Brain Builders Corner: Early Intervention

Our Early Intervention staff continues to develop their stills– both through professional development participation and Sibshop facilitation.

This August, several CDHHE Network Early Intervention providers took a road trip! The group attended a workshop sponsored by The Ohio State University titled, “All Hands on Deck: Promoting Family Involvement in Early Intervention for Children with Hearing Loss.” In reflection, here are some of the take-home points from the presenters:

From Dr. Mary Pat Moeller:

• If families do well, children do well.” (Luterman, 2001)
• Our job…support family Confidence and Competence
• Audibility matters for spoken language growth
• Support parents in providing rich and varied language input
• It’s ABOUT ACCESS!!
• Universal Newborn Hearing is allowing for a new generation of collaborative research opportunities to examine early stages of development and the impact of early service delivery
• Expect resilience, even in later identified children

From Jareen Meinzen-Derr, PhD

• Recognize when language development does not match a child’s ability (understanding potential)
• Novel therapeutic techniques that incorporate AAC strategies can provide children with additional tools in the toolbox

Sibshops offers an opportunity for siblings to meet one , sharing their personal experiences through interactive and engaging activities. Staff members, Cindy Lawrence and Kjari Newell facilitated a Sibshop in collaboration with the Indiana Deaf-Blind project in August. The group played fun games and shared insights, discovering there were other siblings who shared the commonality of having a deaf, hard of hearing or deaf-blind child in their family. This was a unique avenue to support families in their journey. Interested in more information about Sibshops? Look here: https://siblingsupport.org/about-sibshops