Family School

In our Individual Family Sessions, we provide information and support to parents. We help them learn how to help their children learn to talk. We also invite other family members and caregivers who have routine contact with the child to come and learn with us. We offer in-home, center-based, and distance learning services.  Our unique, research-based coaching approach increases parent learning and accelerates the development of spoken language in children.

In our Support Groups, parents discuss their concerns and challenges and help each other reach solutions. Our experienced staff members facilitate these meetings. As we listen to parents, we learn from them and they learn from each other. This is a time for sharing opinions and feelings as well as sharing experiences.

In our weekly Educational Meetings, the focus is on information about hearing loss, language development, cochlear implants, and child development. We discuss strategies, techniques, and activities for helping children learn to talk. These weekly meetings provide opportunities for parents, grandparents, and other primary caregivers of children who are deaf or hard of hearing to ask questions and share ideas.

Our Toddler Class program has two main components: Individual Child Sessions and group experiences. This combination provides the child with opportunities to use new vocabulary, concepts, and ideas in a variety of learning environments. For two-year-olds, our sixty-minute individual child sessions focus on the development of speech, vocabulary, language, and listening skills in order to build the foundation for later reading and writing skills. This individualized instruction allows us to adapt the pacing of activities and the focus of instruction to fit each child’s style and rate of learning. While individual sessions provide an opportunity to introduce new language and vocabulary, the classroom provides opportunities for communication in the context of play activities.  During the half-day Toddler Class, students participate in Circle Time, Dramatic Play, fine and gross motor play, a variety of cognitive activities, Snack and Recess.  Our experienced teachers have the skills necessary to meet each child’s needs.

We know that the more a child hears, the quicker and better he will talk. The Moog Center has four pediatric audiologists on staff. Their experience and talent in working with infants and toddlers is a major factor in our children learning faster and talking better. Our audiologists are skilled in fitting all types of hearing aids, programming cochlear implants, and utilizing remote microphone technology, even on children a year old or younger. The audiologists are on-site so they are immediately available for trouble shooting whatever devices the children are wearing. For children who are deaf or hard of hearing, getting access to sound through well-fitted hearing aids and cochlear implants has a huge impact on their learning.

In our Birth-to-Three Program, a teacher of the deaf and an audiologist team with each family to ensure that every child receives outstanding educational and audiologic care.

For information about our Birth-to-Three program, contact Betsy Moog Brooks at
(314) 692-7172 or via email bbrooks@moogcenter.org