OVERVIEW
When a child is diagnosed as having a major developmental disability such as Autism, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Down Syndrome, other syndromes and conditions, or has an acquired disability as the result of prematurity or Traumatic Brain Injury, it is one of the most devastating experiences families can face, but it is generally acknowledged that the sooner a suitable intervention programme can be found and embarked upon, the better the outlook will be for all concerned.

The Merivale Language Development Programme was designed at the request of a number of parents and professionals, to meet the needs of the families of children with serious developmental disorders who wanted to work with their children at home. That being said, however, the way the programme is structured means that it also works extremely well between related settings, e.g. home and school; home, school, and respite care facility and so forth.

Where a child has been diagnosed at birth or soon after, as having a disorder which will ultimately impact upon his or her communication, pragmatic and learning potential, this programme is a particularly useful intervention strategy. Because it targets skills which can generally be demonstrated from birth onwards, it can be implemented as soon as it appears that the child is falling behind normal development in these areas.

While it stands to reason that the best results will be achieved by introducing a process of intervention as soon after diagnosis as possible, I also have had some very gratifying results with people who have begun using my programme in their mid-to-late teens.

Although the ultimate aim of every developmental speech and language programme is for the child to become an effective verbal communicator, it must be recognised that for some children this may not be realistic. In such cases the expressive language component can be directed towards some form of alternative communication such as a symbols or signing.

This is an original programme created in response to specific needs of my clients, and incorporates successful ideas and strategies from a number of different sources and disciplines, including the work of Catherine Maurice and Ivar Lovaas.

In developing this programme I have drawn on my own work with people with disabilities, and the experience of parents whose children, though diagnosed as having serious pervasive developmental disorders, have made radical improvements as the result of intervention strategies such as this.

The programme is based on a developmentally-ordered skill checklist, beginning with reflexive communicative functions a child can be expected to demonstrate at birth and moving on through the development of these early features into effective communication, behavioural, self-help and learning skills. The checklist currently targets over seven hundred skills. For each of there is a specific development unit. (many of which include resources, games and extension activities). More units are being written as the involved parents and teachers report back 'S/he's now doing such-and-such, but how can I extend this to so-and-so?'

The reason that it starts from the reflexive communication functions present at birth is that in order for a child to learn and communicate effectively, s/he needs a solid foundation of expressive and receptive language and behavioural skills on which to base later, formal communicative and academic learning. Children who have missed out on the acquisition of early skills may develop a 'honey-comb' structure of language, understanding and behaviour, which is not capable of supporting the development of the sophisticated learning that we take for granted in most children.

I begin to develop each child's programme by asking parents about early competencies involved in the checklist, and in doing so, I am not so much interested in whether these were present in the child's repertoire at the appropriate ages - I want to know if they are in use now!   If a skill is not present or is inconsistently demonstrated, it is targeted in the programme. I have found that by teaching a child skills which fill in the basic 'holes' in the language and behavioural structure, later developing features, whose occurrence depends on the presence of the earlier ones, may appear spontaneously or are easier to teach when the time comes.


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