Social Emotional Group Classes
helps your child learn to build meaningful friendships with peers
Social development is the cornerstone of a child's overall growth, impacting cognitive, motor, and language development. A child's ability to interact positively with others can influence everything from early language acquisition to resisting peer pressure in school and successfully navigating adulthood.
Our specially designed Social Emotional Group Classes target various aspects of social development to empower your child:
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Developing Language Skills: Interacting with peers provides valuable opportunities for practicing and enhancing speech and language skills. Improved communication abilities enable your child to connect with others more effectively, fostering deeper and more meaningful relationships.
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Building Self-Esteem: Friends often create some of the most exciting and enjoyable experiences in our lives. However, the inability to make friends can be frustrating or even painful, especially for young children. Our classes support the development of healthy friendships, reinforcing your child's comfort with their individuality and boosting self-esteem.
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Strengthening Learning Skills: Healthy peer relationships, starting from preschool and beyond, prepare children to adapt to diverse school settings and challenges. This foundation reduces the likelihood of encountering academic difficulties later in their educational journey.
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Resolving conflicts: Enhanced self-esteem and improved language skills equip your child with the tools to effectively resolve differences with their peers, fostering harmonious social interactions.
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Fostering a Positive Attitude: Developing a positive attitude towards themselves and others leads to improved relationships and higher levels of self-confidence. Our Social Emotional Group Classes lay the groundwork for a more confident, resilient, and socially adept child.
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What we doWe use various techniques with a focus on verbal behaviour (VB) to work with children with developmental delays and enhance the effectiveness of working towards communication and behavioural goals. Our therapy aims to: Motivate children to want to learn Understand behaviour and why it occurs Support children to be successful in their learning Teach functional language and communication Incorporate play-based approaches (play therapy) to motivate learning There is no one way to teach - each child is an individual and wonderfully unique. Therefore, all interventions are tailored to their needs and will vary depending on those needs. As play is the natural language of children, harnessing that language into understanding the therapeutic powers of play holds unlimited possibilities in transforming the lives of children and families. Play therapy involves children engaging in play activities of their choice. It gives children opportunities to express themselves in ways that they are most comfortable. We incorporate play as an adjunctive intervention with VB as it brings added benefits because play therapy taps into areas of behaviour – such as attachment behaviours and spontaneous play – not easily reached by other interventions.
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What is VB (Verbal Behavior)?Verbal behaviour is the idea that language is behaviour. In 1957, B. F. Skinner wrote a book called Verbal Behaviour - he proposed that language has five different "verbal operants". Each operant has a different function: Asking for a cookie when he wants one (a "mand") Telling someone when he sees a cookie (a "tact") Repeating "cookie" when someone says "cookie" (an "echoic") Answering "cookie" in response to a question (an "intraverbal") Pointing to a cookie when someone asks him to ("listener behaviour") This approach encourages children to learn language through connecting words with their purposes. The child learns that words can help them get their desired object/item. It not only focuses on words as labels (e.g., pen, pencil, etc.), it teaches the purpose of speech and how to use it to make requests or communicate ideas.
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What is Home-Based Therapy?Home-based therapy takes place at the home of a person in therapy. In these settings, children may feel more comfortable, allowing for building of good connections (therapeutic relationship) quickly - important for therapy effectiveness and outcomes. Benefits: Be able to build rapport, observe child and family functions outside of an clinical/centre setting Make assessments Model consistency and routine Allow for greater parent-therapist partnership Research has shown that children in families who attend more sessions in therapy (approximately greater than 50%) have better outcomes Increased efficiency and convenience
