Communication gives the power of control to individuals. Helping children and youth with complex needs build communication skills involves understanding specific interventions and how each aligns with stages of cognitive development.
Families can support their child’s ability to communicate wants and needs within the home by understanding cognitive development. Work with your TVI to implement communication interventions within the home that give your child extra opportunities to practice outside the school day.
Communication Interventions
APH currently has three products that provide communication interventions:
- Sensing and Learning: The guidebook provides techniques for helping students make sense of the world through movement and senses.
- Symbols and Meaning: The guidebook provides strategies for helping children understand concepts and the symbols that represent them.
- Tactile Connections: The system provides a means of communicating through tactile symbols.
Fostering Symbolic Understanding
A new APH Hive course on symbolic communication has arrived! It’s called Fostering Symbolic Understanding for Students with Complex Needs. This course equips families to learn how to help their child develop word meanings related to people, objects, actions, and places.
In the course, you will see other children engage with and use communication skills in real time. You can apply what you learn and try new strategies with your child at home. Find new strategies and ways to reinforce what works for your child at home.