Child Find program ready

Staff writer

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With school set to start in August, parents of children not yet old enough to attend school will still be doing some preparing of their own.

The Child Find program offers screenings to children ages three to five that look for signs of delay in speech, motor skills, vision and hearing, according to Scott McMath, executive director of Regional Education Center No. 6, which coordinates the screenings at area schools.

“Research has shown that a student that has any delays in speech or motor skills, the earlier you can provide intervention, the better the chance of overcoming the delay. That’s kind of the purpose of these various screenings,” he said. “You’re just, as you kind of go through those different screenings, seeing if the kid is showing any delays, whether it be in speech, motor skills, whatever. If the screenings show that, then usually it’s recommended to either come back in and redo the screenings, or if there is a real concern there, to do more in-depth evaluation. If there is, the hope ultimately is to provide a service early for the child.”

Identifying and addressing delays early, McMath said, can help a child to be successful in the long-term.

“Research shows that the earlier that you can provide services, the more likely the student is going to be on target as they progress through school. You just want to make sure kids have the opportunity for success,” he said.

Mary Lopez-Franken, an educational diagnostician for Portales Schools who facilitates the screenings in her district, said that she has seen many outcomes from the screenings.

“It’s from one extreme to the other. Often times, parents bring in their children wanting them screened, and not realizing that they have a delay of any sort, and say, the speech therapist screens them and evaluates them and determines that they do have a delay, and then the child receives the intervention that they need,” she said. “The other side of it is, often times, parents just want to know if their child is performing where they should be, and we screen them and can give them the validation that their child is developing appropriately.”

According to Lopez-Franken, the peace of mind that a parent receives from the screenings “does wonders for a family. I think parents naturally worry about their children’s development, especially with so much emphasis on education these days.”

In addition to peace of mind that parents gain from the screenings, McMath said that they also have an opportunity to meet the staff of the school that their child may soon be attending.

“A lot of times, if you’re the parent of a 3-year-old, you’re probably not thinking about, ‘Hey, my kid’s going to be going to school soon,’ because they’re still young,” he said. “Along with peace of mind, you’re making contact and developing relationships with the folks at school, because at some point, your kids are going to be going to school.”

The following are screenings that will be held at local school districts in August:

• 8:30 a.m.-noon and 1-4 p.m. Aug. 12 at Dora Consolidated Schools. Contact Stacy Smith at 575-477-2211

• 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Aug. 16 at Fort Sumner schools. Contact Molly Jensen at 575-355-7766