Early Intervention – Parent/Infant Program (0-3 years of age)
The specialized Early Intervention program of Summit Speech School serves approximately 100 families each year. Our highly skilled Teachers of the Deaf provide direct intervention to children with hearing loss from birth-3. During this critical stage for Listening and Spoken Language acquisition and overall cognitive development, parents and caregivers are coached to incorporate important strategies into everyday routines. Teachers travel to the home or child care center of each student to provide listening training, integrate language activities and build communication skills. They also teach parents how to work with their child at home and to advocate for their children.
Our Program Coordinator facilitates family support through our Group Family Training program. On a weekly basis, families meet and learn together about hearing loss, technology, advocacy, child development and educational considerations. While learning about these important topics, families are also forging bonds and building relationships with each other, providing support and encouragement to each other.
When a child reaches 18 months, he or she may attend Sound Beginnings, a toddler group program. Our Teacher of the Deaf, Occupational Therapist, and Auditory Verbal Speech Therapist create language, listening and learning experiences for these toddlers in an exciting classroom. While the toddlers are “learning to listen”, singing, exploring toys and sensory materials, climbing and socializing, parents are meeting or observing the class from our observation room.
For more information, please visit our Early Intervention page.
Preschool Program (3-5 years of age)
The Preschool offers a full day listening and spoken language-intensive program that prepares preschoolers to enter kindergarten in their local school districts. We are a state approved preschool and incorporate the HighScope curriculum into our day, exposing our students to math, literacy, writing, science, dramatic play, art, music and social studies in a center based environment. Our highly skilled Teachers of the Deaf and Speech Therapists work as a team to develop and guide learning with individual speech, listening, and language goals for each child. Occupational therapy, physical therapy and audiological services are also available.
For more information, please visit our Preschool page.
Itinerant Mainstream Support Program (Preschool – High School)
The Itinerant Mainstream Support Program currently serves over 200 students in 66 school districts throughout New Jersey.
Our Itinerant Teachers of the Deaf provide both direct and consultative services to support students in their mainstream school. Our teachers work with students to improve their Listening and Spoken Language skills, pre-teach and post-teach classroom material to foster academic success, and help students develop self-advocacy to promote independence. They also collaborate with teachers and staff and to provide support and training, troubleshoot DM/FM equipment, and provide regular progress reports.
For more information, please visit our Itinerant Mainstream Support page.
Audiological Services
The school’s pediatric/educational audiologist, Dr. Shelly Ozdamar, offers on-site pediatric assessments and monitors the effectiveness of a child’s hearing aids, bone-anchored hearing aids, or cochlear implants, as well as the student’s digital modulation remote microphone equipment. The audiologist also travels offsite to mainstream schools to check classroom acoustics and remote microphone systems, and trains mainstream educators to best serve the students who may be using this technology.
In speaking with new parents, the SSS Audiologist may well be the parents’ first point of contact with a hearing loss professional. She is trained to alert parents to investigate possible interrelated medical and cognitive issues with specialists such as otologists, ophthalmologists, occupational therapists or physical therapists.
For more information, please visit our Audiology page.
