Around 60 lakh people in the country are in need of speech and language therapy, who could easily get the service from the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed, speakers said at an advocacy meeting at CRP at Mirpur in the city yesterday.

The CRP has been providing Speech and Language Therapy since 2009.

Speech and Language Therapy provides solution to a number of disability like cerebral palsy, autism, hearing impairment, cleft lip and palate, learning disabilities, stroke, head injury, alzheimer disease, eating and drinking difficulties, personality disorder, anxiety disorder and depression etc, they said.

From June 15, 2009 to January 31 this year some 1110 patients were provided with Speech and Language Therapy.

But the most pathetic thing is that people are not fully aware of these problems and treat these diseases as curse. They did not even know where to go. So, CRP is trying to provide treatment to these patients at a very subsidised cost in its Mirpur and Savar centres, said Emdad Moslem, executive director of the CRP.