MDS Birth to Three has received grants from the Endowment for Health and the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation to support its Early Intervention LENA Project. These grants will help fund an early childhood development project that measures and empowers parents to improve the natural language environment for children at risk.
The number of words a child hears from birth through three years is a critical element in how successful that child will be. Early access to words improves readiness for school; performance there has significant impact on later success. Parents are key players in fostering a child’s language environment.
According to Jason Peck, Director of MDS Birth to Three, parents can build their child’s language skills in a simple and straightforward way. “Starting from birth, you can explain to your child what’s going on as you do your existing routines. Talking directly about what he or she is seeing, experiencing, and then what’s going to happen next is the crux of this process,” he says.
Peck continues: “Adding and integrating ‘conversational turns’ is also an important component of a language rich environment, serving and returning words and ideas as a function of communication development.”
With the LENA system, a small electronic device in a special vest is worn by the child over a period of time during which the child’s heard words, conversational turns, and vocalizations are measured. The data is recorded, turned into graphic representations, and then shared with families and caregivers.
MDS Birth to Three professionals are using the LENA system with families to help track a child’s words and interactions. With this information in hand, parents can work directly with their children to improve the natural language environment. Through the MDS Birth to Three LENA project, hundreds of families in the 34 towns in the Monadnock Region will benefit by increasing their children’s word exposure in their first three years, when it counts most.
“Thanks to the financial support of the Endowment for Health and the Charitable Foundation, we are enhancing early childhood developmental programs in the Monadnock region,” says Alan Greene, Executive Director of MDS.
The Endowment for Health’s Opportunity Grant was matched in part by the Gelbach Family Fund of the N.H. Charitable Foundation. Monadnock Developmental Services (MDS) provides supports to children and adults with developmental disabilities living in southwestern New Hampshire so that they can live, work and go to school in their community.