How to Provide Therapy for Children who need Early Intervention?
Vanessa Boucher Stevenson 1. How does providing therapy for children make me feel? My passion is to help children foster mentally, socially, and physically. It brings joy to my life with great fulfillment, when the child has modified his or her behavior. It is also rewarding to bring a smile on a child’s face and their parents faces that gives them a sign of hope. Although, there are parents who have an issue with others commenting about their child, along with the notion of shame. My desire is to give hope to all the parents and families that I serve and to build a strong support team for the child being helped. When I work with a child who is non-verbal, lacks language or suffers a speech impediment/delay, it gives me great joy to witness the growth and development of language and seeing the child work well in a structured setting that they begin to spell words and starts speaking in sentences. In fact, watching the parents put the work in at home and carry over the strategies which was modeled for them whether its ABA, (Applied Behavior Analysis), or different methodologies that ultimately will create change for the betterment of the child, is extremely rewarding. Therefore, as a practitioner, it is important to take pride in what I do, and I enjoy and embrace each second and moment of it.
2.How do you provide parents with strategies to care for the challenged child? It is important to engage the parents and establish a trusting relationship with each individual child. Making all the parents comfortable via communicating goals and outcomes for their child and how we as a team will be able to reach each goal. Parental involvement is key and necessary for the developmental growth of the child. Indeed, it is my duty to provide support for all of my parents by explaining and modeling the methodologies that can be used to change behaviors and that will bring about positive results. My parents must be able to understand each goal that is set forth for their child and be able to ask questions if there is still a need for clarity because we must all be on the same page for the child’s sake. I enjoy explaining and modeling the strategies for the parents and allowing the parents to imitate the strategies that I have modeled, just to ensure they completely understand. I take my work seriously and I want the best possible outcome for my families that I serve on a daily basis. I want to see a non-verbal child become verbal, and 15
