Listen to Parents is a series of testimonials from parents who have seen their children develop in leaps and bounds following Karen O’Connor’s Pieces of the Jigsaw© programme.
Aileen discusses his daughter’s experience with Karen O’ Connor and the differences she saw in the Pieces of the Jigsaw programme compared to ‘standard’ techniques they’d encountered.
Aileen’s daughter wasn’t talking so they wanted to address these problems. After visiting many Speech and Language therapists and not seeing results as well as public waiting lists, they decided to contact Karen O’ Connor and the child development centre.
Aileen’s daughter wanted to speak but couldn’t get the words out which indicated that she had a problem with her tongue. After being assessed by Karen it was discovered that her daughter’s muscle tone was weak hence why she couldn’t get the sounds out.
After meeting with Karen, Aileen felt that they were on the right track. Karen explained her approach of looking at all the pieces of her child’s jigsaw and that all the pieces need to align in order for their child to fully develop and not just one area.
Aileen praises the Brushing approach which creates a calming environment for her daughter and that she really enjoys it as it makes her feel more comfortable in her own skin when out and about. She now has a greater sense of what she’s using her tongue for.
Aileen stresses the importance of not giving up and for parents to keep going with these approaches with their child. It’s a process and is not going to happen overnight.
The first change they saw with therapeutic listening was that their child was more settled and engaged for longer periods of time. The programme changes but when using the Ease programme that’s when her sounds and words started to come.
Aileen highly recommends this approach to other parents as it has enabled her child to achieve her potential in a short period of time.
The difference it has made to her child and the benefits her family have seen in this time are incredible.
