There are only 20 or so speech therapists working in Macau, Yan Kam Sum, the vice-president of the Macau Association of Speech Therapists (MAST), said on Sunday, pointing out that his sector is facing an acute labour shortage.
The therapist made the remarks on the sidelines of the association’s Speech-Language Therapy Promotion Day in Taipa.
Most of Macau’s speech therapists graduated from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia, Yan said. While most conduct speech-language therapy assessments and sessions in Cantonese and Putonghua, only two or three provide services in English and Portuguese, according to Yan.
He said he also believed that more young people will choose speech and language therapy – also known as speech-language pathology – as their major at university after Macau’s official registration and accreditation system for medical professionals, which is still being drafted by the government, finally gets off the ground.
(Macau News / The Macau Post Daily)
