We are happy to announce Grace Village now offers in-house speech pathology, skill development and behaviour support services for our little ones, in the Third Place area. These services are headed by Peta Williams from Step By Step Intervention, in Richmond.
Step By Step Intervention have been offering child speech and behavioural therapy since 2017, and their team has a wide area of expertise, not only in speech therapy and behavioural and skill development but also child psychology
Why provide speech therapy, skill development and behaviour support services in-house?
Children who struggle with learning at preschool and school have underlying speech, language, skill development or behavioural delays.
For children under five, early intervention is critical in ensuring your child meets all their developmental milestones.
Providing therapy sessions in your child’s preschool gives the Step By Step Intervention team direct contact with you and your child’s educators. Your therapist will be able to talk to their educators and observe any underlying issues facing your child in the learning environment, to develop an individualised treatment plan.
What can speech therapy help my child with?
Speech pathologists are trained to diagnose and treat communication disorders in children, including difficulties with speaking, listening, understanding language, reading, writing, social skills, and using voice.
Depending on your child’s needs and delays, speech therapy can help with:
- Articulation – saying sounds correctly
- Language – saying more words and creating sentences with correct grammar or joining words in a conversation
- Stuttering – finding it difficult to speak smoothly, usually starts around 2-4 years.
- Social skills – difficulty engaging with or having conversations with others
- Alternative / augmentative communication – other types of communication when speech ability is limited.
- Fussy eating – will only eat certain textures, temperatures or colours of food, as well as avoiding a range of other foods.
What’s involved in my child’s speech pathology sessions?
Speech therapy starts with an initial assessment, in which we ask about your child’s problems or what is worrying you about their development. We will assess your child, by getting them to complete several fun activities based on your concerns. From this, your speech pathologist will put together a treatment plan, if needed.
The treatment plan helps us create the initial goals of speech therapy, determine whether you will participate in family and/or individual therapy, and discuss the recommended frequency of therapy. Subsequent appointments are typically 45–50 minutes long.
What are skill development and behavioural support services?
This is a popular therapy for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. However, it is also used successfully in helping all children with behavioural problems.
These problems may relate to behaviour management, education, health and exercise, language acquisition, parenting, psychotherapy, severe mental disorders, phobias and paediatric feeding disorders.
Using the principles of learning and motivation, our therapists will use different procedures and technologies to help your child make social, skill based or behavioural changes.
What’s involved in my child’s skill or behaviour support sessions?
We work collaboratively with your family, your child’s educator at Grace Village, and other professionals, to develop learning plans that help your child achieve meaningful objectives across all environments.
We begin with a 90-minute intake assessment in which we ask you about the problems and concerns that are worrying you. We learn about your child and their developmental, medical, social, and educational history.
Peta Williams, Clinical Director, Step By Step Interventions
Drawing on the philosophies of Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA), Step By Step Intervention watch and assess your child’s behaviour in different settings.
We will collaborate with you on developing a program designed to develop functionality across all your child’s environments. This program will become the basis for our regular sessions (e.g., weekly, fortnightly, or monthly) with your child, family members, educators and key health professionals involved.
To design appropriate goals for your child, your Senior Behaviour Consultant will conduct regular assessments to track progress and ensure that you and your child are receiving our best support.
We’re so happy to be able to extend these crucial child development services for our little villagers and our Grace Village families. If you would like to make an appointment or you have any concerns regarding your child’s development, please do not hesitate to send us an email us at huntingwoodadmin@gracevillage.com.au.
We are only too happy to confidentially forward your request to the team at Step By Step Intervention.
