Why are Camp Lee Mar’s Speech Therapy Programs and Speech Therapy Camps so Successful?
Communication and speech-related challenges vary from camper to camper at Lee Mar. Some campers may have limited verbal communication, other campers may love to talk, but have difficulty holding a conversation, staying on the conversation topic, or have difficulty understanding body language and facial expressions when talking with others.
Camp Lee Mar has a full speech and language program to help our campers develop these skills! We follow each camper’s I.E.P. to improve verbal, nonverbal, and social communication skills during our intensive 7-week summer program. Our overall goal being to help our campers communicate to the best of their ability and as functionally as possible with those around them, all while having a great time.
These are the three key reasons our social skills and speech therapy programs are so successful during the summer at Camp Lee Mar;
1. We reinforce all speech and social skills in a naturalized settings across our camp environment. This means not only do our campers receive “classroom” speech sessions, but our speech specialists also see the campers across a range of activities in the camp program. Sometimes what a child is capable of in a therapy room looks very different in an outside social setting. Our counselors and speech specialists can reinforce and generalize needed social skills across all areas of camp life.
2. We follow your child’s I.E.P. goals, but we can also add family goals too! The benefit of a residential camp speech program is that we get to see how your child copes and adjusts in all settings. We get to develop social skills needed for school and home.
3. Camp offers a seven week, twenty-four hour a day immersive social and language skills program. Many of our campers make more social and emotional progress in the seven week camp program than they do during an academic year.
Our speech program focuses on key areas of communication and social skills such as:
- Matching emotions with the correct facial expression
- Understanding body language
- Responding to questions
- Receptive language skills
- Expressive language skills and emotional regulation
- Conversational turn taking
- Topic maintenance
- Matching a picture with its meaning
- Modulating tone of voice
- Self-advocacy
- Self-Regulation & Coping Skills
- Self Esteem
- Understanding non-verbal cues
If you feel your child would benefit from working on these skills while having a unique summer experience, please feel free to reach out to us!
Written by Lynsey Trohoske
My name is Lynsey Trohoske, I am the assistant director at Camp Lee Mar. I have three amazing children, my middle child happens to be on the autism spectrum and is a camper at Lee Mar. I joined camp as a counselor in 1998 and loved the campers and their families so much that Camp Lee Mar became my second home!
