South African Journal of Communication Disorders 2025 Special Issue: We invite you to submit

AOSIS calls on all authors to participate in the South African Journal of Communication Disorders 2025 special issue that will be published in the open-access scholarly journal. Submit your latest research for consideration, contribute to the open-access content available to everyone, and share your expertise with a wider audience.

Timeline:

Abstracts 

• Submissions open: 01 October 2024
• Submissions deadline: 31 January 2025
• Notification of final decision: 03 March 2025

Only for those invited to submit a full manuscript

• Full manuscript submission: 03 March 2025
• Notification of final decision full manuscript: 30 September 2025
• Estimated publication date: 29 November 2025

Dysphagia Research in Africa: Trends and Gaps Leading to Afrocentric Innovations

This special edition aims to present both theoretical and practical implications of the latest dysphagia research, focusing on the unique challenges and opportunities within the African context. Our goal is to highlight how African researchers and practitioners are innovatively addressing the specific needs of their populations, positioning Africa as a leader in the global discourse on dysphagia. This edition will be invaluable for practice, teaching, and policy development, offering insights and recommendations that are contextually relevant, reliable, and responsive to the diverse African environment. By focusing on the specific needs and circumstances of African populations, we aim to foster innovations and improvements in the management of dysphagia that are both effective and sustainable.

This publication underscores the importance of context-specific approaches, demonstrating how African innovations can contribute significantly to global advancements in dysphagia research and practice. We believe that this special edition will be a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration and knowledge sharing regarding the assessment and management of dysphagia in Africa.

We invite research papers from any disciplines in Africa that could add to this perspective.

Objective:

Without robust Afrocentric research, the true extent of dysphagia and its impact on African populations remains largely unknown. There is a significant lack of context-specific research on dysphagia in Africa as it relates to aspects such as patient presentations, assessments, management, and teachings, which is vastly different from Western models. This journal will highlight the current research trends that is focusing on these aspects encouraging discussions and dialogues in shifting decision making and practice paradigms that suit our context.

Given the heterogeneity of dysphagia, it often requires a multidisciplinary approach, involving speech therapists, dietitians, and other healthcare professionals, which is poorly spoken about in the African context. Therefore, this special issue will include research from different disciplines and highlight the importance of interdisciplinary research and collaboration, showcasing successful models and identifying potential barriers to multidisciplinary approaches to dysphagia care within an African context. Furthermore, this special issue aims to not only highlight the gaps in current dysphagia research but also to apply an Afrocentric contribution to the world of research that will foreground innovative research seen in an African context and how global perspectives fit into African research and practices, not the other way around. Through this, we aim to offer new discourse and argue for a paradigm shift in how healthcare professionals theorise and perform in the field of dysphagia, particularly in low to middle-income countries and the African context. We will provide both theoretical and practical implications, which will stem from the articles in this issue. We aim to provide a starting point for potential policy development and regulation, driving towards best practices that are evidence-based and considered contextually relevant, reliable, responsive, and responsible. This can be used for practice, teaching, and policy development. This publication will celebrate the African context in which we practice using the latest contemporary locally relevant and sourced evidence.

The first and last papers of the Special Edition

We, Dr Coutts and Dr Adams have conducted two scoping reviews, which will form the basis of this Special Edition journal. The first scoping review will be the opening paper for this journal. The focus of this paper is to discuss the current trends and gaps in dysphagia research in Africa. This article is currently being written. Please see the abstract below.

Current Trends and Identified Gaps in Dysphagia Research in Africa: A Scoping Review

Background: In the context of Africa and other resource-limited settings, there is a necessity to address the unique challenges faced by dysphagic patients and to better understand how healthcare professionals, including speech therapists, can provide contextually and culturally responsive care given our unique healthcare context. Therefore, this scoping review aims to map and synthesize evidence relating to dysphagia research in Africa to understand trends as well as research and clinical gaps.

Methods: An electronic search of CINAHL, Medline, Academic Search Premier, Global Health, PubMed was conducted in May 2024. Peer-reviewed, English-language articles published between 2015 – 2024 were retrieved. A total of 611 articles were screened and 47 were included in the final review.

Results: Broadly, 76% of the articles stemmed from SA with 81% being conducted by SLPs. The majority (59%) focused on adult dysphagia and 70% of studies had a focus on practice aspects. The predominant research trend was patient descriptions (32%), followed by the development of screening tools (16%). For gaps, 40% of the articles highlighted the need for MDT practices and involvement in dysphagia but only 2% of the research conducted focused on MDT practices.

Discussion: There is a strong trend toward patient descriptions and the need for describing local data and developing tools that are appropriate for our contexts, but the gaps strongly highlight the need for multidisciplinary involvement in dysphagia, which is not being conducted.

Conclusion: The suggestion is that MDT work would resolve many local challenges and needs to be explored.

The second paper will be the closing article of the journal which will act as a guide for where to go from here in terms of future research. This article will highlight the key issues that have stemmed from the first article and will provide insight on how to create Afrocentric research to address the gaps that have been identified from article one. This article is also being written up. Please see the abstract below.

Future Trends in Dysphagia Research to create an Afrocentric Dysphagia Approach to ensure Contextual Responsiveness

Background: Dysphagia teachings, research and practices in Africa need to be contextually responsive, given the complexity of the healthcare context and the diversity of our patient profile. Western perspectives cannot be translated easily into our context, and it is therefore important to guide the needs for future research in dysphagia for our context based on current trends and identified gaps.

Aim: This scoping review aims to outline the future trends in research related to dysphagia in Africa based on current trends and gaps.

Methodology: An electronic search was performed in May 2024 using the databases CINAHL, Medline, Academic Search Premier, Global Health, and PubMed. Peer-reviewed articles in English, published from 2015 to 2024, were retrieved. A total of 611 articles were screened, and 47 were included in the final review.

Results: 81% of studies were conducted solely by SLPs and the majority (76%) from SA. 59% of research focused on adult dysphagia and there was little research on management strategies or policy implications. 71% of articles showed needs in practice development and research.

Discussion: Shift in research needs to come from an interdisciplinary perspective and how this plays out in our context. African voices need to be louder and SA needs to support these countries in conducting and publishing their research. Reasons as to why these countries are not producing research needs to be explored. There also needs to be a focus on paediatric dysphagia in all contexts.

Conclusion: Research related to evidence-based practice to support the need for policy and guidelines that are contextually appropriate need to be developed for practice for both SLPs and the MDT.

Recommended topics:

1. Diagnostic Tools and Techniques for assessment: Evaluation of current tools and the development of new, culturally appropriate diagnostic methods of assessments or screening
2. Management and Treatment: Innovations in therapeutic approaches and interventions tailored for African settings and patient diversity
3. Healthcare Accessibility and Delivery: Challenges and solutions in providing dysphagia care in diverse African contexts encouraging contextual responsiveness
4. Policy and Advocacy: Strategies for improving awareness, policies, and support systems for dysphagia care in Africa and how this might influence practice
5. Clinical decision making in the African context in dysphagia practices
6.  Interprofessional collaborations in dysphagia assessment and treatment in Africa
7. Training of healthcare students and workers in dysphagia for the African context

Manuscript information:

Manuscript contributions may consist of the following:

• Manuscript submissions should be in English.
• Original Research articles must fully comply with the South African Journal of Communication Disorders guidelines for manuscripts (maximum up to 5000 words for research articles, 3000 words for reviews and case studies words, 60 or fewer references with limited self-referencing; no more than 7 table/Figures).

Interested authors must consult the journal’s guidelines for manuscript submissions at sajcd.org.za.

Submission procedure:

To submit your article to the South African Journal of Communication Disorders, go to sajcd.org.za. When you submit the article, select the ‘Dysphagia Research in Africa: Trends and Gaps Leading to Afrocentric Innovations’ as the article type. For more details on the submission procedure, go to sajcd.org.za after login in with your personal user credentials. All submissions will undergo anonymous review to guarantee high scientific quality and relevance to the subject. The final decision regarding acceptance/revision/rejection will be based on the reviews received from the reviewers and at the sole discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.

Of course, we will be happy to provide you with any assistance during the submission and application process. Kindly enquire at submissions@sajcd.org.za.

All abstract submissions and inquiries should be directed to the Special Issue Editorial team namely Dr Kim Coutts and Dr Skye Adams, through the SAJCD Editor-in-Chief:

• Dr Anita Edwards (South African Speech-Language-Hearing Association) – editor@sajcd.org.za

We would be honoured to receive your positive reply and look forward to receiving your article.