Speech Therapy | Telepractice Services | Voice and Swallowing Center | Waldo County General Hospital

BEEPS©

The Belfast Embedded Explicit Prompting Strategies©

for Language and Literacy

For typically developing children and children with delays

Using technology to assure your child's success in talking and reading.

A unique program. Available for the FIRST TIME to all parents.

Send us a video and we'll send you a speech and early reading plan tailored for you and your child. That works!

Make sure you child is ready to read!

1.Educational videos delay child development!
2.Problem Solved!
3.BEEPS and Reading
4.Can this be done with my child?
5.What you do.
6.What you need & how you do it.
7.What you get.
8.Seven steps: What we do.
9.Rapid child progress and high quality
10.Cost & value
11.More About BEEPS
12.BEEPS: History, theory & research
13.Proven results
14.Clinical and technological expertise
15.Privacy

Did you know?

TV and educational videos cause delays in child development.

Parents pay thousands of dollars to provide stimulation to their children with video programs such as "Baby Einstein."

Time Magazine (Aug 6, 2007) reports that children with frequent exposure to these programs actually score lower on language skills than children not exposed to videos.

Young children require face to face interaction to learn.

The specific way you talk with and prompt your child makes the difference developing talking and reading readiness skill.

Problem Solved!

Our master clinicians show you how to develop early language and literacy skills in your own home, using your computer and an internet connection.

Children as young as 24 months can be learning about reading. But children do not learn reading skills naturally!

Children must be explicitly taught reading concepts to fully acquire good skills as preschoolers.

When you use our unique home based approach to early language and literacy learning, you'll be using the same approaches MASTER CLINICIANS routinely use with children in therapy settings —all in you own home using YOUR authentic learning activities.

Children can become immersed in meaningful literacy activities from a very young age.

This approach allows parents, working with children as young as 18 months of age, to use

  • systematic,
  • scientifically based,
  • reading and literacy and literacy skills,
  • in everyday activities.

These activities are embedded into a fun, natural approach that parents & children enjoy.

Look at what Ethan can do at 28 months old and see how much fun it can be. Children and parents LOVE doing this!

BEEPS & Reading

The BEEPS© uses natural parent child interactions to build explicit skills for language and reading success.

Simply put, learning to read is not only unnatural, it is just about the most unnatural thing humans do. Link to myths of reading PDF

Can this be done with my child?

Yes.

This approach is especially designed for typically developing children.

Your child does not need to have speech disorder to benefit for the skills of our trained speech pathologists.

While children with speech delays do benefit for this, parents of typically developing children find this approach extremely helpful.

Children typically begin to use words at 12 month of age. They engage in 'sound play' even earlier.

This approach is tailored to children most effectively from 24 months to five years old.

What you do:

You make a ten minute video of you and your child doing an activity. The video must be recorded using MiniDV or digital CD. These are the formats most home digital camcorders use.

Remember, this is about helping you improve what you do with your child. Pick an activity that would be similar to what you might regularly do with your child.

You could also pick an activity you are a little unsure about what to do in the activity.

We use this technique to understand what you do with your child.

To help you learn what works and what doesn't.

To identify if you are teaching your child the right things at the right time.

To show you how to work with your child to improve talking, listening and reading readiness.

You decide if you want help to help your child with talking, listening or early reading. Contact us and we'll send you more information instructions on exactly what to do.

What you need & how you do it:

  1. A digital camcorder (Mini DV format or ability to make MPEG file). Check with a format that can be saved to disc" is required. MiniDV is one of the most common home camcorders today.
  2. A tripod or someone who can hold the camera steady.
  3. A setting with very little background noise. If there is too much noise in the background, the audio is not useful.
  4. Have the area well lighted. Don't record looking toward a bright window or light.
  5. Get as close as possible with the camera. Most cameras have pretty good zoom lens BUT they don't have good microphones. The closer the camera, the better the audio will "pick up". If we can't hear you and your child, the quality of our analysis will be limited.
  6. Pick a play or reading activity you and your child can do for NOT more than 10 minutes. Play with animals, truck, houses, dolls or read a book. Something you and your child like to do. Active play, jumping, wrestling or your child playing alone does not provide the information needed.
  7. Upload the completed video to our secure site. If you prefer, send us the video (we'll return it to you).

What you get

We study your video using our state of the art video editing software and we:

  • summarize all the things you and your child do and say in the video sample
  • sort all of your talking and your child's responses into different categories,
  • identify for you what works the best — so you can do more of it
  • show you an entirely different way to use your authentic activities to really make a difference in how your child develops talking, listening and the essential skills for reading success.
  • coach you about how to embed these high quality speech and literacy skills in activities with your child throughout the day.
  • send it all to you on a broadcast quality DVD or you return to our site and download you very own, individualized program for you and your child.

Seven Steps: What we do.

Step 1 You digitally video record a selected learning activity with your child. This can be a home reading or play activity, classroom activity,or collaborative treatment session or assessment.
Step 2 The competed digital video classroom activity is uploaded to the Speech Language Pathology/Waldo County General Hospital WCGH) web site by home or classroom computer/internet connection or copied to a DVD/CD and sent the Speech Pathology Department at WCGH.
Step 3 The digital video recording is viewed and analyzed by the Language Literacy Coach/Speech Language Pathologist. When utilizing a teletherapy model, the digital video recording is provided to the speech and language pathologist or uploaded via and internet connection to the Waldo County General Hospital/Speech Language Pathology website.
Step 4 The Speech Language Pathologist completes detailed review and transactional analysis of the digital recording utilizing the Belfast Explicit Embedded Prompting Strategies (BEEPS). This allows for precise measurement of the evidence based practices used in the interaction.The digital video is edited utilizing professional grade movie editing software. Video clips are identified and the Speech Language Pathologist adds coaching suggestions and comments. The observation is edited and rendered as a broadcast quality broadcast movie file, copied to a DVD or CD or uploaded back to the local web site for distribution.
Step 5 The edited digital video is made available to the parent, classroom teacher, or early interventionist. It is made available by accessing through a web site, being hand delivered or mailed. The DVD format utilizes broadcast quality recording and can be played on any home DVD player or home computer.
Step 6 The parent, teacher or early interventionist reviews the digital video feedback, listens to the comments and observations that are made right on the video by the therapist and reflects on the practices that are observed.
Step 7 The teacher, early interventionist or parents consult with the Speech Language Pathologist regarding the findings, practices and suggestions of the BEEPS observation. Consultation is done via video telephone,internet video conferencing or direct face to face contact.

Rapid child progress and high quality

The BEEPS is a great way to help children make rapid improvements in language literacy
development.

It supports the high quality parent /teacher skills proven to be most effective helping children learn the things that really matter.

The BEEPS supports what current research says about the best way for parents and teachers to help children.

Specific individual parent/teacher goals are identified that are non-judgmental with the emphasis on three shared components including:

  • Observation of learning activities
  • Action planning to change practices and intervention strategies
  • Reflection on the observations.

This leads to initiation of change in practice patterns, planning and further evaluation.

This model is fully in keeping with best practices in Responsiveness to Intervention models and is well described in the literature. (Hanft 2003, Buysse 2004, Brown-Chidsey 2005).

Cost & Value

Service
What you get
Cost
BEEPS Parent/Child Video
Summary analysis of you & your child with comments from our language literacy coach on DVD
FREE
Initial BEEPS Parent/Child Video Analysis
Including individualized coaching DVD - written action plan -full parent/child BEEPS analysis - 45 minute online coaching feedback with our language literacy coach
$259.70 USD
Live Online Video Coaching Session
30 minute session with our language literacy coach, additional adult/child observation, written plan & management strategies
$140.50 USD
MasterCard | Visa | Discover | American Express
contract discounts available
contact us for more information
Waldo County General Hospital
Speech Language Pathology
Belfast, Maine 04915 USA
[email protected]

More about BEEPS©

Belfast Embedded Explicit Prompting Strategies (BEEPS):
An Interactive Coaching, Training & Treatment Model

Belfast Embedded Explicit Prompting Strategies© (BEEPS©) is a tool used to help parents & teachers in the use of explicit, evidence based literacy and language practices in authentic child learning activities.

The BEEPS© uses an authentic language-literacy activity to observe teacher use of explicit literacy based practices in a book sharing or play activity and provides feedback about the observations.

Using an evidence-based checklist, a 10-minute book sharing or play activity is observed. The trained Speech Language Pathologist observer completes the checklist.

There are nine (9) evidence based literacy practices (EBP), five (5) evidence based language practices (EBP) and five (5) instructional/behavior management areas that are observed.

A parent & teacher feedback form is completed identifying percentages of each type of adult prompting/facilitating attempt across each category.

The feedback identifies strengths noted in parent/teacher use of evidence based practices (EBP) as well as suggestions to modify and improve use of EBP.

The feedback information is then shared with the parent or teacher. Specific information is provided about how to improve the EBP used with the child to promote language and literacy.

Goals for teacher use of EBP include a 60:40 ratio of teacher child responses, and 60:40 ratio of explicit literacy prompts.

BEEPS: History, Theory and Research

This approach was pioneered at Waldo County General Hospital in 2002 when completing systematic teacher coaching activities utilizing the Belfast Embedded Explicit Prompting Strategies (BEEPS) teacher assessment tool with parents and teachers of preschool children.

There is evidence to support the view that teacher's daily interactions with students are the most important part of teaching practice, rising above curriculum and the components of classroom environment that are most closely associated with students positive development (Justice, Laura. Achieving Excellence in Preschool Literacy Instruction. 2008).

The BEEPS coaching process involves a multi-tiered model. It is implemented by a skilled speech language pathologists with:

  • deep and extensive experience in language and literacy development
  • special advanced training in language and literacy intervention techniques,
  • parent/teacher coaching experience in emergent literacy & language development

The expertise required to work with parents and teaches in this approach includes:

"reflective, organized, analyzed knowledge, generally considered to be the final phase in professional development (note: declarative knowledge is academic knowledge, situational procedural is beginner supervised professional level, stable procedural is early professional experience, expert adaptive is independent experienced professional). This higher level allows for analysis of what the professional has learned and the ability to evaluate its efficacy based on a rich knowledge of the research. These professionals are often leaders in professional development or consultants in their fields" (Snow 2005).

"The effective consultant for this model has demonstrated progression in professional skills and has demonstrated progressive differentiation in their knowledge base achieving reflective, organized, analyzed knowledge" (Pence, 2007).

This model closely mirrors the training requirements for developing effective early reading skills in classroom teachers, including building of declarative knowledge, conceptual foundations and deep knowledge of language and supervised practice in intervention strategies (Snow, 1998)

Proven Results

This table shows vocabulary and literacy improvements in a group of 4 year old children diagnosed with speech and language disorders.

The children improved from low average to below average to 'ready to read' in just five (5) months using this approach.

Our clinical and technological expertise:

The Speech-Language Pathology Department at Waldo County General hospital department is recognized nationally for innovative, high quality service and clinical leadership. The professional Speech Language Pathology staff exceeds all professional expectations and standards for telepractice activities and has proven clinical and technological competencies.

Staff accomplishments

  • Recipient of the National Patricia C. Lindamood Award for Clinical Leadership Excellence in Language and Literacy
  • Maine's only advanced distal chip fiber optic digital stroboscopy system.
  • First in the nation software for vocal fold imaging.
  • Competence in advanced digital editing applications for patient feedback and therapy.
  • Invited presenters at national conferences about child language and literacy
  • Invited presenters at national conferences for voice disorders.
  • Teaching university courses in communication disorders.
  • Language Literacy consultants & trainers in one of America's inaugural Early Reading First programs.
  • Established competencies in:
    • interactive web based digital video parent coaching
    • research based interactive teletherapy speech therapy
    • digital imaging production of DVD treatment materials for children
    • advanced computer & digital application, including digital imaging, movie editing software, DVD and CD replication.
    • computer applications including Microsoft Publisher, Abode Photo Shop, ULead Video Editor, Adobe Essential Elements 4.0, PowerPoint, DatAvenger™ web based content management software
    • expertise in cross platform applications with Mac & PC,

Privacy

Confidentiality is maintained through appropriate processes, practices, and technology as designated by the national professional guidelines, Waldo County General Hospital and HIPAA.

Teletherapy will only occur at specifically designated times agreed upon by the patient and the provider.

Dissemination of any patient's identifiable images or information from the teletherapy consultation to other entities shall not occur without the written consent of the patient (adapted from: Nebraska Teletherapy Act Legislative Bill 559)

The patient has the right to access all medical information resulting from teleservices as provided by law and policies and procedure of Waldo County General Hospital.


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