Parents and caregivers are the first and best teachers for a child.
Children need to communicate their needs and share information with the people who are most important in their lives.
Addressing communication development in routines ensures more consistent practice and helps children make the connection between these routines and the language used in such settings.
The best outcomes are achieved for children when parents, and others who interact with a child every day, have the tools to support the child’s communication development.
Teamwork is the key
Speech Language Pathologists (SLP) and Communicative Disorders Assistants (CDA) work together with you and others involved with your child to:
- Expand your knowledge,
- Discover and practice effective intervention strategies,
- Adjust to meet individual needs,
- Support a positive, move-forward attitude
Intervention is based upon individual, ongoing assessment of a child's communication skills. The assessment information the SLP gathers may be added to the results of investigations carried out by other professionals (psychologists, medical practitioners, audiologists, etc.) and always in relation to "the history" provided by parents and caregivers. It is also based on the child’s response to intervention over time.
One intervention does not fit all
The best intervention is the one that matches the characteristics of each child, family and the environments in which the child is growing and learning.
Parent Training
Parent training is an integral part of all interventions. However, it typically refers to interactive classroom-style programs or sessions with other parents. Parents who have attended parent training report that they feel more ready to support their child, are better able to monitor progress and indicate higher satisfaction with their involvement at KidsAbility.
Group Intervention
Groups provide an enriched learning environment with great benefits to a child’s development in speech sounds or further developing language skills such as vocabulary, grammar, understanding or social language interactions with other children. Each child’s individual goals are addressed but the naturalistic setting of a peer group allows added practice of important academic and social skills such as turn-taking, listening, and emerging literacy. Parents have the added opportunity to meet and share with parents of children with similar communication challenges.
Home Programming
Practice every day in every way is a routine intervention and critical to developing and maintaining skills achieved in individual or group interventions with SLPs, CDAs, or within multi-disciplinary programs with Early Childhood Educators.
Consultation
Education, demonstration and support are provided to grandparents, child care providers, social and health care workers, anyone with a vested interest and involvement with a child’s development.