Each year, Speech-Language & Audiology Canada (SAC) dedicates the month of May to raising public awareness about communication health.  SAC works to highlight the importance of early detection and intervention in the treatment of communication disorders, and the role that members and associates play in helping people to “Speak well. Hear well. Live well.”  Check out www.maymonth.ca for more information.

Here at Anglophone School District – North, in addition to the wonderful Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) that provide services to our children in schools, we have a team of SLPs with the Talk With Me Early Language Services program who provide promotion, prevention, and intervention services that support language and communication development in preschool-aged children (0-5 years old).  

Skill sets targeted in Talk With Me programming include phonological awareness (i.e., early literacy skills such as rhyming, identifying letters and the sounds they make, and breaking words into syllables and individual sounds), social skills (e.g., turn-taking, making eye contact, listening) and other language concepts (e.g., following directions, categorization, basic concepts).  They also offer programs that assist parents and caregivers in supporting children’s language development and early literacy skills.

Call 1-888-623-6363 for more information or check out the local Facebook pages (Talk With Me – Restigouche; Bathurst/Chaleur; and Miramichi/Kent) for current programming.

Sources: Speech-Language & Audiology Canada (SAC) and Anglophone School District – South (ASD-S)