Early Childhood Network Meeting Term 3 - Telethon Speech and Hearing – Talk About Program

Description

Term Three Early Childhood Network Meeting. Join us for an afternoon of networking and information sharing with AISWA member schools Early Childhood educators. 

The staff at Telethon Speech & Hearing, believe all children should be able to express their needs and wants, feelings and thoughts. However, some children may need special encouragement and support to do this. Join us for a tour and presentation by staff from the Telethon Speech and Hearing Centre as they share their Talk About program, a specialised language service for children who are experiencing a speech and language delay or disorder.

The Talkabout Program is a specialised early intervention program that caters for children with speech and language delay or difficulties.

Tallabout is an early intervention program and we run classes for children ranging from 18mths to 6 years old. Our playgroups for 2 and 3 year olds are attended by the child and their parent or carer.  We also run kindy and pre-primary programs which children attend part time while being co-enrolled in a mainstream kindy or pre-primary.

Talkabout uses a team-based approach to support students to achieve their speech and language goals. Classes are run by a teacher and an education assistant and classes are capped at 10 in playgroup and 13 in kindy and pre-primary. Our educational team enjoy the support of a speech therapist, occupational therapist and psychologist to help deliver a program that caters to the specific needs of each student. Having these professionals in our programs allows us to provide additional support to students and to individualise our program more specifically to suit their specific language and communication needs.

Our students respond successfully to a play-based thematic program like Talkabout, which offers repeated opportunities to experience, explore and discover language and concepts vital for effective learning. The program focuses on comprehension and expressive language skills, including narrative, grammar and semantic organisation skills. Play and social skills form an integral part of the curriculum, and fine motor skills, gross motor skills and sensory integration are also addressed. 

3:45 - afternoon tea

4:30 - presentation