Karen Henderson, senior speech and language therapist, says having faith in a child's ability within their disability is central to her work.
My working day runs from about 9.15am to 5pm. It begins by checking e-mails, phone messages and getting organised for the day.
There are two speech and language therapists at Cheeverstown House. My colleague works with adults with disabilities who live in Cheeverstown and who attend the day services. I work with children with disabilities who attend the early services and the pre-school and school at Cheeverstown.
The children have various types of disability from physical to learning disabilities. We also see children with autism. The approaches vary, according to the individual child and the level of their disability.
I have my first session with a child at 10am. At the moment, the music therapist and I are working with a group of three pre-school children. In this session, music is included as a tool to develop communication skills such as turn-taking, staying attentive to the task and being aware of other children in the group.
Some mornings, I go on a home visit with the home teacher to assess what a child may need. The home teacher then develops a programme to help that child with early communication and language skills.
I also may have a session with a child helping him/her develop alternative and augmentative forms of communication such as sign language, picture communication and voice-output devices. This work is done jointly with the occupational therapist, so that any physical disabilities can be taken into account when developing communication tools.
At noon, I usually have a meeting, either with the clinic team, other professionals or staff in schools where the children I see are attending. Some days, I also have a feeding clinic at noon. In this, the dietician, occupational therapist and I watch a child eating in a natural setting and recommend ways in which things could be improved to maximise independence yet make things easier from an oral/motor point of view. Safety issues also have to be monitored closely.
After lunch, I have two to three individual or group appointments. In one of these sessions, the occupational therapist and I are working with two children, helping them develop their handwriting skills and letter recognition, alongside their language and social skills. We also do physical work with them as sensory integration difficulties can coincide with speech and language difficulties for some children.
In Cheeverstown, we are very team-focused. As we are not a very big service, it is easy to co-ordinate activities with other professionals and come up with joint aims. This also means that families and other staff members aren't developing different kinds of programme for the same individuals. We also run evening courses for parents in Lámh, the sign-language system for children with disabilities, and the Hanen Parent Programme.
One of the most fulfilling aspects of my job is that I get to know the children and their families more than I might if I were working in a community setting. Sometimes, you have to take on an informal counselling role as parents come to terms with the disability of their child.
Our services are stretched, as more and more children are attending mainstream schools and we must provide back-up to these families and the schools too.
When you are working with children with disabilities, there is no way of predicting things and there are no magic solutions. The children themselves set the pace. Progress can be slow and it can be difficult to maintain enthusiasm sometimes. However, I always think of the words of a former colleague. She said, "If you get to the point of giving up, take a deep breath and the child will do something." Having faith in the child's abilities within their disability is central to my work.