Programs for schools
UQ’s Health & Rehabilitation Clinics offer a number of programs in audiology, occupational therapy, and speech pathology directly into schools.
We work with schools and teachers to provide extra support to those children who need a bit more help reaching their school, social and participation goals.
For further information or to book a Schools Program for your school, please contact us on (07) 3365 2232 or email healthclinics@uq.edu.au.
Services we offer
Audiology
A hearing impairment can have an impact on your child’s ability to learn and participate both in the classroom and at home. Kids with a hearing loss might have delayed talking, trouble learning at school, play-up in the classroom, or need extra support at school.
The UQ Audiology team offer a hearing screening program that can be delivered to all school-aged kids. Through this program our goal is to increase awareness of both normal hearing and hearing impairments throughout the school community. This program identifies a child’s basic hearing and middle ear status, and helps us pick-up those children who might have trouble hearing in the classroom.
The School Screening Program:
- Is conducted at school during school hours and is generally offered to prep and early primary children. Older children can be screened on request
- Includes hearing screening with headphones to assess hearing levels in both ears across the volumes and frequencies most important speech and language development
- Includes screening assessment of middle ear function to generally pick-up any middle ear problems
- Gives each child a summative report on the day
- Identifies children who would benefit from additional hearing assessment
If needed, further assessment is available at the Audiology Clinic, located at the UQ St Lucia campus.
Occupational Therapy
The UQ Occupational Therapy (OT) Team can tailor a package of OT services to address the individual needs of a school.
Skills Development Programs (SDP)
The Skills Development Program is six week program designed for prep and grade one children. Week one is all about screening the skills of the children, and in the following five weeks we run sessions focusing on skills like early handwriting, scissor skills, general co-ordination and self-management. This program is delivered to the whole class and aims to help children with the development of core skills.
If we think your child might benefit from some extra time with an OT, they can be referred to the Life Skills Clinic at the St Lucia campus. We can also look at whether your child can have therapy individual at their school from one of the OTs working in the Life Skills Clinic.
Custom Designed Programs (CDP)
For schools that have students who already have identified OT needs, we recommend a more custom designed program for the classroom. These programs involve 10 weeks of classroom-based therapy targeting specific goals.
Depending on what your school needs, the CDP might include:
- A focus on specific classrooms which have several students with extra needs in the areas of learning, attention and self-management, and social interaction
- Developing and demonstrating strategies within these classrooms to encourage better participation for all students, and support the learning of those students with identified needs
- Full OT assessment of selected students who are having particular difficulty at school
- Individualised classroom strategies for these selected students to address identified goals for learning and participation.
Speech Pathology
The UQ Speech Pathology team offers custom designed programs to address both individual student and whole classroom needs in the areas of speech, language and literacy. These needs are usually identified in consultation with the classroom teacher. These programs are designed to offer assessments and therapy to either individuals or the whole classroom.
Depending on what your school needs, the custom designed program might include:
- Supporting teacher professional development to maximise student outcomes in the classroom, especially in the areas of speech, language, and literacy development
- Early intervention for prep students and classes, including supporting pre-speech and language and preliteracy skill development
- Grade one to seven speech, language, and literacy skill development.
We also offer assessment and therapy sessions for individual students at the Speech Pathology Clinic, located at UQ’s St Lucia campus.