Four Dreamweavers Unlimited staff members were selected to present papers to consumers, professionals, and parents at the 27th Annual North Carolina Augmentative Communication Association (NCACA) Convention. The convention was held on February 24 and 25 in Raleigh.
After collaborating with different groups at Dreamweavers Unlimited, Marcy Pendleton, Speech Language Pathologist, and Abbe Reed, Board Certified Music Therapist, discovered that combining music therapy and speech therapy produced an increase in speech, attention, and social skills in children with a variety of developmental disabilities.
Mrs. Pendleton and Mrs. Reed (pictured, upper left) presented Teaching Language Through Music at the NCACA convention. They used songs, books, and movement activities to demonstrate how these methods have improved language and social skills in the children with which they work. They will present on the same topic at the NC Speech Hearing Language Association conference in April.
Also presenting from Dreamweavers at the convention was Betsy Huffstetler, Executive Director (pictured left), and Linda Gaster, Infant-Toddler Family Specialist (pictured right). Both Mrs. Huffstetler and Mrs. Gaster are mothers of children on the Autism Spectrum. They shared the paths they have taken to offer their non-verbal children a way to speak using augmentative communication as alternatives to spoken language. They addressed tips to securing funding, informal assessments parents can utilize, and the stumbling blocks to Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) success they hope to help others avoid.
Please visit www.dreamweaversnc.com to learn more about Dreamweavers Unlimited. To learn more about NCACA and augmentative communication, please visit www.ncaca.info.
