Former prez to open clinic for adults, elders at Aiish on May 18

Former President A P J Abdul Kalam, is visiting the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing,  on May 18 at 11.30 am. During the visit the former President will inaugurate the “Clinic for Adult and Elderly Persons with Language Disorders” (CAEPLD), “Psychoacoustic Laboratory” and “Neuroscan Laboratory”.

After the inauguration the former president will address the gathering and interact with the students of the institute.

Clinic for Adult and Elderly Persons with Language Disorders (CAEPLD): The Department of Clinical Services will be launching a specialised clinic for the adult language disorder population which includes persons with stroke, dementia and degenerative disorders.

The objectives of this clinic are to provide specialised services to the increasing incidence of adult and elderly persons with neurologic language disorders. It also serves to enhance the awareness and preventive measures on adult neurogenic language disorders.

The Clinic also looks forward to improve the overall quality of life of the person and thereby improving their activity and participation in the society, according to a release from the institute.

The clinic also serves several academic and research objectives which also include promoting evidence based practice through structured documentation, national and international projects and advocating the rights and privileges for persons with adult neurologic language disorders. A team of professionals including neurologist, speech language pathologist, physiotherapist, psychologists and social workers will guide the clinic in its services.

Psychoacoutsic Laboratory: The lab is dedicated to study the auditory perceptual phenomena in individuals with normal hearing, individuals using hearing aids and cochlear implants.

The newly established Psychoacoustics Lab houses a dedicated setup for scientific experiments of sound localisation and, 21 workstations equipped with basic and advanced software for conducting auditory perceptual experiments. It also has necessary infrastructure for developing new softwares for sound generation and editing, conduct statistical analysis on the research data and development of new psycho-acoustical tests.

Neuroscan Laboratory: The Neurophysiology lab plans to focus on understanding how certain key neural areas or circuits in the brain work towards perceiving the speech and processing the language information. Neurophysiology lab is equipped with a 64 channel NeuroScan EEG acquisition system.

This system is capable of recording and storing continuous EEG files as the subject actively or passively receives the information through auditory/visual modality. To record EEG, the electrodes mounted on caps of different sizes which can fit a variety of head sizes across age groups are used. The lab also has facility to present auditory stimulus through two modes- via insert ear phones and sound field, said the release.
DFRL visit

Kalam would be visiting Defence Food Research Laboratory for its golden jubilee oration at 10 am and later would interact with staff of DFRL.