Supporting Neurodivergent Children in Nigeria: Barriers, Hope, and Progress

Dr. Inyang Takon and Dr. Gbemisola Boyede discuss the systemic, cultural, and resource barriers facing neurodivergent children and their families in Nigeria and across Africa, and the grassroots innovations, advocacy, and community-led approaches creating real progress.

In Nigeria, a mother whose two-year-old isn't speaking is likely to hear: "He's a boy, he'll talk when he's ready." Then she visits her mother: "This child needs prayers." Then the pastor: "There's a spirit on this child." And in the middle of all of it, she is left entirely alone.

This is not a rare story. It happens every day - in Lagos, in Abuja, in Kano, in Port Harcourt, and in Nigerian diaspora homes around the world.

In this episode, Dr. Inyang Takon is joined by Dr. Gbemisola Boyede - neurodevelopmental paediatrician, founder of Ask The Paediatricians Foundation, and NHS Community Paediatrician - for a rich, honest, and deeply hopeful
conversation about what it means to raise a neurodivergent child in Nigeria today.

 KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Stigma and religious misattribution remain major barriers to neurodivergent diagnosis and support in Nigeria. Families are often told to pray rather than seek assessment.
• The shortage of trained professionals, diagnostic tools, therapy services, and training schools is acute. Many families have no viable pathway to support even when they seek it.
• Grassroots innovation is making a difference: online communities, social media outreach, and NGOs like Ask The Paediatricians Foundation are reaching parents directly in ways that clinic systems cannot.
• Technology and telehealth offer significant potential in low-resource settings  but require deliberate investment and planning to implement at scale.
• Faith communities are slowly becoming more accepting of neurodiversity, and this shift is important. Clinicians and advocates working alongside religious leaders can accelerate change.
• Government policy must eventually catch up. Dr. Boyede calls for long-term planning that includes professional training pipelines, legislation, and representation for neurodivergent children in national health policy.

Two Nigerian-trained UK-based paediatricians both carry a sense of responsibility to the children they left behind. That commitment to reach back across distance and difference is at the heart of this episode.

ABOUT DR. GBEMISOLA BOYEDE:
Dr. Gbemisola Boyede is a Consultant Neurodevelopmental Paediatrician and Founder/CEO of Ask The Paediatricians Foundation: a registered NGO started as a Facebook group in 2015 to reduce preventable child deaths in Nigeria. She
completed her MPhil in Developmental Paediatrics with distinction at the University of Cape Town, and currently works as a Community Paediatrician with Wye Valley NHS Trust in the UK.

CONNECT WITH DR. BOYEDE:
Website: https://www.askthepaediatricians.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/askthepaed / 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/askthepaediatricians/
Podcast: https://anchor.fm/gbemisola-boyede
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ask-the-paediatricians-foundation/YouTube (ATP TV): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgivTyQm3zz5cwm-f7pmmIw

ABOUT EARLY INTERVENTION MATTERS:
Hosted by Dr. Inyang Takon, Consultant Neurodevelopmental Paediatrician, UK. New episodes weekly.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Early Intervention Matters, the podcast that helps parents, teachers and health professionals understand the diagnosis, treatment, care and support of children with autism, ADHD, Tourette, and other neurodevelopmental challenges. Your host, Dr. In Yang Takon, is a consultant and neurodevelopment pediatrician, and she will provide insights through interviews, answering questions, and breaking down complicated topics. By sharing stories from parents and professionals in the field, we hope to make sense of what can be an overwhelming topic. Early intervention is crucial for children with developmental difficulties. Yes. Early intervention matters. And now, here's your host, Dr. Inyan Tagon.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Welcome to Early Intervention Matters. Imagine your mother in Lagos. Your two-year-old isn't speaking yet. He doesn't respond. When you call his name, he doesn't respond. He lines up his toys in the same order every single day and evening. He screams if things are moved. You take him to the clinic, you're told he's a boy. He'll talk when he's ready. You take him to your mother, she says to you, This child needs prayers. You take him to your pastor, he says, There's a spirit on this child. And somewhere in the middle of all that, you the mother, you're left completely alone. You're carrying a weight you cannot name for a child you cannot yet reach. This is not a rare story. This is happening every single day in Lagos, in Abuja, in Kano, in Port Harcourt, and in countless Nigerian homes across the diaspora. So today, in early intervention matters, we're actually going to talk about this. We're going to name it. We're talking about what it means to raise a neurodivergent child in Nigeria, in Africa. We're talking about the barriers, the stigma, the silence, and most importantly, what hope actually looks like on the ground. So I'm Dr. Yang Takon. I'm a consultant neurodevelopmental pediatrician and I'm the host of Early Intervention Latters. I've been in practice in the UK for over two decades. And joining me today is a woman who has dedicated her career to making sure no Nigerian parent has to face this alone. I'm so pleased to meet Dr. to introduce you to Dr. Gbemi Sola Boede. She's a neurodevelopmental pediatrician. She's a pediatrician as well. She trained with similar backgrounds to me in Africa. She's got a lot of experience, and she is somebody who is very passionate about children's well-being, children's development. And we're going to be uh talking about this important topic today. Although I didn't meet Dr. Boyade when she was training, uh obviously I'm more senior in the profession, so but Dr. Boyade and I worked, did some collaboration when we were both organizing a neurological conference in Nigeria. Although we were both in the UK, we were doing this collaboratively with pediatricians in Nigeria. And this alone shows you how, despite the fact that we both moved away from our original place where we were working and trained, we're still passionate about making sure that things are right for children in Africa, in Nigeria. And that's why we feel we need to discuss this. We need to have a proper conversation. So thank you so much, Dr. Boede, for joining us to have this conversation. And I'm looking forward to the discussions because I know you're very active doing a lot of things, and we're going to be sharing your experience, your uh journey, and what we can do collaboratively for children in Nigeria. So please can you introduce yourself to our audience?

SPEAKER_04 4:41

Okay. Thank you, Dr. Takan, for having me. Uh, I think it's a privilege to be on this uh platform. I am Baby Solaboide, and like you rightly said, I am a pediatrician from Lagos, Nigeria. Currently in the UK, and I've been in pediatrics for also a couple of decades now. So it's it's a pleasure to be here today. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Thank you. Thank you for joining us and giving us a bit about yourself. So, can you tell us about your journey? People usually ask me what drew you to pediatrics, what drew me to pediatrics? So, what drew you to pediatrics and how did your career unfold in Nigeria and up to the point that you moved to the UK? Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_04 5:31

Uh, so I did my undergraduate in the University of Lagos and also did my house job. Uh, that's the internship at the Lagos University Chin Hospital. And during the time of doing my internship, I just fell in love with pediatrics. I love the fact that children do not pretend. Uh, when I, you know, when you are the house officer, you are the one going around doing everything after all the decisions have been made. And I noticed that for the adults, most times, you know, they just keep complaining about the same thing over and over. It's just it's almost like you're doing nothing for them. But when you go to pediatrics, you see them bring a child, and then within a few minutes, you you know, you've done something. Maybe this is a child who is almost dying, and maybe because the child was anemic, no blood, and you just give a blood transfusion, and by the end of that day, that same child is running around the world playing. So I really always feel the impact. I I love the fact that children, once you get the right intervention, you know, you can see the impact almost immediately. So I love that about pediatrics. So that is what drew me to pediatrics. So, right from my house job period, I I was planning to go into pediatrics. I started for my primaries and did my primaries immediately during my youth service. So then I came back to to do pediatric training.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

So that's what drew me to pediatrics generally. That's that's very similar to me. I fell in love with pediatrics during my house job. I just used to enjoy. Sometimes I'll just go and stand at the windows and be watching the children in the incubators, and just I just loved watching their different moves and you know, they've had personalities from from the very beginning. And uh it's just interesting that we both have similar stories about how we fell in love with pediatrics, and I've never regretted it, and I'm sure you haven't as well, you know, being a pediatrician. Yeah. So when did you start getting interested in neurodevelopmental conditions?

SPEAKER_04 7:31

So after doing my, so I came back to Lutz, uh Lagos University and Hospital to do my residency training as well. And then I finished, but towards the end, you know, when you are the senior registrar, you are allowed to pick a unit to stay as your, like, that's your interest. So when I was a senior registrar, I started developing interest in pediatric neurology. So I stayed longer in pediatric neurology more than any of the other units that we rotated through. So I was a long time serving with pediatric neurology, and that is where my interest for neurodevelopment, because neurodevelopment is a pediatrician at that time was really a relatively young, subspeciality kind of coming out of uh psychiatry, psychology, and coming together then. So I was just so interested in knowing more. Of course, when we're doing neurology in Nigeria, it's not like here in the UK where you have separate like community pediatrics, separate from pediatric technology, we do everything. So anything, as long as it's brain-related, going to end up with us in neurology clinic anyway. So that is where I begin to see a lot of children with these neurodiverse conditions, and I begin to learn more about it. And then when the opportunity comes for me, came for me to do subspecialty training, I decided to go for development of pediatrics.

SPEAKER_03 8:52

So that is how I find myself here today.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Gosh, we have such similar stories as well. I did my postgraduate training in uh in Luth as well, the same place where you trained. And I was in neurology as well when I then became interested in neurodevelopmental conditions. And just like you, there was nothing formal there, which is one of the reasons why I really wanted to come out and train because I was so interested in it. And I remember doing my dissertation, I refused to do anything related to acute pediatrics, so I went out to the community to see children. So it is it's quite interesting. So it just shows how you know both of us have had the same passion for children with developmental conditions.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

Great.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

So when you were there doing neurology and training, did you see children with neurodevelopmental disorders at that time?

SPEAKER_04 9:53

Yes, there were lots of that. In fact, my dissertation as well was also on cognitive assessment of children with HIV because also that was also a period we have a lot of HIV was uh love then, and we are doing a lot of uh researches around HIV. So I was interested in their neurodevelopment at that time. So I that was I did my dissertation on cognitive assessment of HIV-infected children, comparing them to the HIV seronegative children. So those are the things that also kind of peeled my interest to say, to learn more. So because of that, I have to work with some psychologists in some tools, how to use that developmental assessment tools. So that is where I begin to get more interested. So we've always had these children uh with neurodivergence uh conditions, even as at that time, and we were managing them. Uh, sometimes because we don't have a lot of tools on how to support them. We do a lot of collaboration with our colleagues in CAMS, our clinical psychologists, and we obviously do the best that we can at that time. So there were quite a lot of time, even as at that time. But but by the time I came back after my sub-specialty training, then I realized that some of the children that were not even properly assessed or diagnosed before, we were now able to do reassess them, so to say, and then give them the right uh diagnosis and support.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Yeah. But then we have quite a lot. That's really good. And you talked about um your sub-specialty training. Where did you do your sub-specialty training and when did you um come over to the UK?

SPEAKER_04 11:31

Okay, so I uh finished my residency in 2010. So then I did a little bit of uh being a general consultant pediatrician at two private hospitals. Uh, then I got the the Africans, what we call African Pediatric Fellowship Program. I don't know whether you've heard of it. APFP. So APFP is based in South Africa, Red Cross World Memorial Children's Hospital, and University of Cape Town. They are the ones that organized that program. Their vision is to train specialists for Africa because they also realize that we don't really have a lot of sub-specialties training in most of the African countries. In fact, we are even better in Nigeria, at least we have general pediatrics. So there are even some African countries that don't even have the general pediatrics training that will affect the children. So they are into training pediatricians to become, you know, sub-specialists or super specialists for different areas. So that is the so I saw the adverts for, you know, I applied. So I applied for developmental pediatrics. That was in 2011. Then I went to South Africa in 2012, February 2012. So I did my postgraduate, uh, the quantity postgraduate registry in developmental pediatrics. And at the same time, you must do a master's. So I was also doing my um uh master of philosophy in developmental pediatrics with the University of Cape Town. So I was in Cape Town for 18 months, two years thereabout, to do my developmental pediatrics. So it was a I was sponsored by the African Pediatric Fellowship Program of the University of Cape Town. Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital is the largest uh children's hospital in Africa. It's a quaternary hospital, you know, everything Red Cross. So that is why I did my training and then came back to Nigeria 2013, end of 2013, after I finished my training. It's a two-year program. It's a month to two years program. That's great. So when did you come to the UK? I came to the UK in 2018. So I was so after I finished my training, I was in Nigeria for at least five years before I came to the UK in 2018.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

So that's quite good. So you were able to transfer a lot of those experiences down to uh, you know, to the children in Nigeria. That's really good. Yes, yes, I do. That that's that's really good. And I can't uh, you know, I'm really pleased to hear that because as you said, there was no formal training in Nigeria. So for you to go and get that training and the experience, that was really great. Good. So uh can you when what what kind of barriers did you see in terms of the assessment or you know, first of all, picking up the children, and uh obviously it's not everyone that was uh skilled in in the assessment. What what were the barriers that you saw?

SPEAKER_03 14:31

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that's that's absolutely right.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Okay, good. So that's interesting, baby, and I'm really pleased to see that things had moved on by the time you left. So I left, um I came over to the UK in '99 when I got a fellowship to come in and do my master's in community pediatrics at at the University of London, which is where I was introduced to neurodevelopmental conditions and neurodisability. So before coming, there was absolutely nothing existing in terms of formal training or recognition. And what used to be quite interesting was the children, when we were doing the follow-up clinics in the hospital for children who were discharged from neonatal unit, we would see these children who were hyperactive and you know having difficulties, but we couldn't really do anything for them. And we would see the you know, parents struggling to handle them, there was no trained professional, and even we as clinicians did not have the skills to manage them. And I think those kind of experiences stuck in my mind, and I knew, you know, theoretically, that children who have gone through these difficulties would have complications. But what we didn't have was the skills or the pathway. We didn't even have the collaboration. So I'm really pleased that you were collaborating with other people, with the psychology, you were really reaching out to other departments. We didn't have that when I was training. And so these are the things that, you know, and I used to read, I used to try to read and see what was going on in other places. So it was quite interesting when I saw they can do so many things for children, and I was so drawn to developmental pediatrics. And that's one of the drivers that really brought me out to say I needed to go out. So I was really looking for all opportunities, and that's how I came out to do my master's from the you know scholarship funding from World Bank when I came on. And so it's it's it's quite interesting and also quite a positive development to see that, you know, by 2013 things had started moving on. You could do all this collaboration with people, you could get assessments done, you know, it's it it just warms my heart and gives me hope that we can actually do things, you know. But it's interesting that the same zeal for you to go and get more training was there, and that's what got you out of Nigeria to go and get more training. And just for professionals who are listening and hearing us, you know, hearing this conversation, I think there's a a lot that we as professionals can do in terms of trying to get the skills and the training to help us be able to support children better. Because once we're able to identify their needs, we can support them better. And um, you know, Dr. Boyade is a great example of that, and there are many more pediatricians who have since come out and are getting those skills. So well done to you for doing that. So since you've left, what I think before then, you can we talk about how the parents were receptive to when you told them there were developmental difficulties? Because you and I know from our cultures, these are not things that are readily accepted. So, how did you used to approach that with families when you told them that there were differences? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:30

Yeah, okay. So one of the yeah, they in Nigeria, they challenge most of the time, number one, parents would who don't have very challenging children, who don't have severe cases, don't even want to come to the hospital. They just take it as something they just need to deal with as education or discipline. They don't even want to look at it as a problem to start with. But obviously, for parents who have very uh um severe end of the spectrum kind of children who are non-verbal, who have a lot of behavioral issues, they really are more receptive because they want help. So those are the ones that we tend to see first in our clinics. Those are the ones that the parents have gone to everybody and then they get referenced. So just to start by saying, I was working in a tertiary hospital, so I was working in the leading teaching hospital in Nigeria, in Lagos, Nigeria, at that time. So definitely I see all the children who are referred down for those kind of conditions. And then initially, because there was nothing, all the children come to neurology and sometimes they don't get anything. Parents are disappointed. But when I came back, obviously people begin to know that now we have somebody with developmental penetration training. So even colleagues were now beginning to send children down to me to see in my clinic. So I'm just going to talk about the challenges about how they're because you're asking about the parent reception. Uh, it goes both ways. Some parents are actually looking for answers. So they want to know what is it that is causing this problem, what is wrong with my child? Why is my child not able to do this? Actually, it is easier if they also have other children who are neurotypical, so they can see the difference. So they can see the differences. So those parents are more acceptable, uh, they they accept the diagnosis better. And then the next question obviously is what do I do? How do we help the child? And then we begin to talk about solutions available. Let me just say that in even in the tertiary hospital, we were not having all the support. When I was in Luther, then we have only one speech therapist, just one speech therapist for the whole of the hospital. And I'm talking whether you have a stroke, whether you are tired, whether you're an adult, whether you are anything. You can imagine that. Just one speech therapist for the whole of the hospital. But one good thing I noticed that some Nigerian parents are very proactive. Nigerian parents tend to find solutions. And I think that is one good thing I think I learned from Nigeria that we always want to get the answers. So parents always don't say it. So I find some of the parents begin to research for themselves what is the solution for my child. And some of those parents themselves started therapy centers. So we have places like Child Development Center. I don't know whether you know of the late Dr. Akenda Yoga.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

Yes, Akinda Young. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 21:29

She has a child with autism, and then she started the uh CDC. Um she had speech therapy, she had physically occupational therapy. So CDC was a very big blessing, and luckily it's closer to Luth. Then we also have places like Patrick Center, Mrs. Sakonde. She also had a child who was on the spectrum. She also started a place. Most of these parents started because they could. These were actually, to be fair, parents were a little bit more privileged, so they have access to travel, they know. What is available. So some of them have taken their children abroad, brought them back to have their diagnosis, and they know what is available. So, but obviously not available at home. So some of them started those centers, and that is how some of so we have a lot more resources in the private sector in Nigeria at that time than even in the government hospitals. But the good news is that I was able to collaborate with some of them. So I did a lot of collaboration with Dr. Kenda Yami. Some of the parents, because obviously these things are expensive, money financially is a major challenge. So some of the parents who have the money, they can pay the fees. Because at that time, even for those organizing private, it's so expensive for them to maintain, you know, the staff and all the resources that are involved. But then we now know that there are also families who cannot afford those fees. So that's I think that Yomin had what you call it a sliding role. So we had some collaboration where she will offer those parents maybe once a week therapy and teach them things they can do at home, even give them a little bit of adapted, low-cost technology of toys and stuff that they can use to do some therapies with their children. And she was charging them something very cheap, then maybe 5,000 a week. So we were doing that kind of thing. That is how we're supporting our families. I don't have a speech therapy in Luth. We have occupational therapy, we have the occupational therapy, maybe two or three of them, but at least we have something, occupational therapy, but they're also for the whole of the hospital adults and children. Then the only thing we really have good is the physio, the physiotherapy. So our children with cerebral policy, they are very good, even though there are so many of them and they can only do maybe once a week or once every month therapy, which is you know insufficient, but at least physio is better than nothing. It's better than nothing. But we have absolutely nothing for speech, next to nothing for OT, next to nothing for behavior therapy, you know. So and coming from me, because I came from South Africa where they have everything. So one of the things I have to do is to do a lot of adaptation. You know, I have to start so many things on my own. I had a lot of challenges doing that, but that's part of the story. I I have to reach out beyond uh people that are in the uh in the government hospital. I could just have actually done nothing because it's very easy to do that. I could just be a normal job, earning my salary, but I wasn't comfortable able to start my clinic. It took me a while because I went to the hospital because we usually have the pediatric neurology clinic. I told them I need a deal for my developmental clinic where I can do my assessment. They said, Oh no, all the clinics are full, there's no space there. Do an afternoon clinic. I said, I can't do an afternoon clinic for developmental assessment. I have to do it in the morning because the children, I have to see them fresh. So I now realized, okay, fine. I created a clinic out of no clinic. I just find myself in space.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

So lots and lots of adaptations and yes, so we have to do all that.

SPEAKER_04 24:50

Then there were no tools to do assessment. I created my own assessment tools. I bought them with my own money. Even when I was living, I left them in Nigeria. I did that for myself. So, because that is the only way I can do assessment in my clinic, I have to.

SPEAKER_02 25:04

Well done, baby.

SPEAKER_04 25:06

So it's a job.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

I think we well done. And you know, when you were talking about one speech therapist, I actually experienced that. So for a couple of years, I was going to Ibadon, University College Hospital, where I trained from. And I was going there to teach. I used to come in from the UK to go and teach on the master's in child and adolescent mental health course. I was teaching the developmental module. And it was one speech therapist as well for the whole hospital. So people would travel from afar, and this is a real problem. So our audience who are listening, this is a very real problem that we've got a big, massive country like Nigeria, where we're having many children with developmental difficulties, and everybody is heading towards the teaching hospital, the tertiary hospital. So in Nigeria, we have the primary care, then we have the, you know, what's supposed to be like secondary care, and then the tertiary hospitals, which we call the teaching hospitals, where all the specialists are usually based. And most people used to go to those hospitals, even from the villages, from outlying places. So imagine the population of children, of families, and as we're hearing, that speech therapist was not just for the children, it was put the speech therapist in the hospital for children and adults. So can you imagine the story that I just started with? That two-year-old child who wasn't speaking, sitting in a clinic in Lagos, and who needs a speech therapist, but there is no speech therapist because the resources are, you know, reduced. And then we think about what the parents who have the means are having to do. So even though they had the means, many of them had to do, you know, invest, go abroad, and then come back and set up services. So these were some of the huge barriers. And if I just go back to something you said, Bimmy, you said that many of the parents who were coming were those ones whose children were quite severe, who need had more things. So we're looking at the fact that a lot of the children were not actually coming up. Yeah. Tip of the iceberg. Yeah, so we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg, and even the tip of the iceberg, we couldn't actually meet their needs, which is quite challenging. And uh and as a pediatrician, you mentioned you it it could have been easy for you to do nothing, but because you were quite invested in, you know, doing something for these children, you reached out, you collaborated with the practitioners in the private sector, you collaborated, you got your things. You were even fighting to get your own clinic to see the child. So people can begin to appreciate all the barriers that are that's there, that even when there is a willing clinician, there isn't the resources or the enabling areas to be able to do the things. And I was I was just thinking that so for majority of the families who couldn't have the means, they couldn't access care. And that must have been very uh, you know, disabling for for some families, even being able to pay the subsidized fees would have been a chore for them, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_04 28:47

Yes, it is. It was for many of them. Even sometimes, even to do reports. I remember that in Lutz, when you do when I've done my developmental assessment, which I don't even charge the families for, because I just felt, you know, I don't want them to still have to pay. And then I want to do reports, you know. Lut would say you have they have you have to set put a fee for your report, then they would double it for the payment. So I told them my fee is zero, so they can double zero and then make it zero. You know, I'm just talking about some of these, it was quite challenging.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Challenging, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:21

But the good news is that um there were, I see that even in the midst of the challenges, there were opportunities. So again, social media began to take place around that time. So it was around about the same time I also started asking the pediatricians. So that gives people opportunity to ask questions. So people ask, my child is not able to do this, my child isn't able to do that. What do you think? Then you can tell them, oh, can you do this screening? For example, M-Chat is available online, go do the screening. If the screen is high, then come. There's some of the uh we have a bank, one of the uh uh corporate banks in Nigeria, they were one of their own CSR was they were interested in autism. So they begin to do a lot of uh things like uh creating awareness. And then they were doing that for a couple of years. So I think they do a lot more jamborees, they were always bringing people from overseas to talk a lot about it. People know this there's something called autism, but I guess that we want more for the children in terms of assessment, in terms of therapy intervention and all that. Then later on, as the program goes, they started doing that. So they would do like maybe a two weeks of people, anybody can come and have their child, you know, have like a kind of a screening form of assessment, and then of course they're all going to come up to my clinic for those in Lagos because most of the time it was in Lagos. But again, that was also creating awareness. So even some parents that were not worried initially that I'm talking of the my those who don't have a severe kind of condition, but because of this kind of created awareness, opportunity to ask questions on social media, some of them begin to realize that okay, there may be something going on, and then we begin to also have those ones also come in uh to the clinic.

SPEAKER_02 31:06

Yeah, so that is how things were there was a lot of hard work. It was uh good. Did you have any support from the government?

SPEAKER_04 31:14

Um I'm not quite sure I have any support from government. Even when I came back, interestingly, because I came back and I think I was about maybe the maybe one of the first few trained neural developmental pediatricians that came back to Nigeria. I know there are others that may be trained, but maybe outside the country. I didn't have a job even for a couple of years, I'm telling you. So uh because the government couldn't even get me a job because and I was so interested in coming and working in a tertiary level. So I was even doing private. So even then, I later got a job as a locum for a couple of years before I finally got um a full-time post. So most of these things I did, I actually did them while I was actually working as more of a locum doctor with the Lagos University Hospital. So but then I just felt I think when I think the the most important thing that happened to me in my career is going to South Africa. I saw that things can be done differently. I could see, I could see that, oh, this is how things should be done. And so coming back, I couldn't just settle for anything less. I just felt like I'm able to replicate what they because they have therapies, they have speech therapies, they have everybody. We do MDTs, we do all those things. I have little to nothing. But one of the things that came back is that I must make that difference. Yes. And I started training. That's another thing I did. I trained a lot of pediatricians, and thank God for I got some private organization, one of these food companies who is interested in um, even though it's a formula company, but they were interested in new developments and things like that. So they were supporting me. And so we organized a lot of uh developmental uh training. So I created another kind of what I call basic developmental assessment training. I want pediatricians when they see children to be able to do basic developmental in their clinic because I realized that our curriculum then was deficient, even for our children. There's nothing developmental in it at all. So most pediatricians don't even recognize a child who is development. They kind of suspect something is wrong, but they don't know how to do a bit of something like surveillance or screening or even do a proper assessment. So they did a lot of training, did a lot of training from Lagos, Enugu, Potter Court, went to work, they took me all over the place. I even went to Ethiopia as well just to do those kind of training. So a lot of yeah, a lot of pediatricians started doing their own assessment. I created that uh bag for them, bag that have like cubes, uh all those keyboards, all those little things you can use in your everyday clinic and do assessment for gross metal, fire metal, speech and language, you know, picture cards, you know. At least you can have an idea what is going on, and then you can now, you know, be able to tell parents, and then you can now refer them. Then we have to create a list of directories of because, like I said, we have little to nothing in the government, so we have to create directories of private facilities that at least doing something. It may not be able to do the best, but at least it is better than nothing. So you were able to offer that to parents and signpost them to things them to where they can get a little bit of resources. So those are what we were able to do.

SPEAKER_02 34:32

You you were you were a real one-woman army just doing it. But thank you for for doing that because you know, one of the the basic things is for people to identify that there's something wrong, you know, and where there's no identification or people don't know, then it's much more difficult to, you know. So the the fact that you were able to train more pediatricians to do that is really useful. And part of the things is I think that I think we need to look at training even beyond pediatricians, people, you know, like nursing staff, competition workers, because those are a lot of children might not hit the hospital, but they might hit other health facilities in terms of you know being seen. So it's about the way the way Nigeria is and Africa in general, where the the numbers are many and the resources are few. So we have to think about how can the person out there in the community recognize when a child's speech is delayed and what can they do about it so that they can begin to, you know, offer some interventions. Yeah, so if we don't move on to just talking a bit about the stigma and cultural context, which we know is quite big with everything we chew in Nigeria, it's one of the biggest barriers our families face. I know that from my experience in when I was when I did my master's in public health in Nigeria, I did um uh a study in the community, in the community just next to Lagos University Hospital or um Idiarabah, I did a study on how the community managed people are convulsions. So I went from house to house interviewing families, and it is it is just so interesting to see that despite the uh educational levels, people held certain beliefs. So I know that that was way back when I did that, Masters. Yeah. What do you think? What was your experience, especially when it had to do with neurodevelopmental conditions?

SPEAKER_04 37:02

Yeah. The signal was still there. A lot of parents try to hide their children away. And one of the things I would say is that for us in Nigeria, we tend to pick the children late. You don't, so sometimes I'm doing assessment in children who are eight years old, nine years old. One, you know, in UK you see two, three years old, you know, coming to you. No, most of the time the parents they are always open and open that something will, you know, the child will just suddenly improve. So sometimes they don't even sit up on time. So, and then for those who are the older children, sometimes they hide them away. Uh, they don't want people to know about their children, you know, because of, you know, the the the then, you know, this religious beliefs that maybe it's a spiritual attack, maybe it's witchcraft, maybe the children need to go for deliverance. You know, the other day I was still reading on social media that a woman, I mean, people talk on social media so you can see what they actually have in their mind. That, oh, if you have snake children, snake children, they they ruin their families, they they they they they make the imperfection to parents. What she's still referring to as snake children, we're talking about children with cerebral pulses, children who have, you know, who cannot work and all that, who have severe mood difficulties. And she was saying it alone. They told them to go and abandon the child, go and leave the child alone, you know, so that you can move forward. So she was she more or less was admitting to killing a child on social media, and she wasn't even feeling bad about saying that. And this is 2026. So you can imagine that, you know. But on the other hand, a lot of parents, again, who have these children, who have children with neurodivergence or other neurodevelopmental conditions, they've started groups, support groups, which is another thing that I think I began to enjoy. So we have parents who have started support groups for their children. And because of that, they now help other parents understand that you are not alone. And then it's easier for parents to stand with a group. So we have, uh I know there's Noya started a CP Center. She does a lot of work with children with cerebral palsy, and they do a match, you know, every month, you know, they will work for cerebral palsy. I know there's AVM, Benola CP. It's also uh a lot of so there are lots of other groups, Super Parents Foundation as well, which were helping the parents. And thank God for social media because people now come online and talk about their child who is neurodivergent. I think it's helping other parents to realize you are not alone. So the stigma is beginning to drop. You know, it's I I know it's not, we are not where we should be, where people can proudly identify with children with disabilities, but I would say it's much, much better. People talk more openly about it unlike before, where they actually we eye the children away. Because I remember growing up and remember some children that we don't see outside because their parents are it's not that I'm in development of the decision and I'm looking back, and I remember those kind of people have condition, but the parents don't take them to church, they don't take them anywhere, they lock them on the you know in the house every day. And you always wonder why. But now I know it's because of the stigma.

SPEAKER_02 40:19

Well, I think it's exactly it's I mean, it's it's lovely, and I can say, you know, um the I think it was a couple of weeks ago there was a young girl coming out and talking about her ADHD, she's had an ADHD diagnosis and she was talking about it. And you know, I I had to say, well done for coming out to talk about this, because it's not easy for you to come out on social media and talk about this. On the other hand, there was another day. I'm quite vocal on social media now. So if I see somebody saying anything that is wrong about neurodiversity, I go in there straight away, you know. So on the other hand, there was a family, um, a woman who was talking about something, and then somebody butted it and said, Oh, I don't know why you're allowing people to be giving your child a label here, that this is wrong, that there's nothing wrong with the child, that everyone who moved from Nigeria or Africa to the UK immediately they come, they're giving them diagnoses. So I had to come in. I had to come in, and I said to said, Could you stop? You know, that person who is sharing her story is carrying a lot. You don't have to, you know, put your derogatory statement here and make the person feel worse. That, excuse me, I'm a pediatrician from Nigeria who lived and worked in Nigeria, who saw children with neurodevelopmental conditions living in Nigeria who've never crossed the border. So there is neurodevelopmental disorders in Nigeria, and what you should do is support people with positive language and encourage them and not something derogatory. You know, it was, I had to put it out there. And actually, I was surprised that there was a lot of positive response to what I said. But this is where we need to, we need to be out there, we need to be talking about it because unfortunately, our religious settings haven't made things better. I don't know whether you can touch on that with faith communities and you know what what was your experience with the faith communities, the churches, the mosques, and how they approached neurodevelopmental conditions.

SPEAKER_04 42:35

I mean, traditionally, the faith communities have always believed that children have um maybe like uh they are demon policy or they they they they need to be delivered, you know. So a lot of parents do take their children to churches and go for deliverance on the upon deliverance, and you know, nothing really happened. But to us again in the last few years. Yeah. Okay, okay, correct. So talking about faith communities and neurodisabilities, being um initially traditionally, most of the faith communities were uh they had this approach that it's a spiritual problem, children need to be delivered, maybe they are demon-possessed, maybe it's witchcraft. Because we come from a very deep religious background, even common things like epilepsy. You know, people still believe it's uh uh something that needs to be cast out of them or all that. But in the last few years, I think there's been a little bit of shifts, and we actually have seen churches that are now more interested in neurodiversity. So I've seen some of our champions for neurodiversity going to churches, doing like talks, helping the pastors understand. Some of them now have sections in the children's uh church for, you know, understanding that children with uh, for example, on the spectrum, they may find the noise in the church too much. So they are beginning to accommodate all that. There are not so many churches doing that, but at least I've seen a couple and I've seen some of them actually taking the children to like the CP center, make donations. So they are beginning to accept. We are beginning to understand neurodisabilities. We are beginning to accept it. Now, churches now that these days when they are doing their program, you see somebody using fine language to translate as well. I see the faith church, uh the communities are moving better away from the uh old approach of thinking it's demonic attack that has to be uh dealt with and all that, they are now beginning to be more accepting. I think it's a reflection of the general society anyway, but obviously we're still not where we should be.

SPEAKER_02 44:41

That's right, okay. Okay. And like you said, social media has helped a lot because exactly. So, do you think we're doing enough on our own local media? Because I'm always I've said that to somebody. There was somebody that interviewed me recently on a podcast, and I said to them, we need to be using all forms of the media in Nigeria. And I don't think, um, because for someone who I I listen to quite a bit of Nigerian media regularly, I don't think we're doing enough. I think there needs to be segments for discussing things like neurodevelopmental child development or child-related issues. What do you think? What's your take on that?

SPEAKER_04 45:24

Definitely, definitely I agree we can do more. Uh, some of us are on social media. That's one of the reasons I'm on social media and doing all that. And I talk a lot about it. And I write also for some of the papers. Uh, I've written about autism and some of those things in the papers. But I think in terms of the mainstream media, TV, and all that. I think I've done something for cerebral policy on the mainstream with AIT or something, but it's something we need to do more about. Yes, we can definitely do much, much better than what we're doing now. Or have more people. I guess another thing is that sometimes in Nigeria, we're still dealing with a lot with even the basic physical health issues is still an issue for us. The malaria, the epilepsy, the conversion, the malnutrition. So a lot of people, uh, health programs tend to focus on the physical health conditions more. But definitely we need to talk more about also neurodevelopment uh conditions.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

I think we need to because I remember once when I went to Abuja and I gave a talk even in one of the hospitals, I think it was Garkey Hospital. And I was surprised to take on, and I was talking on epilepsy then, actually. I was talking on epilepsy and the management. And I remember even some of the doctors there were quite negative. They they they almost felt they were giving up, that there's nothing that can be done. And um, you know, in terms of certain treatments and stuff, and I felt that we need to be the ones being quite positive about, you know, we work in very resource-limited areas, but we need to be positive and have a positive approach about getting this information out, giving it out and educating people. I keep remembering when I was doing my training where when I did that master's in public health, where I was going to communities, one of the questions I asked the families were, when you, your child had a seizure, did anybody talk to you about what to do and why this happened and how you can prevent a febral seizure? And majority of them said no. And I knew that there was a problem with health education because people were coming to the hospital repeatedly. So something as small as health education, five minutes talk with somebody would have made a difference there. And that's why I feel that public awareness teaching the schools, you know, the teachers, the schools, the community, use every forum that we can. And just for our audience listening, I hope this is inspiring somebody somewhere to say, you know, we can do more. And we've heard the story, Baby's story of how much she impacted the the children just by there were obstacles, there were barriers, and she did not give up. The easiest thing would have been, oh, there's nothing, there's there's nothing to work with. But she came in, she was determined because she had seen where things work. She could see that children's outcomes could be better if things were done earlier. She trained professionals, she made up, you know, tools to help with developmental screening, she tried to look for interventions. So I hope that the message is coming out to our audience is not to give up, not to give up. You know, we are working in resource-limited areas, and Bimi and I are working in the UK here. It's not perfect. We don't get everything we want. We still don't have children having enough speech therapy, enough physiotherapy, enough occupational therapy. So things are rationed even here because the resources are not the way we think it should be. And we're still having difficulties. And just to say that even though we're in the UK, there's still people who are resistant to accepting, you know, that their child may be neurodivergent in their communities. So the fact that they've moved from Nigeria to the UK or the US or wherever does not change that perception because they would still hold on to those beliefs. Because they're in a community. So even if they were thinking, okay, I'm listening to what this doctor is saying, they're going back home. Their parents are there, their relatives are there, their pastors are there, their imams are there, and people telling them, no, no, no. So that's why we need education of the whole community. The whole community, the whole unit needs to be involved in, you know, improving awareness. We need to do that. And baby, you've been doing a lot. Thank you so much, because I'm so pleased to hear that you've been doing a lot with the media, going in, talking to them, doing all those things with them, because, you know, you have been spreading the message in, you know, in the communities. One thing I always say is that as clinicians, we need to move out of the clinic rooms. You know, I, you know, one of the things I enjoyed when I did public health was the ability to look beyond just the clinic room. And that's why I, one of the driving forces for me setting up early intervention matters, was I took things at learned during my public health masters, and I said to myself, actually, I education of public awareness is such a big thing that as pediatricians, we need to move, we need to move out of the clinic room. We need to engage with the public, we need to understand people's fears. What is what is the reason that they are worried about? Because you can only change attitudes when you engage with people. So, so thank you so much for continuing to do that and continuing to, you've laid those grounds. And I hope there are people still carrying that on, even though you are not there. I want to believe there are people carrying that on. How are you, how are you engaging and overseeing what? Because you did a lot. And I don't I don't want to see those things, those good things that you did just go away. So, how are you ensuring that those things, those good seeds that you sowed, that's still going on?

SPEAKER_04 51:54

Yeah, so uh one of the things I was able to do while I was there is have some residents working with me also who are interested in developmental pediatrics. So some of them did their uh dissertation and things around that area. So I was even when I left to the UK, I was still supporting them and then I was doing like MDT discussions with them. So when they see children, they discuss with me, you know, if they need my input. At least they know how to do assessment and train them before I could leave. Just the sad news for me is that the Japan syndrome has affected most of the people I trained as well. Because, I mean, it's the whole thing is not in an isolation, it's the whole Nigerian setup. A lot of our doctors have left as well, so some of them also have left now. But I see I'm in conversation with my um colleagues who are seeing Nigeria on terms of how can we train. For even today, I was still having a conversation with one of our pediatricians who is also now interested in developmental pediatrics, and I was telling her about how she can get either training in South Africa or even the Shepherd program on pediatricular disability, which is very true, she doesn't have to come to the UK for that. I'm still trying to link people up, and I'm I still provide support to a lot of pediatricians who I see in Nigeria, who are still working with children in the general hospitals and all that. So I drew a little bit in that respect. I really wish where we can do more, wish we can have more people also still working with the children, but it's just the general situation in the country that is obviously affecting the health sector generally, all the doctors, not just those of us pediatrics or those of us in uh developmental pediatrics is the whole ecosystem. Generally, it needs a lot of intervention, but I won't want to go into all that. I'm always available for people to discuss with. I'm always available to support and do training. So that's what we do. You were part of our training for the conference that we did. And I'm happy like people like Professor Lago and Chu in a paddle. So uh Lagos State actually has developed their own developmental screening, which is part of their own uh what we call red book here, which is part of their immunization card. So they have a whole book. So when children go for, yeah, so when children go for immunization, the nurses can actually do their developmental surveillance. So even when I was in Lagos, we were training the nurses on how to do surveillance again. So apart from the doctors, we're also training the nurses on developmental surveillance, like you said. They see the children for immunization for growth monitoring. So they may as well just check that. Oh, are you crawling? Basic screening, basic surveillance. So from what Professor Lagwind was saying, they've also developed one, and I'm hoping it can integrate it into our the green immunization card so it will go national, and all our children, when they go for each of the immunization, they can be uh uh they can have some formal developmental surveillance. So I'm not sure whether that's speaked of, but we still have a few professionals in Nigeria who are still doing a lot of work, but it's a big country, definitely we need it's a big country, and it just needs to roll out to the community.

SPEAKER_02 55:13

Exactly. Because I think what I worry about is when things become too centralized, yeah, and so and it's not reaching the people down there in the community where they need to, because you know, the the woman in the village with her children um has nobody to come there to see her, you know. And so that's that's the thing that we need to look at. So now having a bit of a positive spill to it, we've had technology coming, you know, uh to help change things. In the sense that people now have access to seeing what is happening. So how do how how do you think, in what ways has technology benefited benefited the uh neurodevelopmental management of children?

SPEAKER_04 56:02

Well, well, I think it's in in so many ways. So even starting from screening, like I said, some of the parents now, usually, like I from our group, for example, at the pediatricians, parents are comfortable to ask us questions about anything about their children that is not they don't understand. So I always tell them I don't believe there's any foolish questions. So ask, of course, I get a lot of questions from just anxious first-time mothers, and we just reassure them. I'm so happy they can ask, and then somebody can reassure them. That is normal, you don't need to worry. But also in that platform, you now get people asking, my child is not yet talking about two years, so what do I do? So we have like, okay, these are the speech milestones, these are the things you should look out for. So parents know what to do, and a lot of them even know how to just go and search for themselves and you know get the answers. So that is a positive one. We also have hubs. So, for example, anytime people send me a question about, you know, suggestive of like what you when you were introducing those kind of classic of uh early signs, we tell them to go and do the uh the MCHA screening, which they can do online and they get their own answers straight away. And so they know whether, oh, you need to see a pediatrician for you know further assessments. So I think technology is quite good and a lot of teaching on YouTube now. I always tell parents, which is one of the things I tell Nigerians because I see intervene a lot with Nigeria, even though I'm in the UK. You have to be your child's therapist. We don't have the therapist, or you are your child's number one therapist. Yeah, YouTube is a very lovely thing. A lot of speech therapists have put their therapy sessions on YouTube. So parents can watch it and do therapies. And for parents who can afford it, sometimes I link them up with therapies who are willing to do uh virtual children. Yes. So some of my colleagues in South Africa who like in the private sector, some parents uh actually link up with them and they they will run, they will set up a program for their child, tell them this is the program. Sometimes they even train, you know, Nigeria. One thing we have is people, we have abundance of women resources. So you can get somebody who can be like a maybe somebody who just have a secondary school or a basic uh absolutely yeah, and some of them are willing to learn, so they can send the basic thing, but the main therapists, maybe in South Africa, in the US or where can set up the program.

SPEAKER_02 58:23

I mean, these days the world is virtual. The world is virtual now. So that's why I'm saying that I'm so pleased that you know, that these things are now reaching families. Exactly. We need to think about the people in the rural area. We need to think about those ones where when they have, you know, children with developmental difficulties, where do they go? What do they do? How can they access that care? We need to think about the the ones that are in remote areas and ones that are not because what tends to happen in Nigeria is that you have a place which is upcoming and things are happening, and then some of the other areas, things are not really reaching them. So that in order to be some through something that's really spread out, we need to think through those areas. So I'm I'm I'm really pleased that you're continuing to engage, you're continuing to do those things because we need to, you know, I I keep saying it as something that we need to give back to that society that's given us quite a lot, and but also for those families who can't um reach out or get those things. And that's why I'm really happy with what we're doing. And even for families, Nigerian families in the diaspora, in the UK, US, Canada, if you have real relatives back home and you see, you know, you know, these differences in the child, what what would you say to such families? Because we have there's so many now that I'm sure if you speak to every other person here, they would know one person with a child with neurodevelopmental disorders. So how can they help? How can they support? How can they help?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:09

So that's to add to what we're saying about children in the in how-to-reach places. Some of those people doing some of this work now do outreaches. So we actually do outreaches in the rural areas, and then we can obviously we outreach usually maybe once in every few months, so it's not all the time, but that's how we reach some of them. And for those who know, I think for those here who are more uh aware, sometimes they do reach out to their family members that they know and they recommend that can you, you know, get your child assessed and all that. So I think a lot of family are seeking support. And sometimes some of these uh uh foundations they do some outreaches from time to time. And one of the things we normally do, like when we know there's going to be an outreach, we kind of publicize it and let them know there are going to be an assessment, an outreach here. Can you bring your children down? And so people do go for time. So those are some ways by which we are all supporting each other. But generally, I think the awareness is better. I think people now know that they can get help if they, you know, and finance is still a major issue, but at least the awareness is there, and people make do with what they have in terms of getting the support that they need for their child or their relatives.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:27

I think you've given you giving me a lot of hope. Like there's I think the conversation is giving me hope that there are things that are so. What is your advice for a family listening now? So that mother that I read at the beginning, who is who's a two-year-old child who's isn't speaking, doesn't respond, she's in this conflict, you know, she's getting all these mixed messages. You know, her mother is telling her that your child needs prayers. Her apostle is saying there's a spirit in the child. And then she even goes to a clinic and they tell her, No, he's a boy, he'll talk when he's ready. What is your advice for this mother?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:10

So, um, my advice, I mean, and this story you just gave is actually a very typical story. Uh, actually, when I I was almost thinking, are you reading from my article on my website? Because that's actually the way I wrote this story. So, my advice, yes, it is. My advice is that they need to seek help from the right specialist. And usually that's the penetration. I always step around. I don't have any problem with you praying and with your pastor praying, but you can always do the two at the same time. You can get the right help. And like the title of this podcast, really, intervention matters. The earlier we make a diagnosis, the earlier we support the child. And I always tell them the fact that you are worrying because I think that's the fair. Are they going to label my child with something? I said, sometimes we're not going to give you any labor. Sometimes there may be nothing. But I would rather hear on the side of caution, oh, it's just a little bit of speech today, the child is just slowly catching up. There's we have not lost anything intervening in a child who eventually, you know, maybe it was just a little bit slower talking and then the child catches up. But if it is something more and we have lost those early periods where I always tell them about the brain being plastic, the first five years of the brain is still uh of the child, the brain is still developing. Anything we do at that time really, really matters. So I always want that mom to go for that help, and there is help. Even online, you just put it in and search, you will come, you know, things will come back to you. These days we have AI, we have everything telling us what we can do. And then you can always search for who is the professional next to me who can help me, and you get that information. Yeah, that's so don't just sit and wait and hope things are going to improve. Let's help. Even if even by the end of the day, the judiciary is going to reassure you, but at least get a professional opinion first. Don't assume or don't just hope things will just improve on their own.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:09

I think you've made a very key point. And parents listening out there, the audience, as Dr. Boyade has said, don't just sit down, get help. I've had numerous times where people have reached out to me and said, the child is not talking and all that. They're just watching and waiting. They're noticing certain things, they're just waiting because they're getting all this conflicting information from. I think it's always better. And Dr. Boyede has explained about the brain development and the key period where it's so important to act at that time. Dr. Boyede has explained that beautifully. Um, the key message is please, if you notice any difference or that your child is not developing as expected and you are worried, don't you're hearing conflicting messages. It's always better to get help than to just sit down. And she said, There's nothing wrong with prayers. You know, we all believe in prayers in one form or the other. Please, you can pray and do and seek that help at the same time. It doesn't stop one from the other. And what is your message to clinicians, to pediatricians? So I've I've written a book about my journey and it's it will be coming out soon. It's uh titled From Clinic to Calling How I Moved From You know General Pediatrics and Neurology, and I had this deep uh seeking for doing neurodevelopmental PET. And it's a bit it you know, it's it's again taking one. Through the journey of how I accessed that, what challenges I was facing initially, how I navigated that, and you know, up to where I am and the things I've done. And it's just like I felt it was important to put that down because it gives hope to people that you will face barriers. And I'm so I was so glad to, not glad, but it was interesting to hear your story with all the barriers you face, about how you overcame it. And you overcame it because you were determined to seek good care for the children. And those things that you did has made an impact. You are not there, but that impact is still there. Your voice is still there, you're still supporting people across the board. And that's what we want to say. That, you know, so I've written that, those memories down as a hope. And that a pediatrician somewhere will see that and be able to say, actually, you know, I can overcome this and all that. You know, it's a journey we're all on. We learn more about the children, the more we work with them, and the more we get to see the children, the more we work with them, the more we know them, the more we get better. It's good to listen to families, it's good to listen to the children, it's good to watch and see. But once you've got the passion for you know supporting the children, you you will sail through. So I just want to encourage young clinicians. And uh Baby, what do you want to add to this?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:40

I think you've said it all, to be honest. I think it's about good passion. Yes. You once you have the passion, I think the opportunity, you will recognize the opportunity when it comes. You know, because I'm just thinking back, like when the development of pediatric training opportunity comes, because I already have that interest. So that's why I was able to recognize it and I was able to go for the training. So just like you said, just be interested in being better for our children and helping our children. And usually, you know, opportunity will always come. And these days we have technology, so you can be anywhere in the world and you can get resource people. Somehow, even like I know like BPNA, for example, they organize all this training that you can do virtually. There's so much opportunities. And for those of us from, I know Nigeria typically we should not be caught on word, but for those of us from low-income or low resource countries, they offer some of these things almost for free. So, and lots of associations also offering all this training. So I'm just saying that for our clinicians in places where they don't have resources, they should use online resources to start training themselves and then, like you said, apply it. Sometimes it's all about low-cost technology. We may not have all the beautiful resources in the first word, but like you say, even the NHS, everything is not perfect. But even with the what we have, we can do a lot. And that is one thing I learned in my early years of my developmental pediatric training. I have to adapt a lot, I have to create my own tools, and it's it works. And the most important thing is that we're helping. So don't involve, just keep doing what you can. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:23

And then and what you said is what I say to people is that, you know, I used to take the tools with me to Ibad onto and I used to tell the students, yeah, I'm only bringing this to show you what is used. But this does not, you know, there's so many ways you can assess whether a child's fine motor skills are good, whether a child's gross motor skills are good, what they're doing. You don't need these fancy tools to be able to pick up that a child is delayed in their motor development or their fine motor. You we need to be more versatile to our community using culturally appropriate tools to assess uh our community. And that's what I'm very keen on. I remember the students used to be like, oh, Dr. we want to. I said, no, no, no, this, you know, why are you showing them these pictures that they have no clue about? You know, show them pictures of familiar things that they know, uh things that are familiar to them. And you're still assessing the same development in the child. So, and your final message for the government, because I'm sure somebody in government will be listening to us. And I want somebody in government to listen to us because this is beyond just, you know, thinking, you know, we can just keep doing business as usual. We need the government to be responsible. I'll let you talk on this, baby.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:52

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, the government definitely should be listening to us. And I'm happy the government have started what they call the disability bill or something like that. But like as always, when governments are making their decisions, is the adults in the room? I don't think our children are ever represented. So I see them doing a lot of things for the adults with neural disabilities or disabilities like visual hearing and all that. Our children are more important because they are going to be the future of the country. So I really want the government, we don't have special schools. It was so heartbreaking. I was doing a lot of outreach. I do outreach with some of these uh foundations. I was doing online consultation for them for some of the children with cerebral palsy, very severe disabilities. The parents were even the special school they go to, the children are just there to wind away the time and then they come home. No therapy, nothing. So the mother, the pain. So I'm hoping the Nigerian government should at least give this, provide basic resources, the special things. The wheelchair parents are having to pay. Thank God for the foundation sometimes who give them. These are basic things that can make a difference. The fact that that child can even participate in the community because these children are now 15, the mothers can't carry them anymore, but they don't have the wheelchair.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:11

And that's physical disability. What about our children with autism, no speech therapy, nothing? We don't even have training schools. So these are the things the government should be doing. The world is becoming a global relief, they can see what is happening in other places. And I hope they are when we are planning, the government thinks about children with neurodivergence conditions, children with neurodisabilities, and plan on what is the long-term plan. How are we going to get the professionals what we need to try? How are we going to get the resources? Some of them are not so expensive. It's just the fact that we're not even thinking about them. If we think about them, we will make those resources available. So I hope the Nigerian government will begin to think more. And I hope we have somebody who will be a voice for our children in the Senate or when they are talking about disability. It's not only adults, our children also have disabilities, and it's important that their needs are also addressed. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:08

Well, this has been a very rich conversation with you, Dr. Boyeti. It has been an absolutely enriching conversation. First of all, from just saying that we've come from very similar parts, and we've had similar desires to do developmental pediatrics. We've sought for the opportunities and gone out and trained to make ourselves better. We've continued to, and you you went back and you know, you you did a lot. You, you know, you reached out, you established services, adaptive technology, you engage with people outside, you know, even when the shutters were down, you tried to find a way. Um, it's just amazing. And you've left me with so much hope, actually. You've left me with so much hope and positivity that things can really get better. And thank you for sewing those shoes. Thank you for continuing to water those shoes. And there's still a lot of work to be done, and that's why you and I continue to be champions of neurodisability. Because we want it to be an equitable place where the fact that you are in Africa, you are you're in the rural area, wherever you are, is not a barrier to you being uh getting care. And as we say, the earlier the children are identified and the earlier they get the interventions, the better it is for them. So thank you so much for all that you do. And how can people find you? How can guests find you?

SPEAKER_04 1:14:47

Yes, so um on social media, I'm online, I'm on Facebook, as uh maybe celebrated my name on Facebook, but Axe the Pediatricians Foundation is my uh where I do a lot of the supports for pediatrics and answering questions and all that. I'm on Instagram, the same name, everything is my name. I'm on Twitter, and then we have our website, www.axthepediatricians.com, and we also have a podcast, Axe Dr. Bimi HTP Podcast. So I think we've got this platform. Yeah, and of course I'm on YouTube as well. HCP TV, that's our YouTube channel. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:24

Oh, that's fantastic, and I'm really pleased. We will put all these details in the show notes as well. So um we're really pleased. So thank you so much for contributing to our session. As we said, this is Early Intervention Matters podcast. We do come up on, we do have publish our podcast online and on different platforms as well. And we've created a section because of the questions that come in for developmental pediatrics, mainly on the substack publications for us the developmental pediatrician. Questions is mainly for families to contribute their questions, sometimes from the episodes, which we would then answer. We also have a YouTube channel at Early Intervention Matters, where we mainly publish, we use it mainly for publishing our podcasts and for families who want to ask questions, to ask questions there. So, Dr. Boyede, thank you so much for contributing to our session. We're really grateful that you could spend this time with us. We look forward to having you back in the future. We look forward to continuing to hear the good news. And um, as I said before, we we do, you know, we share the same vision, so it would be good to see some collaborative working together with yourself and the good work that you are doing. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:49

Thank you so much for having me. I've also been inspired by what you do, and I hope I can also do more as well. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:57

Well, you are doing a great job, thank you. Thank you. As we always say, early intervention leads to better outcome. And early intervention can only be achieved by early diagnosis. So thank you for listening into the series today. Um, I know some of the things we've talked about today would probably have generated some questions or need to seek clarification. So I'm happy to take questions and I'll invite you to send your questions to EIM at dracon.com. Thank you for listening.