The Hanen Program for Parents at the Center for Speech, Language, and Occupational Therapy, Inc. is a training program that provides family-focused early language intervention. Developed in Canada in 1974, it is now widely used by Speech and Language Pathologists in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands and Israel. The research on the efficacy of the Hanen Program has demonstrated that when parents receive training in how to facilitate their child’s language learning, they are able to apply the skills they learn to their interactions with their child. As a result, the child’s social and language skills improve. The Hanen Program is based on the philosophy that language is best learned in a natural environment with families who are well trained in how to best stimulate and enhance communication in their communicatively impaired children.

WHAT CHILDREN ARE HELPED BY THE HANEN PROGRAM?

Target populations to be served by the Hanen Program are those diagnosed with a wide range of developmental disabilities, including specific language impairment, cognitive delay, autism spectrum disorders, sensorimotor delay/disability, hearing loss, and craniofacial anomalies. Also appropriate are children at the extreme ends of the disability continuum, children with mild or severe impairments for whom a center-based program is either not necessary, inappropriate, or prohibitive due to behavioral, physical, or transportation limitations.

HOW DOES THE HANEN PROGRAM HELP?

The Hanen Program utilizes experiential adult education methods to teach family members how to become competent language interventionists. Hanen-trained and certified Speech and Language Pathologists at the Center for Speech, Language, and Occupational Therapy, Inc. lead a series of eight evening group sessions that provide parents with necessary information about language development and the strategies that promote the child’s interaction and language learning. Parents practice these strategies both during the group training sessions and during home-based visits from the Speech and Language Pathologist. These visits involve videotaping of parent-child interactions. Parents view and discuss videotaped interactions with the Speech and Language Pathologist, who comments on their use of intervention strategies in daily routines and play.

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By teaching the parents and primary caregivers how to facilitate language, natural opportunities for consistent and appropriate stimulation can be exploited. Proper training helps the parents to "tune in" to their child’s communicative attempts, strengthens and expands the relationship between the parent and child, and empowers the parent with the knowledge that the they are taking a proactive role in their child’s development. Skills learned with one child may be applicable to other siblings in the family if similar situations arise. Without diminishing parental authority, the Hanen training process builds parental competence and confidence, because parents have the greatest influence over the child’s natural environment. Perhaps most important, parents possess the greatest potential for generating behavioral changes. The use of parents as language facilitators makes it easier for children to actually use the newly acquired language behaviors since they do not have to go through the process of transferring or generalizing what they have learned in individual language therapy to their home.

Dawn Ferrer, M.S.
Speech and Language Pathologist
Director of Early Intervention Clinic

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