Authorities and community leaders have been urged to prioritise the need to develop child language and continue to pay deserving attention to language disabilities and general communication disorder for a proper child upbringing, a professor of Linguistics in Child Language and Communication Disorder at the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Shirley Yul-Ifode, has advised.
She said there is an absence of attention in the area of children’s communication pattern and disorder in Nigeria, which practically makes the inculcation of societal values and traditions in the children difficult and thereby breeds the resultants social vices.
Yul-Ifode stated this, on Wednesday, while delivering an inaugural lecture on the topic: “The Child Beyond the Breath of Life: Our Corporate Concern,” at NOUN’s headquarters in Abuja.
The lecture, which the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Abdalla Uba Adamu, said was the university’s 14th in the series, was part of the requirement of any lecturer who attains the rank of a professorship in the academic journey.
Speaking further, Yul-Ifode, in a press release by the university’s Director of Media and Publicity, Ibrahim Scheme, and made available to newsmen online, said the consequences of a communication disordered person transcend the communication activity, “because of the relationship between the developing child and his language, the medium of communication, which is an index of normal/healthy development, maladjustment, as well as some developmental disorders.
She added that “Any family that goes beyond the breath of life and pays attention to the language development of a child will be able to identify deviations not only in the communication patterns, when they arise, but also in other areas of the development of the child for early intervention.”
Yul-Ifode, who hails from Emevor, Delta State, admonished parents to quickly provide help and support to a child identified with such disorders to minimise the effect of the attendant limitation placed on such people.
She lamented that the various organisations involved with persons with disabilities have continued to operate in isolation in the country, leaving stakeholders with only occasions as World Disability Day, Children’s Day, World Autism Day to meet.
She advised that interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary forum should be organised to brainstorm on the way forward for the special children in Nigeria.
In his remarks at the event, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Abdalla Adamu, commended the lecturer, saying her lecture was reached in content and delivery.
He urged the Faculty of Arts of the university to think of establishing a Research Centre of Communication Disorders, due to the critical need of such to address the ubiquitous instances of language disabilities and communication disorder in the country.
He said with about N90 million funds reserved for institutions based researches by the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), other faculties of the university should begin to develop ways of partnerships towards relevant researches on specific areas of learning.
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