What happens during communication training?

 

Communication training consists of 3 phases.  During Assessment, your communication team will collect information about your child's communicative attempts and any problem behaviours that are serving as communication.  They will evaluate your child's speech and motor skills to inform the use of any necessary alternate or augmentative communication system. 

 

Next, your communication team will design and begin an Intervention.  During this phase, your communication team will train you to implement strategies that teach your child to request their needs and wants effectively.  Intervention will consist of several stages that teach your child more and more complex communication skills.

 

Once your child's communication goals have been reached, your communication team will provide a Maintenance phase to fade our coaching presence gradually and ensure that your child continues to use effective communication behaviours.  Throughout all three phases, we will ask you to collect some data about your child's communication attempts and behaviour.