Üsküdar University Speech and Language Therapy Research and Application Center (ÜSESKOM) was established to provide the necessary academic support for the application courses in associate, undergraduate and graduate programs.
OBJECTIVES:
1. Conducting basic and applied research and publication
2. To provide practice opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students studying/will study in this field
3. To carry out activities for the benefit of society.
Scientific and social reasons for the establishment of the Center:
Speech and language disorders are conditions that cause multifaceted social and economic losses for the people they affect, their families and their communities. Despite this, the subject of speech and language disorders and their therapies has been neglected in the 20th century, which was dominated by a monolithic understanding of science. From the point of view of neurological sciences, voice, speech and language disorders have remained in the shadow of the main symptoms of the neurological diseases that cause these disorders, such as paralysis and sensory impairments, and have not been sufficiently recognized and studied. It took hundreds of thousands of people with speech and language disorders due to head injuries sustained during World War II for speech therapy to emerge. When the social and professional problems created by these people when they returned from the war became a huge problem for governments, it became necessary to address this issue, as in many other similar issues, and speech and language disorders centers were opened to deal with this problem. Nevertheless, it is not possible to say that scientific and social needs have been met in the last 50-60 years. Currently, the number of centers working for this purpose is very limited in the world and in Turkey. ÜSESKOM is a center established by Üsküdar University by being aware of the individual and social needs that have emerged in this field.
The contributions of the Center's activities to the university in particular and to the society in general are as follows
1. To conduct advanced research to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic applications in speech and language disorders and to contribute to the development of new approaches that can be used in the clinic,
2. To encourage researchers to conduct multidisciplinary studies. To create and coordinate applied research projects in partnership with basic sciences and clinical sciences, and to be able to use domestic and foreign support resources for this purpose,
3. Designing, analyzing and then prototyping advanced forms of treatment, such as new techniques, application approaches that can be used in treatment, and then developing them into prototypes that are mature enough for clinical trials and ultimately clinical applications,
4. To contribute to the accumulation of national and international knowledge by organizing advanced specialization courses, seminars, workshops, symposiums and congresses on application issues,
5. To carry out joint studies with national and international public and private organizations, research groups and scientists in order to achieve these objectives,
6. To provide cooperation and consultancy services in the field of health.
ÜSESKOM's clinical activities include diagnosis, differential diagnosis and therapy studies in various types of voice, speech and language disorders. The academic and educational staff to be established to carry out these studies includes neurologists, ENT specialists and audiologists, psychologists and special educators.
There are many examples of the Center abroad and a very limited number of examples in Turkey. Among these examples, DİLKOM, which is affiliated to Anadolu University, has been conducting successful studies for years. Therefore, one of the primary tasks of ÜSESKOM in the coming years is to develop and share theoretical and practical cooperation grounds with DİLKOM.