More on Speech Therapy at BCLC

Early intervention has a major impact on the patterns of development of language. And here’s why:

• Language skills tend to be delayed because blind children learn communication through alternative routes.
• Childrenwho are blind tend to use words in an imitative (or parroting) fashion without an appropriate understanding of their meaning.
• They use many verbal routines or stereotypic speech (imitative chunks or phrases) early in their speech development.
• Their descriptive language is less precise than children who are sighted because they have to identify objects through other sensory means.

Many different approaches are used to help each BCLC student acquire language skills indistinguishable from their sighted peers.

Children who are deaf-blind have to be taught communication through tactile means in very simplistic forms. Until the child with dual sensory impairments can make the cognitive connection between an object, the sign, and hand-to-mouth imitation, the teaching of language cannot be advanced.

Children in the center receive language, articulation, and oral motor therapy. so they acquire age appropriate speech and language skills prior to entering kindergarten.