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Joanne Parrish Knight Family Center

When you discover your child has a hearing loss, you have lots of questions. CID’s caring, experienced family center staff will help you navigate the early intervention system so your family can receive services as soon as possible.

Our parent educators, teachers, individual therapists and audiologists are credentialed providers for First Steps in Missouri and Child and Family Connections in Illinois. We serve families and their children birth to age 3. Our expert pediatric audiologists will work closely with you to ensure your child receives appropriate amplification as soon as possible. We provide loaner hearing aids if needed.

In family sessions, we’ll help you understand your child’s hearing loss and listening devices. Our goal is to coach you and your family to help your child develop listening and spoken language within the context of your daily life.

We offer flexible scheduling, home visits, teleintervention sessions, family support groups and a toddler class for some of our 2-year-olds.

Every day is precious learning time for a baby with a hearing loss. Please call us to talk about your child. Or use the GET STARTED  link and we will contact you. We invite you and your family to visit CID and meet our staff and students. See for yourself that developing listening and spoken language is both possible and rewarding.

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Kathy Gallagher, MAEd, CED
Program Director

CID’s Joanne Parrish Knight Family Center provides help at a crucial time for babies and their families.

toddler and mom during home visit

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Meet Our Family Center Leaders

toddlers with hearing aids interact with their teacher at CID

Typical Toddler Class

SMALL GROUP ACTIVITIES

Device Check and Cognitive Play
The teachers greet the students and encourage them to hang up their jackets and backpacks. While the children do puzzles and matching or sorting activities, the teachers check their listening devices.

Opening Circle Time
 Circle time begins with a song to welcome each child to class. They learn to listen for their names. They also learn their friends’ names. The teachers lead them in theme-related songs and finger plays. Children learn to listen to the rich, melodic aspects of speech and language through music and song. Even children with little spoken language enjoy participating in favorites like “Old MacDonald” and “The Wheels on the Bus.”

Guided Developmental Play
Children learn best through play. The children play and engage in theme-related activities. The teachers incorporate targeted vocabulary and language along with the language of play, for example: “My turn. I want the ball. Uh-oh, the car is stuck! Ssshh. Night, night, Baby!” Play themes relate to a 2-year-old’s real life experiences, such as “home and family,” “fall” and “pets.”

Snack
During snack time, the teachers encourage the children to use functional language, for example: “I want some juice. More, please.”

Story Time
The teachers bring stories to life with props and toys to foster the love of books! The stories reinforce concepts, vocabulary and language related to the theme.

Music and Movement
CID’s gym teacher leads the children in games, songs and turn-taking while practicing balance, kicking, running, jumping, swinging and more.

Closing Circle Time
The children sing songs and say goodbye to their friends.

Individual Therapy

In the morning, each child participates in an individual session focused on his or her specific listening, language, vocabulary and speech goals. The therapists closely monitor the child’s listening skills and partner with our audiologists to ensure optimal hearing at all times. Individual therapy activities are both developmentally appropriate and tailored to each child’s present levels and goals. The therapists work with our teachers to help ensure carryover of skills to the classroom.

Looking through observation window at small group toddler class

Collaboration with Families

It’s important for parents and caregivers to learn specific strategies to promote listening and language skills at home, through play and daily routines. Each classroom and therapy room has an observation room. We encourage parents to observe their child in both settings. The teachers send home newsletters about themes and related activities. The therapists send daily notes. Our teachers, therapists and parent educators collaborate regularly with caregivers to foster a meaningful link between school and home.

Kathy Gallagher

314.977.0175
kgallagher@cid.edu

Chris Clark

314.977.0175
cclark@cid.edu

FAMILY CENTER LEADERS

Kathy Gallagher
Kathy Gallagher, MAEd, CED, the CID family center program director, has more than 30 years’ experience in deaf education. She joined CID in 2014 as co-coordinator of the Joanne Parrish Knight Family Center. She became director of the center in 2015. She earned her master’s degree in deaf education/early intervention from Fontbonne University. She also holds a certificate in early childhood special education.

She previously taught in Dayton Public School’s Hearing Impaired Program and at St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf. From 2000 through 2014, she was the toddler classroom teacher and a parent educator in St. Joseph’s Early Intervention Program. She has presented at national and international conventions hosted by the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Association (EHDI) and the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

Chris Clark
Christine Clark, MAEd, CED, CID’s family center intake coordinator, directed the program from 1996 to 2015. She has more than 30 years experience specializing in the needs of families of children who are deaf and hard of hearing.

From 1981 to 1985, she was a teacher in the CID preschool-kindergarten. In 1990, she began teaching in the family center nursery class. She holds a master’s degree in early childhood education from Maryville University in St. Louis and Missouri state certification in early childhood special education. She is also certified by the Council on Education of the Deaf. Prior to joining CID, she was preschool teacher at the Utah School for the Deaf.

Ms. Clark serves on the faculty of the Washington University School of Medicine Program in Audiology and Communication Sciences (PACS). As an instructor in this CID at Washington University School of Medicine program, she supervises independent studies, teaches classes, advises students and helps guide and develop curriculum for graduate students who will be future audiologists and teachers of the deaf.

Ms. Clark is a guest lecturer for various community agencies on early intervention with children who are deaf and hard of hearing. She presents annual workshops for providers working with children age birth to 3. She has presented papers and posters at meetings of the Council on Exceptional Children, the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the International Symposium on Childhood Deafness.