This group teaches essential conversational skills, focusing on how to appropriately initiate, sustain, and conclude conversations with both adults and peers. Participants will learn to recognize and utilize nonverbal communication, including body language and gestures, as integral components of effective social interaction. The program is designed to build your child’s confidence and competence in engaging in meaningful discussions across a variety of topics with different communication partners.
Program Details
- Program Dates: August 18 – August 29 (the program runs Monday to Friday over two weeks)
- Time: 9:00 AM – 11:30 AM
- Age Offered: Under 10 yrs
- Total Sessions: 10 sessions
- Location: 1870 Birchmount Rd.
Goals of the Program
- Developing the ability to appropriately initiate new conversations, join ongoing discussions, and sustain meaningful dialogue with others.
- Building skills to ask relevant questions and provide appropriate answers during conversational exchanges.
- Learning to recognize, interpret, and respond to nonverbal social cues such as body language, facial expressions, and gestures.
- Developing the ability to participate in conversations about both preferred interests and less favored topics while maintaining appropriate social engagement.
Eligibility
To participate in the program, participants must meet the following eligibility criteria:
- Group Ready: Your child is considered ready for group participation when they can remain in a shared space with other children while maintaining behavioral safety. This means they demonstrate the ability to be present with peers without engaging in behaviors that could pose risks to themselves or others, such as frequent aggressive actions, self-injurious behaviors, or attempts to leave the designated area without supervision.
- Can communicate using complete sentences to express thoughts and needs.
- Can use full sentences.
- Shows emerging skills in back-and-forth dialogue, including responding to others and contributing to ongoing conversations.
What to Expect
Participants will engage in interactive small group discussions and role-playing activities that provide essential practice opportunities for developing conversational skills. Additionally, through guided practice in naturally occurring social situations, children receive immediate, supportive feedback and personalized coaching from trained facilitators. Our structured and inclusive environment is specifically designed to encourage social growth while ensuring every participant feels welcomed and supported in their communication development journey.