My name is Sam Vleminx, I am a final year student at the department of Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology (SLP&A) at Thomas More University of Applied Sciences, Antwerp.
The SLP&A department selected me to execute my final clinical internship in Hong Kong. Thanks to the financial support of the Belgian Hong Kong Society through their Educational Fund, I had the opportunity to stay in Hong Kong between October and December 2022.
I carried out this internship under supervision of the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). I had the opportunity to intern at several clinical SLP&A settings: The Community Rehabilitation Centre, Sprout in Motion, Arthur Fang and associates, KK Speech and Language, and Kiddio. At the Community Rehabilitation Centre, where I worked with fellow EduHK students, we assessed and treated adult patients with acquired brain injuries. At the other clinical settings, I worked with different age groups: from very young children (as from 1,5 years old) to adolescents (up to 15 years old). These patients suffered from different disorders such as childhood apraxia, language delay, autism spectrum disorder, attention deficits, etc.
In addition to my internship at different locations in Hong Kong, I also got the opportunity to take some classes from the Master of Science Programme in Educational Speech-Language Pathology and Learning Disabilities at EduHK. It was an enriching intercultural experience for me to learn from and with SLP students in Hong Kong.
This unique clinical and educational experience will certainly have a positive impact on my future career as a speech-language pathologist in Belgium. As expected, I was introduced to assessment and intervention methods different from those we use in Belgium. In addition to the cross-cultural skills I gained, I also learned a lot about dealing with multilingualism, as most clients and patients in Hong Kong are inherently multilingual.
I was also pleasantly surprised by the lifestyle in Hong Kong, which I feel is vastly different from the Belgian lifestyle.
Finally, I would like to thank my host university, the Education University of Hong Kong, and home university, Thomas More University of Applied Sciences, for their guidance and support. Last but not least, I would like to explicitly thank the Belgian Hong Kong Society for their financial support to make my dream come true.
