No Records Found
Sorry, no records were found. Please adjust your search criteria and try again.
Google Map Not Loaded
Sorry, unable to load Google Maps API.
- Sheri-Anne
- Taylor
- 500-D Canatara Ct
Kingston
Ontario
K7M 0E4
Canada - Big Words Little People
Kingston
Ontario
K7M 0E4
Canada
My therapy changes over time with families as a child grows and both the child and parent become more comfortable in practicing speech. For younger children I work from play-based to structured sessions moving from reviewing home support strategies to direct speech/motor work over time. My sessions are child focused: I incorporate a child’s interests and motivators into choices of activities and target goal words. Gaining rapport and understanding the child and their interests allows us to create realistic/relevant and achievable goals. My sessions remain positive! I shift the focus as needed to decrease frustration while meeting success in a session. I use a variety of multi-modal cuing, including tactile cues, varying my speech rate, and using visual and verbal modeling to support a child’s acquisition of motor plans for speech. I Include repetition and provide clear/specific feedback throughout the therapy session. I encourage use of gestures and other means of communication, alongside our speech goals to help support overall communication.
I continue to learn and grow in my knowledge and experience with CAS. Through active listening to my families, both during and following sessions, I continue to grow my awareness and sensitivity to what families are experiencing. I continue to develop my skills and knowledge both of CAS, but also in other areas, such as literacy, to best support my families and children with CAS. Through supporting my families, I review unique aspects of motor speech disorders, build family knowledge, and encourage self-advocacy around CAS. I review and provides resources (often from Apraxia Kids Website) to families and educators to further increase knowledge of supporting and advocating for children with apraxia of speech. I have encouraged families to connect with each other, either through social media or our local parent group, to strengthen our community and gain support from others who are experiencing the same parenting challenges and celebrations. I hope through more training and experience with Apraxia Kids to become a more confident voice within our local community.
Throughout treatment sessions, I model interaction and treatment techniques that can be duplicated for home practice. I provide ongoing narration throughout a session on current goals, reason for choosing that goal, and how to adjust a goal to achieve success. I involve parents at all stages to ensure they understand what I am doing, how I am doing it, and the rationale behind it. We allow for time during a session for parents to give me insight into their child and communication at home. This back-and-forth relationship enables us to set realistic, achievable goals. Home practice is an integral part of the therapy process. I try to balance the importance of family involvement with family capacity (time and energy) to set realistic home practice goals. Together we review and I provide a summary for home reference at the end of the session. I am reachable between sessions for questions and offer parent-only virtual sessions as needed.
Depending on the child, stage of communication and communication needs, I will often use theme boards that allow a child to participate and make choices within an activity, or more complex low-tech communication books that allow a child to point out specific topics or words within a conversation that are harder to understand. As a community clinician, I work closely with SLPs from our local Augmentative Communication Services to implement both low- and high-tech communication systems with my clients.