Parent Infant Program (PIP)

Our Parent Infant Program is a center-based program that offers a nurturing, family-focused environment for children who are deaf or hard of hearing from birth to three years old. We use a parent coaching model to empower families to implement and practice learned strategies specific to hearing loss in a natural and engaging way. We establish a three-way partnership between family, child, and specialist to foster your child’s overall development, with an emphasis on auditory, communication, and language development. Our program offers information, guidance, emotional support, and opportunities to connect with other families. Our program provides families with individual sessions with a specialist who has undergone extensive training specifically related to hearing loss. As part of our comprehensive program, we also offer:

● Educational Parent Inservices
● Baby and Toddler Groups
● Music Together Classes
● Educational Audiology
● Access to Social Work services
● Monthly Parent Support Group

Individual Sessions: provide the parents and the child with strategies and techniques to foster auditory, language, speech, cognitive, and motor development. Our sessions incorporate a three-way partnership between the therapist, child, and caregiver. Parents leave each session with strategies to use within their daily routines.

Music Together Classes: We are proud to offer Music Together classes, an internationally accredited program that helps develop children’s cognitive, emotional, social, motor, auditory, and language skills. The benefits of music in early childhood development have been well documented. Music promotes babies’ understanding of intonation and melody associated with spoken language. Studies have shown that music activates all areas of the brain and provides children a unique avenue to develop language. Studies show that the brain develops language when teaching is combined with music. Our weekly music classes are taught by a Teacher of the Deaf and/or Speech-Language Pathologist who are certified Music Together providers.

Group Sessions: are taught by a Teacher of the Deaf and/or a Speech-Language Pathologist. These sessions focus on specific strategies related to hearing loss and guide the Parents/Caregivers to practice and implement them with their children in a social setting. Parents/Caregivers enjoy sharing information and support with other families, while children are provided with the opportunity to socialize with same-age peers. Our groups are designed to follow the progression of development, from a “caregiver and me” model to a toddler transition group, where the children are given the opportunity to be on their own for a short time and become independent communicators, preparing them for preschool. During this time, parents meet to discuss a variety of topics, with an emphasis on developing their own advocacy skills.

Educational Parent Sessions provide families with information and support to tackle the challenges and celebrate the achievements of young children with hearing loss.

Parent Education & Social Worker Support: Parents have the opportunity to meet with our support staff for additional assistance with home and community.

For more information, please contact the Parent-Infant Program at (631) 588-0530, or email us at dawnb@clearyschool.org  ~ Dawn Brenner