My 4 Favorite Tips to Involve Parents in Treatment

The other day I was talking to a colleague and he was emphasizing the need for a certain patient to receive treatment at least four or five times per week at 60 minutes per session. I could see his point, in a way. The patient is 3 years old and doesn’t have a functional communication system. The patient used around three words and the parents wanted their child to start preschool in the fall. Now, of course this child needs services, but had already been in treatment for more than a year. Let’s do the math. The patient had sessions twice a week for 18 months. How many sessions is that? I’ll save you the trouble. It comes out to 156 sessions. If I went to 156: personal training sessions, then I better be all muscle. cooking lessons, then I should cook like a master chef. college courses, I could earn at least two degrees, maybe three. coached basketball practices, I might finally accomplish my life-long goal of being an NBA player. finally, as a parent, if I attended 156 speech-language sessions, I hope I learned enough to help my child work on the concepts at home. As speech-language pathologists, we’re experts in speech and language development. Parents however, are experts on their child. We see a child for 30 minutes one or maybe two times a week. Parents are with the child every day. So, I suggest we take advantage of this time and teach the parent simple ways to help their child every day. Research tells us that parents are key to successful treatment with p...
Source: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Press Releases - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Authors: Tags: Speech-Language Pathology Early Intervention Language Disorders private practice Schools Source Type: blogs