Team Support

The Specialist Resource Team provide support to Deaf and hearing impaired students throughout the van Asch region, as well as to their families and the professionals who support them. The Specialist Resource Teachers - Speech/Language (SRT:S/L) are members of the Centre's Specialist Resource Team.

The SRT:S/L have backgrounds in Speech-language Therapy and Deaf Education. They provide a range of assessments, and offer support in the use of formal and informal strategies to develop listening and oral communication skills.

Support is provided in the following areas:

Audition

• Developing listening skills 

- Auditory-oral programmes

- Auditory-verbal techniques

Speech 

• Developing phonetic and phonological speech skills 

- Assessment

- Teaching Strategies/therapy ideas

- Activities to reinforce correct production of sounds in conversation

Spoken Language Programmes 

• Language development 

- Vocabulary/lexicon

- Grammar/syntax

- Appropriate use/pragmatics

- Language processing/semantics

• Effective communication 

- Techniques to promote language development

- Making language meaningful at home and at school

- Responding in ways that promote understanding in language development

• Assessment and evaluation 

- Receptive language 

- Expressive language

- Listening
- Speech development

• Repairing communication breakdown
- Adjusting listening environment

- Adjusting the message

Families who live out of Christchurch can be supported when a team member visits their region, and when families participate in week-long residential courses at van Asch Deaf Education Centre. Ongoing support/contact is offered to families, teachers and others involved in the child's development.

Training is provided for personnel including Classroom Teachers, Teacher Aides, Teachers of the Deaf and Speech-Language Therapists.

Meet the Speech / Language Team

	Evette Griffiths - Specialist Resource Teacher -- Speech/Language. Evette is a trained Speech-Language Therapist and Teacher of the Deaf. She worked for 3 1/2 years in the Central region of NZ as a Speech-Language Therapist, and joined the Specialist Resource Team in July 2002. egriffiths@vanasch.school.nz
	Brenda Sargent - Specialist Resource Teacher - Speech/Language. Brenda is a trained Teacher of the Deaf who has worked in Deaf Education since 1995. During this time she has worked as a Resource Teacher of the Deaf and a classroom teacher at van Asch Deaf Education Centre. Prior to training as a teacher of the Deaf Brenda worked as a Mainstream Teacher and a Special Needs Teacher. bsargent@vanasch.school.nz
	Annette Craig - On Base Support - Speech/Language. Annette is a trained Speech-Language therapist and high school teacher. She taught English, French and German in various schools in Australia before completing her Master of Speech Language Pathology at the University of Sydney in 2006. She moved to Christchurch in 2009 with her husband and joined the Speech/Language team at van Asch Deaf Education Centre in February 2010. acraig@vanasch.school.nz