Hospital, university team up for language rehabilitation
A leading maternity hospital announced that it will team up with university experts to set up a center for children's hearing and language training and rehabilitation, by jointly conducting clinical research and health services for children.
Shanghai First Maternity and Infant Hospital is nicknamed the city's "cradle" as over one-fifth of babies are born here.
The new center is launched through cooperation of the hospital with East China Normal University's language and hearing rehabilitation and application institute for ICF, or the WHO International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health. ICF provides a unifying framework for classifying the consequences of disease.
Doctors from the Shanghai First Maternity and Infant Hospital train a boy in pronunciation.
Students from the major can do clinical studies and internship at the hospital, which can gain technologies, theories and talent from the university.
"The time before 3 years old is the key period for early screening, detection and rehabilitation, as that's the time when the brain is developing the fastest. We focus on hearing and language rehabilitation to offer timely intervention and training to children with such disorders," said Dr Hua Jing, director of the hospital's female and child healthcare department.
Experts said there are about 3.29 million Chinese children younger than 6 years old with language disorders. Such children have difficulty in adapting to society, seriously impacting their social development.
