This seems like a mouthful, but what Christine and Karen do is pretty much what it sounds like; providing alternative ways to communicate for children who are unable to communicate in traditional ways, and starting these therapies as early as possible. They do this at their home base, the Dixie School, and also by visiting families at their homes.
To make this video, they invited me to go along on several home visits to document a typical day in the life of an SLP. Karen, Christine, and the families we visited were very receptive to the project, and generous with their time and resources. The goal was to help promote awareness for speech therapy programs, which are largely unknown to the general public, and very certainly underfunded.
Christine, Karen, my SLP wife Kristin :), and all the other speechies in the Linn-Benton-Lincoln Education Service District are all "Working Wonders" to me!
So, it appears that my disappearing comments actually disappeared - So I will try again.
Norm,
I want to thank you for the time and energy that you invested in our project. I loved working with you and am truly amazed at you editing ability. You have such a warm easy going approach we all felt very comfortable with you joining our interventions.
I would like to point out that Early Intervention focuses on more than communication. The video captured work in augmentative communication but also in motor, cognitive and social skill development. Early Intervention is a family focused whole child endeavor. The video truly demonstrated a day in the life of early intervention featuring augmentative communication. Promoting awareness of intervention for children under three years old with disabilities would be more accurate than promoting speech therapy.
Thanks, Karen! You bring up a great point. I often completely overlook the fact that communication is more than just speech, and that early intervention is more than just communication. Perhaps instead of “speechies”, I should just say “interveners”. Either way, it’s clear that the services you provide are vastly layered. I’m glad that the video is able to shine a little light on a generally infrequently-seen world. Next time we should make it feature-length.