18^th Annual Spring Conference
May 16, 2014

Words of Love: The Intersection Of Language, Social And Emotional Development In Young Children

EARN .3 ASHA CEU's and 3 hours of CEU's for Social work,
Psychology and National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC).  

PLENARY TALK:
Nurturing Development of Language and Self:
From Clinical Objectivity to Objective Love
Gilbert Foley, EdD / Sima Gerber, PhD, CCC
The centrality of relationships in our work with children with developmental challenges has sound clinical and empirical footing, but what does this really mean in terms of our attitude and our actions? In this presentation, we will explore this question and propose a shift from clinical objectivity toward a position of ‘objective love’ in our therapeutic and educational interactions with young children.  Focusing specifically on the development of language and self, we will review how these capacities are interrelated and nurtured in the context of adult-child relationships. From this perspective, we can consider the potential challenges that a child might experience when the development of language and/or self is compromised and why an attitude of objective love might be facilitating. Adult actions which contribute to the child’s development of self and symbolic capacity such as reading the child's intent and mirroring the child's affect will be discussed as the spawning ground of all learning.

Gilbert M. Foley, EdD is an Associate Professor of School Clinical-Child Psychology at Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology of Yeshiva University, New York City and Coordinator of it’s Infancy and Early Childhood Track. He also serves as Consulting Clinical Director of the Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation and Treatment Program of The New York Center for Child Development (NYCCD). For 13 years he was Senior Clinical Supervisor in the Department of Pediatrics, New York University School of Medicine, Bellevue Hospital Center following tenure as Chief Psychologist in the Department of Pediatrics Preschool Program at Schneider Children’s Hospital, Long Island Jewish Medical Center. Dr. Foley’s entire career as a psychologist has been in the in the infancy and early childhood field. He began as the psychologist for the Berks County (PA) Preschool, Head Start and Childcare Programs. Following that position, he directed the Family Centered Resource Project, a federally funded outreach and technical assistance agency that provided training and consultation to early childhood professionals and programs across the nation. While the Chief Psychologist at the Medical College of Pennsylvania, he trained in psychoanalysis and also completed a fellowship at the Yale Child Study Center under the late, Sally Provence. Dr. Foley is co-author of the Cognitive Observation Guide (Psych. Corp), The Supportive Play Model (Teacher’s College Press) and with Dr. Jane Hochman, Mental Health in Early Intervention: Achieving Unity in Principles and Practice (Paul H. Brookes). He is the author of numerous articles and has lectured nationally and internationally. Dr. Foley serves as faculty at the Parent-Infant Study Center of The Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services (JBFCS), New York City and the DIR/Floortime Institute of the Interdisciplinary Council for Learning and Developmental Disorders (ICDL), Bethesda, MD. Dr. Foley is a member of the Board of Directors for New York Zero-to-Three Network.

Sima Gerber, PhD, CCC, is an Associate Professor of Speech-Language Pathology in the Department of Linguistics and Communication Disorders of Queens College, City University of New York. Dr. Gerber has over 35 years of clinical experience, specializing in the treatment of young children with autistic spectrum disorders. Dr. Gerber is on the Advisory Board of the Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders (ICDL), the faculty of the DIR Model Training Institute, the faculty of the ICDL Graduate School, the faculty of Profectum and the Professional Advisory Board of the New York Zero-to-Three Network. Dr. Gerber has presented nationally and abroad on the topics of language acquisition and developmental approaches to intervention for children with challenges in language development. Dr. Gerber is the recipient of the award for Outstanding Service to the field of Speech-Language Pathology given by the New York City Speech-Language-Hearing Association and the Louis DiCarlo Clinical Achievement Award from the New York State Association. Dr. Gerber has received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the New York State Speech-Language-Hearing Association and is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

BREAKOUT SESSIONS:
(Alpha order by speaker. Speaker bios will be in program journal)

Registrants will choose their top three choices in the registration section.

Turning Reading into a Conversation with Young Children:
Building Vocabulary and Social-Emotional Skills
Greta L. Doctoroff, PhD
This break-out session will provide attendees with the opportunity to learn about the practice of dialogic reading with a focus on using these skills with 2 and 3-year-old children. The session will include a presentation of the specific skills involved, modeling of the techniques, video examples and opportunities to practice the techniques. A summary of relevant research will be provided for this evidence-based practice shown to increase children's oral language skills and interest in reading, with attention to how to potentially augment these practices by focusing on social-emotional learning.

Enhancing Discipline-Specific Training Across Allied Health Professions Through Reflective Supervision
Elaine Geller, PhD, CCC – SLP and Harold Rosenthal, PT
Many allied health practitioners continue to provide services to children in isolation from important people in the child’s life, minimizing the power of relationships on developmental change for clients and their families.  The goal of this presentation is to illustrate how allied health professionals can incorporate relational and reflective principles into their clinical work and supervision. This presentation will involve a discussion of how two allied health professionals (a Speech-Language Pathologist and a Physical Therapist) each integrated ideas from mental health and reflective practice into their particular discipline. These changes occurred slowly and overtime through ongoing reflective supervision. The following topics will be addressed: (a) the established parameters of training common to allied health disciplines; (b) what aspects of training have been minimized in non-mental health disciplines; (c) how relational and reflective supervision is necessary for best clinical practice in the allied health professions; (d) how two allied health professionals made transformations in their own clinical practice through the use of reflective supervision; and (e) the benefits, possibilities and challenges in using a broader and more integrative model of intervention in the allied health disciplines.

Gesture of Love: Sign Language and Music in Early Childhood
Lora F. Heller, MS, MT-BC, LCAT, CEIM
This experiential and informational workshop will focus on the impact of language learning through sign and music on the social emotional development in children ages birth to three years. Participants will learn about and engage in a variety of interventions designed to promote language development in early childhood, while improving bonding and communication in the adult/child relationship, and aiding in social-emotional growth. Highlights include the use of American Sign Language (ASL) taught through songs, and a discussion of the supporting research. Participants will leave the session with tools to use immediately, as well as further knowledge about the benefits of both music and sign language – independently and together – on early language acquisition, whether deaf or hearing, typically developing or with special needs, within the family and the clinical setting.

Language and the Architecture of Space-Time:  How to Talk to a Preschooler
Kenneth A. Kessel, LCSW
We sculpt our children’s world through the use of language.  We relate to children as nouns.  They’re verbs!  What captures their attention is what they see, hear, want, feel, think, have and do.  How we speak tells them what to think of their body, how they live in it, and how it moves; what to make of the physical and social world, their mind, and who we are to each other. In this workshop, we will explore the functions of language, and how using the language of the senses to partner with children’s natural perceptions and interests helps them navigate the classroom environment and the world of peers, and supports their capacity for exploration, discovery and problem-solving.  Taking a developmental perspective, we will look at the inter-relationship of preverbal skills and the social and mental world.  We’ll learn and practice the language of senses and experience. Come!  Listen!  Think!  Learn!  Talk!  Discover!

Supporting Dual Language Learners and their families in an
Emotionally Responsive Preschool Classroom
Linda Rodriguez, MA
The presentation will focus on the importance of supporting language development and including children's home language as a tool to foster children's social and emotional development.  The presentation will explore an understanding of child development and the relationship between emotional integration and learning and implications for administrative policies and practices. Classroom practices from our work with Bank Street’s Emotionally Responsive Practice and our work featured in Ready for Success: Supporting Dual Language Learners in Head Start and Early Head Start through the  Office of Head Start will be presented as examples of how schools can work together to support the emotional well-being of children  and staff to impact learning.

Putting Diversity Informed Services into Action
Tonia M. Spence, LCSW, MSEd and Natania Kremer, LCSW, MSEd
Young children walk into schools, houses of worship, clinics and lots of other places each day and are provided with a narrative around diversity. This break out session, will encourage all practitioners to share how to explore the topics of race and racism with young children. We believe that if practitioners are prepared to have meaningful conversations about equity, students will be better equipped to interrupt patterns of structural racism and injustice in their own lives and thrive in a multicultural society.

Sharing an Imagination: Teaching Social Thinking in Preschool & Early Elementary
Nancy Tarshis, MA, MS CCC-SLP
This workshop presents key concepts for teaching shared dramatic (symbolic) play and social thinking for young children. We review milestones and underpinnings of dramatic play and apply this knowledge to work with young children with social cognitive learning challenges. Ways to create lessons and utilize music within the sessions will be presented.