JCPSLP Vol 14 No 2 2012

Complex communication needs

Our Top 10 resources for working with children with complex communication needs Yooralla Early Childhood Services Speech Pathology Team

Syndrome: A Guide for Parents and Professionals (by Maryanne Bruni; Woodbine House, Bethesda, MD, 2006; pp. 186–187). The ACT-NOW fact sheet 32 “Using visual supports in the preschool environment: Timetables & schedules” also has useful, straightforward information on how to use visual schedules. http://www.med.monash.edu.au/spppm/research/ devpsych/actnow/download/factsheet32.pdf

Yooralla ECS Speech Pathology Team

Y ooralla Early Childhood Services (ECS) support families with children who have a disability or developmental delay prior to school entry (0–6 years). Yooralla’s philosophy is one that embraces a family- centred approach recognising that families are children’s first and most influential teachers. Support is provided within everyday settings and routines, through home visits and/or visits to community settings such as playgroup, childcare, and kindergarten. Families can, if they choose, also participate in parent support, siblings’ and dads’ groups. We aim to improve the quality of life for families who have a child with a disability. In addition to speech pathologists, the Yooralla ECS team includes specialist early childhood teachers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, program assistants, psychologists, and social workers. 1 Visual schedules Visual schedules using pictures or photos are highly useful in assisting children and their families to be prepared, make choices, and plan routines and everyday activities. Visual schedules can increase a child’s awareness of available activity choices and routines and can assist in reducing anxiety. They can enable children to be better prepared for any unexpected changes to routine and assist them to independently transition more easily between a greater range of activities. Visual schedules are often used at home as well as in community settings. Parent-friendly information on transitions and schedules can be found in Fine Motor Skills for Children with Down

2 Boardmaker Where would speech pathologists be without Boardmaker ? Boardmaker is a computer software program produced by Mayer-Johnson that allows the user to generate pictures for thousands of vocabulary items. Boardmaker is used extensively across Yooralla ECS not only by the speech

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JCPSLP Volume 14, Number 2 2012

Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology