stroke, brain injury, epilepsy affecting their cognitive skills (attention, memory). Neurological pathologies such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
- Adult dysphagia or swallowing problems.
- Adult stuttering
- Adult’s voice problems
- Tongue posture affecting the dental occlusion (children and adults)
What makes you stand out as a clinic?
- The quality of therapies we provide and the professionalism at our clinic
- The evidence-based therapies and continuous training
- We have 20 years of experience with a holistic approach
- Training parents and teachers.
- Assessment and treatment are adapted to each case
- 3 languages: Arabic English and French
- Taking the multilingual aspect into consideration during the assessment
Can you tell us about a success story where you treated a particularly challenging case?
We have many stories!
One day a child in grade 3 visited the center, who was referred by a psychologist. He was dyslexic and unable to read a word in English or in Arabic. He was nervous, frustrated easily and couldn’t sit for a long period. After one year of treatment, once per week, with continuous mother training and daily exercises at home, he made a huge improvement and was able to read paragraphs in both languages. At the beginning, some teachers couldn’t find any problem with the child’s abilities, because he used to prepare his homework and to memorize it with his mother, which would take hours of work at home. The child was orally good. The mother continued with the treatment and now the child is independent, can read properly and understand, and can copy quickly and write paragraphs in both languages. He feels really confident and responsible. It is through work and perseveration that we reach a positive result.
How do you keep up to date with the latest research and technology?
Continuous updating of the assessment tools with new ones. Currently, we are working on installing digital assessments. Evidence-based treatment by continuous training is also a must.
We use the “It takes two talk” “More than words” & “Talkability” programs: programs to train parents of children suffering from speech and language delay, autism, social communication disorders.
I am a certified therapist with the Hanen Approach, an approach that has proven their evidence base worldwide, with Lidcomb program for toddlers stuttering, and LSVT (Lee Silverman Voice Treatment) for dysarthria.
I stay updated with current methods by being a member in a dysphagia committee in the International Association of logopedics and Phoniatrics, a founder of Emirates SLP Society and a member of ALO (Lebanese Association Of Orthophonistes).
As a clinic, you are engaging in patient feedback with Doctify – what importance do you place on patient feedback?
Patient feedback is very important to the centre in order to improve all the weaknesses that may exist.
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