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From: Marlene
Date: 11 Oct 2004
Time: 20:43:28 -0500
Remote Name: 209.161.246.120
Thanks for your question. One of the biggest concerns I have is that parents should be able to use and to monitor their fluency enhancing strategies consistently, so this is always an important topic that we discuss in detail. Practicing their skills while engaging in discussion is really helpful especially when you have limited time together. What we do is teach a fluency enhancing strategy and then ask parents to practice using the strategy while at the same time monitoring themselves (and each other) while talking about the topic of the session (e.g. reducing demands). Very often, the parents set the topics for the session. This happens when they are some time at the beginning of each session to discuss their homework, so that they can benefit from each other’s insights. This often leads to involved discussions around reducing specific types of demands or other parental concerns. My suggestion therefore would be to ensure that the discussion targets some of the most common demands e.g. turn taking and sibling competition, times of transition and dealing with new and exciting situations. Parents also often want to talk about teasing, or their concern that reducing language demands will affect their children negatively. They are often also worried about how their children will cope at school. Other possible important topics are to teach them the differences between adult-directed and child-centered play and how to read with their child. Good luck with the rest of your program. I hope you find these suggestions helpful.