Today was a great day. Memorably, our SLP team hosted a
parent workshop at a school for children with language and learning
disabilities. I had been in touch with the school’s educational coordinator,
who thought this would be a good idea. When we arrived, however, and found the
workshop scheduled for 1:00 on Monday, I wondered who would show up.
Well, in the spirit of time flexibility, we
actually started the workshop at 2:30 and, by about 2:45, had almost 30 people
in the room. Our students had developed a flyer about typical language
development and how to support it at various ages and stages, as well as how to
engage and support students in literacy. Before we started, we had the parents
introduce themselves and share about their children’s challenges. This was important for the students, to get a picture of the varying disabilities -at varying levels of severity- present in each of the school's, multiage classrooms.
In spite of
my students’ language barriers, they presented their information and I
interpreted, naturally expanding when appropriate, to ask parents questions and
provide examples. For me, it wasn't interpreting, it was teaching. Thus, unlike
the very rewarding but very challenging interaction in the Rett Syndromeclinic on Sunday (more to come on this!), this was completely easy and natural. Talking about language and
literacy, connecting with parents… estaba en mi salsa.
In addition, one student each from OT, PT and Nursing
joined us, and made valuable contributions. It was a very rewarding team effort
that I know was helpful to the parents who participated.
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| Parent workshop on language and literacy development |
Continuing our journey… more to come soon!
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