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The Childrens Center at Southern Miss to host second annual Institute

Thu, 03/23/2017 - 03:01pm | By: Samantha McCain

The Children's Center for Communication and Development at The University of Southern Mississippi and the Mapp Family Foundation will present The Children's Center Institute, a professional development experience to take place May 9-11 at Parkway Heights United Methodist Church in Hattiesburg.

This year's event will feature presentations and workshops presented by leaders from The Hanen Centre, a globally-known pioneer in educating parents and caregivers of children with special needs, along with early childhood educators and speech-language pathologists.

“The Mapp Family Foundation provides a great opportunity for us to bring in experts in the field to help train our staff and families,” said Sarah Myers, assistant director. “This in turn allows us to provide the same opportunity to external groups like special educators, speech-language pathologists, occupation therapists, physical therapists, and other specialists who work with children who have special needs.”

Four workshops will be presented in a variety of disciplines throughout the week, with the following available to the public for registration:

*The Power of Interaction: Fueling early language development through the power of interactions: Tuesday, May 9, 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.
 
As children progress from toddlers to preschoolers, it's the important adults in their lives – their parents and educators – who make the biggest difference in helping them learn. That's because a child's best learning happens during natural, everyday interactions with more sophisticated conversation partners. This session will outline how to create the kinds of quality interactions that best build children's early language and literacy skills at home and in early childhood settings.

This session is suitable for early childhood educators, speech-language pathologists, parents, and specialists who work with children who have complex communication needs or developmental delays. To register for the free Power of Interactions workshop, visit www.thechildrenscenterinstitute.com. 

About The Children's Center for Communication and Development
The Children's Center for Communication and Development at The University of Southern Mississippi provides communicative and developmental transdisciplinary services to infants, toddlers, and preschoolers while educating, training and supporting families, university students and professionals. For more information, visit www.usm.edu/childrenscenter.