Corbett Hall Early Education Program making a difference

It's snack time in Room 2-84 of Corbett Hall on the University of Alberta campus. Out come the lunch boxes-Dora the Explorer and Lightning McQueen are especially evident-and the children begin to tackle the treats within.

Not the typical learners in a university context, these children range in age from two-and-a-half to five years old. And for the adults who work with them, snack time is not an opportunity to relax. It's a time for making the most of the opportunity for situational learning.

Room 2-84 is the home of the Corbett Hall Early Education Program (CHEEP), which is now in its 11^th year. The program, which is operated out of the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology within the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Alberta, provides a pre-school experience designed to offer early educational support to children diagnosed with developmental delays.

"Early intervention is critical for these children," says Jamie Maschmeyer, the CHEEP coordinator and one of its founders.

Recalling the program's creation, she says, "We had this vision to be able to provide exemplary early education with a team of specialists working collaboratively to support children and their families." The university context was important because it provides access to additional intervention for communication delays or disorders, adds Maschmeyer, who is herself a trained speech-language pathologist.

CHEEP is built around the needs of children with developmental delays in one or more areas-delays in cognitive development, motor skill development (fine or gross), the development of social skills, and/or the development of communication skills. For many of the children, no matter what their primary area of delay, the improvement of communication skills is a significant area of need.

Not all the children who attend the CHEEP classes have developmental delays, however. CHEEP uses a reverse integration model: among the 10 children in each class are three children from the community who are developing typically.

Peer models are powerful, says Maschmeyer. "Children who are typically developing and children with developmental delays all benefit from learning together," she says, echoing one of the program's founding philosophies.

Another underlying belief is the notion that children benefit not only from carefully designed learning activities-whether in structured or unstructured play-but also from incidental learning in a social setting. Thus, the busyness of the program personnel during snack time.

Each CHEEP class runs three hours per day, Tuesday through Friday, from September to June, and there are separate morning and afternoon classes, each with different students. Present in the classroom full-time are a certified teacher, who coordinates the curriculum, a speech-language pathologist, and a certified therapy assistant. Mondays are devoted to planning and home visits-CHEEP staff members regularly visit the home of each of the 14 children with developmental delays. Supplementing the work done by the full-time staff, classroom support is also provided by an occupational therapist and a physical therapist, each of whom spends one day per week in the classroom.

The collaboration of the professionals involved makes for a "very successful" program, says Maschmeyer. She also attributes a good measure of CHEEP's success to the close relationship that exists with the children's parents.

"It's really important to have the parents involved-they know so much about their kids," she says. "We've been able to build a responsive relationship with parents," she continues. "We make them key players. We give them a voice in setting goals and work collaboratively to help kids achieve their goals."

CHEEP also helps the families ease the transition of the children to a more integrated setting in kindergarten and beyond, helping the parents to select the right environment and to be advocates for their children. CHEEP also invites representatives of receiving schools to the year-end transitional meeting with the children's parents.

A statistical measure of CHEEP's performance comes in the form of the results from the annual satisfaction survey filled out by parents. "Last year we had a 98-percent overall satisfaction rate," says Maschmeyer. "And there's never been a year where it's been less than 95 percent," she says, appending her belief that "when you serve families well, you serve kids well."

Although administratively associated with the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, CHEEP is self-funded. Its operating costs are covered by Program Unit Funding made available through Alberta Education to assist children requiring specialized educational programming. (A $550 charge is assessed for the community children.)

CHEEP's ties to the Rehabilitation Medicine Faculty benefit both the program and the Faculty, says Maschmeyer. For CHEEP, it means close access to the expertise within the Faculty-in particular, there is a close working relationship with Corbett Clinic, a community service facility that offers speech and language intervention services provided by Speech Pathology and Audiology students. Among the benefits for the Faculty is the opportunity for its students to observe first-hand and discuss the work being done by the professionals within CHEEP.

Above all, for more than a decade CHEEP has benefitted the children with whom it has worked. "It's wonderful to see the children progressing," says Maschmeyer. "Sometimes it's tiny, little steps, but sometimes progress comes in leaps and bounds," she says. "It's rewarding work for sure."