Programs For Professionals
The mission of Chattering Children is to build productive partnerships in research, professional training, and collaborative outreach programs to promote best practices in language learning for children with hearing loss. Our professional team is committed to modeling and promoting research-based practices with the goal of impacting children and families on a local, state, and national level. Chattering Children is building partnerships with a number of private and public organizations, and welcomes collaboration in our efforts.
Research:
At Chattering Children we are deliberate about gathering information on our children through ongoing assessments and data collection, recognizing that within our practice there is a "critical mass" of a "low incidence population." The objective of data collection is first to design an optimal therapy plan for each child, and second to expand our knowledge base of how children with hearing loss learn language. Our team regularly reviews current research in the field, and is committed to applying research to practice, as well as developing on-site and collaborative investigations.
Professional Development:
Chattering Children's transdisciplinary team engages in an ongoing program of professional development across disciplines of audiology, speech and language, child development, technology, and education with the objective of ensuring research based, best-practices. Development activities are regularly open to professionals in the community hosted either at our offices or other sites.
Internships:
The therapy team at Chattering Children has unique expertise in the area of Auditory-Verbal Therapy practices with a large caseload of children with hearing loss. Graduate programs in Speech Pathology, Audiology, and Deaf Education regularly place professionals in training at Chattering Children.
Externships:
The Chattering Children and River School Audiology Department seek a 4th year AuD extern every year. Chattering Children is located in Washington DC in the Palisades area of the city – just down the street from Georgetown University. We are a non-profit agency providing an array of services for children with hearing loss and their families.
The River School is an inclusive educational model for children with hearing loss. Each classroom has between 1-3 children who wear hearing aids and/or cochlear implants. The classrooms have infrared soundfield systems installed in addition to master’s level educators and speech language pathologists in each room. In collaboration with Chattering Children the Audiology department serves children in the community who are not enrolled at The River School, which allows us the opportunity to provide in-services, community outreach, sound field set-up and consultations at schools around the DC area, loaner hearing aids, and hearing aid sales/fittings to children at other educational programs in the area that do not have an educational audiologist.
We work closely with the Listening Center at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, MD, the University of Virginia Cochlear Implant Program in Charlottesville, the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and the Children’s National Medical Center to provide services to children with hearing loss and their family. Please visit the River School's website and other pages on this website for more information on our programs.
Candidates must have strong interest in pediatric audiology to include cochlear implant and hearing aid selection, programming, verification, troubleshooting, and consultation. Additional services also include Auditory Processing Disorder evaluations, school-wide hearing screenings, parent support and parent-infant group meetings, assessment and monitoring of children’s progress in the program, multi-disciplinary teaming, training and education of school staff, and assistance with data collection for various research grants.
The externship begins mid-August and the student works through the end of June. The stipend is $25,000 and includes four weeks of vacation (two weeks Winter Break in December, one week Spring Break in March, and one week Summer Break in May) and all major holidays off.
If interested, please submit the following to Dr. Julie Verhoff: 1) cover letter describing why you would like to complete your externship at The River School/Chattering Children, 2) one letter of recommendation from a supervisor that has observed you during practicum (preferably a pediatric, educational, or cochlear implant setting), and 3) current unofficial transcript.
Advocacy:
Chattering Children's proximity to the nation's capitol facilitates engagement with policy makers and advocates on a national leveL We are actively engaged in issues related to early intervention, children's health insurance, and special education. Staff members participate in state level meetings such as DC Hears and Virginia EHDI.
Outreach:
Chattering Children's therapists are engaged in local and national organizations. This year, as in the past, therapists will be presenting at national conferences such as Early Hearing Identification and Intervention (EHDI) and Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (AGBell) on topics such as service models for Deaf families, effective therapy strategies for multiply involved children, partnering with school programs, and practice management. Two publications are in progress, to be announced shortly.