Small Talk: Strategies to Support Child Communication Before Words Emerge

About this Webinar

Previous webinars in this series have covered child communication development through the preschool years.  In this session Drs. Mollie Romano and Juliann Woods will discuss what families, early care and education providers, and early interventionists can do to help a child learn to communicate and talk.  A focus will be placed on evidence-based strategies to support communication leading to words and how caregivers can embed these strategies in everyday activities – from walking to the bus stop to pick up an older sister to Face-timing with Mom or Dad while during deployment. The presenters will present a variety of responsive intervention strategies including interactive book sharing to support child communication and emergent literacy.

Continuing Education (CE) Credit

CE credits and certificates of completion are no longer available for this event. 

Presenter Information

Juliann J. Woods, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is a Professor in the School of Communication Science and Disorders, Associate Dean of Research for the College of Communication and Information, and Associate Director of Research to Practice at the Autism Institute. She has over 40 years of clinical experience, research and teaching in early communication intervention for young children and their families as an ASHA Fellow and past-president of the Division of Early Childhood. She has more than 50 externally funded research, training and demonstration grants with many using professional development and implementation science frameworks and technology to integrate practice change in community settings. Dr. Woods publishes and presents at national conferences on early communication and intervention for young children and their families and the use of technology for coaching and professional development. She is the director of the Communication and Early Childhood- Research to Practice Center which is designed to facilitate access of resources for early childhood educators, program administrators, and interdisciplinary teams and is associate director for research to practice with the FSU Autism Institute.

Mollie Romano, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is the Assistant Director of the Communication in Early Childhood Research and Practice Center (CEC-RAP) in the College of Communication and Information at Florida State University. She is the Principal Investigator of the Iowa Distance Mentoring Model (IA-DMM), a statewide initiative to support the implementation of Family Guided Routines Based Intervention in Iowa’s Part C Program by providing systematic, evidence-based professional development. Dr. Romano has worked as a speech-language pathologist in home and community settings, and she conducts research on embedded interventions for infants and toddlers and their families. She also teaches Clinical Phonetics and Normal Communication Development in the School of Communication Science and Disorders at Florida State University. Dr. Romano has a particular interest in supporting the communication needs of children at risk for language delays due to poverty and in interventions that encourage the development of children with significant disabilities.

Event Materials

• Please view the 11 minute video “A Home Visit with Kris and Kiyah” before the live webinar
• Webinar Slides (PDF)
• Additional Resources